Solar Installation in CT - DIY and could use some help along the way.

[progro]

Hi Bryan, saw your post on my post and wanted to see how its going. I'm a Eversource customer too. Doing a ground mount since I have plenty of land and don't want to be up on the roof in the CT winters. We should exchange contact information.

[progro]

Wow! Here where I'm in CT they just charge $32 per $1,000 of cost (materials and labor).

[bryankloos]

First round of plans came in yesterday from yoursolarplans.com They are very thorough, but in need of a couple revisions. The engineer was very helpful and should have draft 2 to me today.
If all goes well, I'll bring them over to my inspector for a quick review before submitting the complete permitting application.

[bryankloos]

Update: I submitted my information to yoursolarplans.com for drafting of plans for permitting and interconnect applications. Looking forward to seeing what they come up with...

[john phillips]

Totally. A ground mount would eliminate the building inspector and engineer. It would also allow one to do a lot of self-wiring before they even called an electrician to pull a permit - which could save thousands. Whereas on a roof, there is no way I could put it all together before calling the electrician and pulling the electrical permit because the building inspector shares an office with the electrical inspector. Further, the electrician would not be able to inspect your work on the roof once the panels were in place. And also, even if you hired someone to assemble it, they would not need to be a licensed building contractor as my inspector is requiring. So I could get someone for $20-$50 an hour rather than $100-$200 an hour. That being said, while we have physical space for a ground mount, my wife is not going for it.

Not in Rancho Cordova CA. I did a ground mount and they would not take IronRidge stamped letter for CA. They made me pay $300 to get the IronRidge same PE to state that my house was in a residential area for the wind load. From help: Exposure B:

Urban and suburban areas, wooded areas, or other terrain with numerous closely spaced obstructions having the size of single family dwellings. Exposure C:

Open terrain with scattered obstructions having heights generally less than 30 feet. This category includes flat open country, grasslands, and all water surfaces in hurricane prone regions. Exposure D:

Flat, unobstructed areas and water surfaces outside hurricane prone regions. This category includes smooth mud flats, salt flats, and unbroken ice.
* Confirm the Wind Exposure Category by consulting your local building authorities.
They would not take the help info which is lifted from building code.

Then it came to soil class. Soil Class

Ground Mount Design Assistant includes three different soil class options. Class 4, the default, is the most conservative soil class. If you would like to use either Class 2 or 3, you will need to consult a civil or professional engineer and soils report to verify soil bearing capacity. You can also check with your local building authority, as some may have an existing soil report for your project location already.
Based on your selected soil class, Design Assistant will use the foundation pressure, lateral bearing and friction coefficient values to calculate the minimum hole depth required for your piers.
If you have any questions, please contact us or call 1-800-227-9523.
TABLE 1806.2, PRESUMPTIVE LOAD-BEARING VALUES

Internal Building Code 2012 - Chapter 18: Soils and Foundation

2 - Sedimentary and folliated rock	4,000	400	0.35
3 - Sandy gravel and/or gravel (GW and GP)	3,000	200	0.35
4 - Sand, silty sand, clayey sand, silty gravel and clayey grabel (SW, SP, SM, SC, GM, and GC)	2,000	150	0.25

They would not let me just take soil class 4. I had to get a local Geotech firm to write a letter for me. I had done some work for a local firm who gave me a deal at $295 to use class 3 which meant I could use 16x60 rather than 16 x 70 holes. To save 1 foot from the bottom of a hole made quite a bit of difference digging and saved some cement.

Then after all this was done they have a flat fee for a solar permit of $250 but they demanded 10% of what the structure cost the panels would be mounted on. So I added up the costs and paid the extra money.

Check with you building department. Your milage may be a lot better than mine.
I did find out that they can reject about anything they want to. I was told there was a town in Arizona that is completely surrounded by towns that would take wind exposure B but they would only take C as a minimum.

In the long run a ground mount is easy to maintain and working on the ground makes things a lot better to install. Do you have the space?
I wanted to raise the system so I could use the space under it for a patio cover but the PE Told me they would only let me go up an extra 2 feet and it would cost me an extra $900 for them to tell me if I needed to go from 4 piers to 6 or 8.

[J.P.M.]

I am installing a ground mount system.
In my area the rooftop building permit fee is standardised at $250.
I have been working for months to get a permit... Last time I was going over all the other things they needed I was told they had never done a ground mount.

Today they told me that the ground mount was not part of the solar system and they want to charge a permit fee on the $550 sch 40 3 inch pipe, $160 concrete, $300 structural engineer to specify that I was in a wind exposure B (IronRidge did all the rest for free), $295 geotechnical engineer to certify my soil was class 3 and $50 per hour for me to dig 4 round holes 16 x 60 deep. They want to charge 10% of the mount. Does anyone else have have to pay for the ground mount as an extra permit item?
I think I can lowball this at about $2000, should I just pay the $200 or try to get them to reconsider?

Ground mounts do cost more. Look on the bright side: Better now than getting red tagged which is only more costly.

[SunEagle]

I am installing a ground mount system.
In my area the rooftop building permit fee is standardised at $250.
I have been working for months to get a permit... Last time I was going over all the other things they needed I was told they had never done a ground mount.

Today they told me that the ground mount was not part of the solar system and they want to charge a permit fee on the $550 sch 40 3 inch pipe, $160 concrete, $300 structural engineer to specify that I was in a wind exposure B (IronRidge did all the rest for free), $295 geotechnical engineer to certify my soil was class 3 and $50 per hour for me to dig 4 round holes 16 x 60 deep. They want to charge 10% of the mount. Does anyone else have have to pay for the ground mount as an extra permit item?
I think I can lowball this at about $2000, should I just pay the $200 or try to get them to reconsider?

I would expect that each location may have slightly different rules and codes for safety (minimize non certified people from getting shocked) , wind loading, soil erosion, rain run-off, etc. Hard to tell what you have to do without knowing more.

While it sucks that your city officials try to charge you for everything it sometimes smooths out the final approval process to get your system up and running without being red tagged as not meeting "their" code requirements.

[john phillips]

In many areas ground mount needs structural permit as well as electrical, with foundation inspections etc.

I am installing a ground mount system.
In my area the rooftop building permit fee is standardised at $250.
I have been working for months to get a permit... Last time I was going over all the other things they needed I was told they had never done a ground mount.

Today they told me that the ground mount was not part of the solar system and they want to charge a permit fee on the $550 sch 40 3 inch pipe, $160 concrete, $300 structural engineer to specify that I was in a wind exposure B (IronRidge did all the rest for free), $295 geotechnical engineer to certify my soil was class 3 and $50 per hour for me to dig 4 round holes 16 x 60 deep. They want to charge 10% of the mount. Does anyone else have have to pay for the ground mount as an extra permit item?
I think I can lowball this at about $2000, should I just pay the $200 or try to get them to reconsider?

[DaveDE2]

I'm a DIY guy too. My system is (finally) going up just now. I'm not claiming any diy labor on my taxes. All of my charges for the tax credit are backed up with invoices and receipts from vendors. In that regard, I'm thinking my personal slave labor work is going to be worth 30% less since I can't claim it, but then again, working for 30% less is better than paying 200% or more for some installer to do it. In my opinion, you should be able to claim your hours since you are saving we the people (US govmt) money, but tell that to the IRS.

Everyone knows bold-type people who claim $$ for their own work. I suspect most of the time it works out and they are not audited. Your choice.

[Amy@altE]

Some solar equipment providers will give you the system schematic for free, or for a low fee, if it does not have to be signed by an EE.

[Amy@altE]

I've been selling solar equipment to home owners for over 8 years. I look at some of my first sales, and grid tie solar panels were about $4.50 a watt (and that was a 175W panel). Now they are about $0.90 a watt for 300W panels. Crazy how much the price has come down and efficiency has gone up!

[SunEagle]

Usually an audit is started when someone notifies the authorities about an illegal installation or cheating on their Tax return.

[sensij]

You can only take a credit for money actually spent. If you "pay yourself", you would also have to declare that as income if you want it to stand up to scrutiny.

Check for your name on the audit list that the IRS publishes. Then you'll know whether or not one is coming.

I think you are catching on to why some forum members have come to the conclusion that DIY systems don't save nearly as much as some people think.

[J.P.M.]

This begs the question, what would make the roof special (other than the price-tag of a new roof)?

A somewhat gray area, probably with no, one, absolute answer that fits all applications.

The cost differential of special materials or mods. specifically designed and required to meet the requirements of the solar equipment to make it function as designed over the cost of other similar materials but without the solar consideration requirements might be a starting point.

A possible example: The cost of beefing up an old, flat roof, material, labor and engineering to be able to accept a new, larger loadings from a ballasted, saw tooth array might be something the IRS would sign off on. Or, I suppose they might get porky and disallow some of that extra cost - such as the portion of the improvement that would bring and old design up to current building code requirements without the added beef that the solar requirements add to the mod.

I'd guess every situation is different. Talk to your accountant and have the accountant talk to your engineer. Believe it or not, a call to the IRS is not out of the question. At least, if such a call were to be made and documented, that it was made might help your cause in an audit (provided I suppose, you can show you made the best effort at conformance to what was suggested, or that what you were told was senseless).

[bryankloos]

On the Tax Credit question....
If I hire a pro to do the install, the labor charges are appropriate for the credit, correct?
If I do a DIY install, would it be appropriate to charge a fair hourly time for my own labor and submit that for credit?

And another question... What would cause an audit for solar install from IRS?

If I had the system installed, I'd be submitting 65+K for credit.
Doing it myself, I'm submitting 35K for credit.

I wonder what triggers the audit if it is to happen.