But seriously, a solar array installation encompasses a lot of factors, from the micro-economic to the global ecological, and it all starts with your roof.

But seriously, a solar array installation encompasses a lot of factors, from the micro-economic to the global ecological, and it all starts with your roof.

Your Roof
When Kevin saw his first solar installation, he was appalled. The array was mounted on L brackets, screwed right through the shingles with no flashing. In the competitive bidding industry that solar is becoming, this is not uncommon. It is, however, an invitation to a leaky roof. By construction code, "When you penetrate a roof, you become a roofer," which means you have a serious commitment to the clients structural integrity. Quick Mount PV eliminates the possibility of roof leakage, period.

A foot square galvanized or aluminum plate slides under the upper row of shingles and seals to the lower, making an impenetrable rain cover, while the internal lag bolt is imbedded in an aluminum block, and O-ring sealed on either side. Quick Mount PV is compliant with all major international roofing and building codes.

Riding the Rails
While rails are fairly comparable, Pro-Solar has been in the business for over a decade, and their mounting system has recently been improved to facilitate easy installation. Their side mounting clamp eliminates drilling,  leaving a structurally stronger rail in place, and doing away with cleanup.

A Panel is a Panel?
When you put a panel on your roof, you're making a statement, about energy independence, about sustainability, and about responsibility. At Sun's Free, we take that seriously, and while it may be more expensive than buying from China, we feel it's our responsibility to invest in the American solar industry.

    Evergreen Solar panels are manufactured in America, using the most advanced German engineering. Their output tolerances are the tightest, with panels routinely outputting 3% more than their rating. Their carbon footprint in manufacturing is the lowest in the industry, and each panel offsets it's carbon load within two years of use. Their facilities are primarily run using solar power generated by their own panels.

    Sharp, a well known Japanese tech company, has produced 25% of all solar panels manufactured to date. Their high quality and good looks make them an industry leader, and they operate manufacturing plants here in the US. .

Inverters- the Future is Now
The Enphase Micro-Inverter became available in July of 2008, leaving the inverter industry in the dust.

Let me explain. An inverter changes current from DC to AC. PV panels are wired together into 'strings" of certain numbers of panels to suit the inverter. String size is your first limitation. Next comes panel output. A panel will only put out as many watts as are being fed through it's string. So if one panel underperforms, and many do, then the whole string will be limited to that wattage. Manufacturers allow themselves tolerances of up to 5%, so a 200 watt panel may only put out 190w, and still be rated 200. When it's in a string, however, no panel can put out more than the 190w bottleneck.  The more panels you string together, the higher the voltage gets, up to 480 volts DC, easily enough to kill a man. The conversion of this high voltage generates a lot of heat, and the inverter essentially acts as a big heat sink, until it fails, leaving you powerless until it can be replaced. Standard inverters will fail in 12-15 years, guaranteed. When a system fails, it may not be the inverter, it could be a panel. But which one? Your installer will need to test every panel to answer that question, a time consuming and expensive process. With one panel down, no panel in that string will output, and your system may be entirely useless.

The Enphase Micro-Inverter was born of the computer engineering mindset, where increased power in decreased sizes is the byword. Making an inverter for each panel allows the heat sink problem to be spread across an area the size of your array, essentially eliminating it as a cause for failure. With each panel wired to its own inverter, the output variance between panels is no longer a factor, meaning you get the highest possible output, for the entirety of the system life. With each panel converting to AC driectly, the entire voltage of the array is 120/240, standard home voltage, and the whole array wires very discreetly into any point in your house wiring system.

The second major step is the Enphase Enlighten  monitoring system, which allows you to view each panel in your array, 24/7, to track individual and total system output. If any panel is failing, it can be pinpointed instantly, and replaced if necessary. Enphase will notify us, and we'll take care of it. It's not the emergency it would be with a regular inverter though, as single panel failure will only decrease the array output by a fraction.

Your Roof
When Kevin saw his first solar installation, he was appalled. The array was mounted on L brackets, screwed right through the shingles with no flashing. In the competitive bidding industry that solar is becoming, this is not uncommon. It is, however, an invitation to a leaky roof. By construction code, "When you penetrate a roof, you become a roofer," which means you have a serious commitment to the clients structural integrity. Quick Mount PV eliminates the possibility of roof leakage, period.

A foot square galvanized or aluminum plate slides under the upper row of shingles and seals to the lower, making an impenetrable rain cover, while the internal lag bolt is imbedded in an aluminum block, and O-ring sealed on either side. Quick Mount PV is compliant with all major international roofing and building codes.

Riding the Rails
While rails are fairly comparable, Pro-Solar has been in the business for over a decade, and their mounting system has recently been improved to facilitate easy installation. Their side mounting clamp eliminates drilling,  leaving a structurally stronger rail in place, and doing away with cleanup.

A Panel is a Panel?
When you put a panel on your roof, you're making a statement, about energy independence, about sustainability, and about responsibility. At Sun's Free, we take that seriously, and while it may be more expensive than buying from China, we feel it's our responsibility to invest in the American solar industry.

    Evergreen Solar panels are manufactured in America, using the most advanced German engineering. Their output tolerances are the tightest, with panels routinely outputting 3% more than their rating. Their carbon footprint in manufacturing is the lowest in the industry, and each panel offsets it's carbon load within two years of use. Their facilities are primarily run using solar power generated by their own panels.

    Sharp, a well known Japanese tech company, has produced 25% of all solar panels manufactured to date. Their high quality and good looks make them an industry leader, and they operate manufacturing plants here in the US. .

Inverters- the Future is Now
The Enphase Micro-Inverter became available in July of 2008, leaving the inverter industry in the dust.

Let me explain. An inverter changes current from DC to AC. PV panels are wired together into 'strings" of certain numbers of panels to suit the inverter. String size is your first limitation. Next comes panel output. A panel will only put out as many watts as are being fed through it's string. So if one panel underperforms, and many do, then the whole string will be limited to that wattage. Manufacturers allow themselves tolerances of up to 5%, so a 200 watt panel may only put out 190w, and still be rated 200. When it's in a string, however, no panel can put out more than the 190w bottleneck.  The more panels you string together, the higher the voltage gets, up to 480 volts DC, easily enough to kill a man. The conversion of this high voltage generates a lot of heat, and the inverter essentially acts as a big heat sink, until it fails, leaving you powerless until it can be replaced. Standard inverters will fail in 12-15 years, guaranteed. When a system fails, it may not be the inverter, it could be a panel. But which one? Your installer will need to test every panel to answer that question, a time consuming and expensive process. With one panel down, no panel in that string will output, and your system may be entirely useless.

The Enphase Micro-Inverter was born of the computer engineering mindset, where increased power in decreased sizes is the byword. Making an inverter for each panel allows the heat sink problem to be spread across an area the size of your array, essentially eliminating it as a cause for failure. With each panel wired to its own inverter, the output variance between panels is no longer a factor, meaning you get the highest possible output, for the entirety of the system life. With each panel converting to AC driectly, the entire voltage of the array is 120/240, standard home voltage, and the whole array wires very discreetly into any point in your house wiring system.

The second major step is the Enphase Enlighten  monitoring system, which allows you to view each panel in your array, 24/7, to track individual and total system output. If any panel is failing, it can be pinpointed instantly, and replaced if necessary. Enphase will notify us, and we'll take care of it. It's not the emergency it would be with a regular inverter though, as single panel failure will only decrease the array output by a fraction.