Category Archives: Roof

This 13-panel solar energy system covers 95% of the owner’s household electricity budget. Proof that big things do come in small packages. The roof on this home, by the way, is “TPO” or thermoplastic polyolefin, which is a single-ply reflective roofing membrane.

Sometimes solar design is simple. Sometimes it’s like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, trying to get the different pieces to fit together the right way. These homeowners were committed to covering 100% of their electric bill, so we kept at it until we found a way to do that. The resulting system on 4 roof faces […]

These photos may seem practically the same, but what can we say — we love looking at solar from every angle! And from the savings angle, this system looks pretty great, too. The town of Groton has relatively low electricity rates to begin with, at about 10 cents per kWh. But by shifting his electricity […]

Our first solar energy installation in North Andover deserves better photos, but we can’t control Mother Nature and the installation day was gray! So in this case, the schematic drawing of the system gives a better idea of what it actually looks like — 39 panels spread across 2 roofs.

This solar energy system is small by 2017 standards, with only eight panels. But the SunPower panels pack a punch. And the impact on the family’s electric bills is kind of mind-blowing. Today, they pay Unitil about 23₵ per kWh. With normal inflation, that will be more like 63₵ in 25 years time. But with solar? […]

This new solar energy system is our 87th in Harvard! More important, it’s reducing the owner’s electricity price from 21₵ to 7₵ per kWh. Why pay the utility 3 times as much as you can pay yourself/the bank for the same amount of reliable electricity?

Eighteen solar panels are visible in this photo, on the garage of this home. In addition, four more were tucked onto the main roof of the Cape. We recommend sizing your system to cover just about 100% of your electricity use. Sometimes, homeowners will go a little bit larger than that to accommodate future electricity […]

Sometimes the trees make it hard to get a good photo of a new solar energy installation, but the more important thing is that the roof is mostly shade-free. That’s the case with this Leominster home, which has 37 panels installed on two roofs. If you look carefully, you can see the panels on the […]

We don’t let something small like a vent pipe smack dab in the middle of your roof stop us from installing the best possible solar electric system. We simply move the vent pipe, like we did for this Holden homeowner. We can also work around vent pipes, but some people prefer moving them because it […]

The proof is in the…photovoltaics? These Wayland, MA homeowners were renovating their barn and decided to throw solar into the mix. We predicted the solar would cover just over 100% of their electric bill. As you can see from the image of their Eversource bill, that promise of a $0 electric bill has become reality!