DIY Solar System Buying Guide
This guide will help you gather the information needed to buy the right equipment for your solar install.
There are three main components to your solar install: Solar panels, inverters and racking.
We will go through each of the components and help you gather the information you need to buy a solar system customized for your house.
If you would like our system experts to put together your solar system, fill out this form:
Write down your answers to the questions below so you can have them handy through this solar system buying process.
Solar Panels
What is your energy consumption? Add up the kilowatt-hours (kWh) from your electric bills for one year. To get more accurate, add up two years and divide by two to find your yearly kWh usage average.
What is your yearly kWh?
*For reference, the average United States yearly energy consumption is 10,715 kWh or 893 kWh/month.
Azimuth is the compass direction the solar array will face. The easiest method to get the azimuth is to download a compass app on your phone and use it to find the direction your array will face.
What is your Azimuth?
Slope: a quick way to measure the slope of your roof is to download a level app on your phone. Once downloaded, place your phone on edge on your roof and read the degree angle.
What is your slope?
Choose your panel: all of our panels have been hand selected and hold top quality and guarantee standards. Find one that appeals to you and get the length, width, and wattage.
Panel length? width? wattage?
Now that you have gathered all of this information you can figure out how many solar panels you will need to cover your average kWh usage using the PVWatts calculator.
PVWatts: pvwatts.nrel.gov is a government website that calculates the output of your solar system using the inputs you have gathered. You can plug in your location, azimuth, slope and play around with the DC system size until you get the output that matches your yearly kWh consumption.
Once you know your DC system size you can you can take that number and divide it by the output of the solar panel size you chose to find out how many panels you will need. Remember that 1 kW is a 1000 W.
How many panels will your system need?
Now that you know how many panels you need you can start putting together the rest of your system.
Racking
The racking is the solar panel mounting system.
What type of mount are you going to be using? Roof mount, ground mount, pole mount.
Roof Type: What is your roof made out of? Shingles, metal, flat tile, S tile, W tile, membrane, slate, torch down roofing, other.
Rafter Size: What size rafters are supporting your roof? 2x2, 2x4, 2x6, 2x8, 2x10, 2x12, other.
How Far Apart are your Rafters? 16 in, 24 in, 32 in, other.
Pass through boxes: allow you to pass the wire from the inverters through your roof and into your attic. They are visually appealing because there is no conduit on your roof. You will need one pass through box per section of solar panels.
How many pass through boxes do you need?
Conduit mounts: If you choose to use conduit on your roof it is recommended to the conduit mounts so the conduit does not touch the roof.
How many conduit mounts do you need?
Go to your city's building department website. There are some building questions listed below that you will need to find answers to if you want to keep your solar system within code. You can find these answers on your city's building website, if not, give them a call.
Do you have setback restrictions? Setback are when you have to place the panels back from the edge of the roof or eaves and valleys.
What does ACSE code is your city using? 7-10 or 7-16?
What is your city's snow load?
What is your city's wind speed?
What is your wind exposure?
What is your risk category?
Installation area: Where are you going to install the panels? If on your roof, use sidewalk chalk to measure and mark out where each of the panels are going to go. In some cities you may need to account for setbacks. Sketch out on a piece of paper where each of the panels are going to go.
Go to the IronRidge Racking website and create an account and layout your project. You have collected all the information you will need to put together your racking. If you have questions about mounts and conduit please visit our page here. Just input it on their website and they will give you a bill of materials for your racking system.
We carry all the components you will need on our Racking page.
Inverters, Wiring and Combiner box
Enphase microinverters: We recommend Enphase microinverters because they are easy to install and you are able to monitor each of the panel's output. Each panel will need one microinverter.
How many microinverters to you need?
Wiring - Enphase microinverters use Q cables to connect to each other. The Q cables come in either portrait or landscape lengths. The Q Cables come in strands and you can request how many connectors are on each strand.
If you have multiple rows you will need to add one Q cable connector between rows and get a Q-seal cap to cap off the extra connector. This will give you enough length to run to the next row.
How many Q cables do you need (one for each panels plus one for each row), and are they landscape of portrait?
Combiner box - the Enphase Combiner with IQ Envoy combines interconnection equipment into a single enclosure and allows you to monitor each of the panels output.
One combiner box is needed for typical application.
If you have any questions please reach out to us at info@ware.energy and will be happy to help.
With the information above you can now buy a complete solar panel system.