Getting solar quotes for my southeast facing roof in San Diego. I have been working with recommended vendors and getting great pricing on the solar arrays using strategies gleaned from this board of reduction, education and requesting apples to apples quotes. But JPM's frequent refrain of getting the roof inspected is just now filtering onto my ToDo list. I started by speaking with a friend of mine that builds home tracts about my house hoping he would tell me not to worry-but that isn't what happened.
My home is a tract built home that is 20 years old and has concrete roof tiles. It turns out that the tiles are only part of the system, and the underlayment is what actually keeps things water tight (I realize many of you here already know this). This underlayment is the black, tar paper (or synthetic) that you see over the plywood when homes are being built. Most homes like mine use as flimsy a paper as they can get away with. My friend told me to expect about 30 years, my internet research upon getting home says 20-30 is typical. So definitely need to get new underlayment as part of the project unless my shingles turn out to be the magical interlocking style which supposedly are water tight on their own. should I start over with vendors?
I searched this forum this morning and found lots of people using separate companies for the roof and the solar. I understand the theory of using 'best in class' vendors for each separate item-but it seems to me to be likely that any water leakage problems down the road will be a nightmare of finger pointing between the two. I expected the forum to recommend using a company that does both and dreading the lack of competition and likely higher quotes I would be finding.
I've reached out to a couple of my vendors asking how they handle such situations-but am leery of them subcontracting out to a low bidder and gambling whether they will ever have to come deal with leaks. While I wait to hear back I'm looking for advice on how prior forum members handled this and how it worked out.
My home is a tract built home that is 20 years old and has concrete roof tiles. It turns out that the tiles are only part of the system, and the underlayment is what actually keeps things water tight (I realize many of you here already know this). This underlayment is the black, tar paper (or synthetic) that you see over the plywood when homes are being built. Most homes like mine use as flimsy a paper as they can get away with. My friend told me to expect about 30 years, my internet research upon getting home says 20-30 is typical. So definitely need to get new underlayment as part of the project unless my shingles turn out to be the magical interlocking style which supposedly are water tight on their own. should I start over with vendors?
I searched this forum this morning and found lots of people using separate companies for the roof and the solar. I understand the theory of using 'best in class' vendors for each separate item-but it seems to me to be likely that any water leakage problems down the road will be a nightmare of finger pointing between the two. I expected the forum to recommend using a company that does both and dreading the lack of competition and likely higher quotes I would be finding.
I've reached out to a couple of my vendors asking how they handle such situations-but am leery of them subcontracting out to a low bidder and gambling whether they will ever have to come deal with leaks. While I wait to hear back I'm looking for advice on how prior forum members handled this and how it worked out.
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