What Surprises did you have?

[tyab]

About the optional cross brace. I asked that question in the webinar and what I was told was the design tool would tell you if it was required based on the parameters entered. If not required by the design tool and if not required by the AHJ then it is optional. At the very least I would give them a call - I only called them once with what turned out to be a simple question but the customer service I did get from them was excellent. My building dept just wanted to see the relevant pages (4 or so from that massive document) from the engineering report IronRidge provides and they checked to make sure my design fit into those ranges and accepted it.

I'm also in a rural area (but not as small as yours) and I found the local building department to be really helpful at answering questions - might not hurt to drop by and ask them about their experience with Iron Ridge.

Also bcroe has a picture up and some information on these forums somewhere where he shows a good reason for his suggestion about snow removable given that you are in a snow area. I don't have nearly the snow he has but the little bit I did get already surprised me how much work it was to remove snow.

[J.P.M.]

In the IronRidge documents, they list cross bracing "as required".. That's code for "If you see it shaking and vibrating in heavy winds, order some cross bracing from us".. Oh ya.. The engineering B.S is heavy on that one.

You are correct that I have a rather loose understanding of the design process when it comes to permitting residential projects... My experience is limited to industrial manufacturing, not residential stuff, so I'm a bit lost and I appreciate any input this forum can provide.. I am not a professional engineer with a stamp, I'm just a glorified machine builder...

I bet much of your work acquired experiential knowledge is transferable to a residential solar project.

A respectful suggestion: If you have not yet read "Solar Power your Home for Dummies", a free online download for a slightly outdated but still useful ed. is available, or ~ $20 for a new hardcopy. FWIW, I bet it'll fill in a lot of gaps.

One more FWIW, Bruce Roe has a lot of good, practical experience that sounds like it was acquired the hard way. I don't agree with all of his opinions, such as array orientations with respect to azimuth, but you could do a lot worse than following his foot prints through the snow on the way to a workable ground mounted array in a northern climate.

[peakbagger]

I have a small pole mounted array with adjustable tilt. I can get 4' of frost and am in a heavy wind zone. The array pivots off a central post. The one modification I made is to run bracing from the lower corners of the array back to the concrete post that holds the main pole. This make a big difference in higher winds as the entire array can start vibrate torsionally without the bracing. I run two braces in the winter and then drop down to one brace on the trailing side of the array for spring summer and fall.

The other comment is spend the bucks up front for stainless hardware. My pole mounted array got upgraded to larger panels after about five years. I had to take the panel frames down completely and reconfigure. I had used a lot of stainless which came off easy but the zinc plated hardware store type hardware was not so easy to take apart. When working with stainless I have a can of neverseez and make sure every thread gets a dab. If I don't, there is about a 1 in 50 chance the threads will gawl.

Galvanic corrosion will eventually occur between aluminum and zinc plated unistrut. The aluminum panel frames usually have pretty good coating but eventually it will wear thin and start sacrificing the zinc plating. If building for the long term take into account this incompatibility.

The lower edge of my array at winter tilt is about 30" from the ground with the new panels installed. That is a bit too low and I do have to run the snowblower in front of the array and shovel down the snow that inevitably slides off the panels and builds a pile.