News and Views

Two things were accomplished today: They cut the tiles so the mounts could extend up through them, and they fastened rails to the mounts.

Here are the rails. Tomorrow they should fasten the solar panels to the rails. Looks like the ends still need to be trimmed.

Here is a close up of one mount extending through the roof tiles. You can see that they just cut the tiles with a circular saw, but I guess whatever works. Any rain that falls through this hole will land on the flashing below and come out onto the tile below.

Interestingly, I woke up Friday night about 1:00 am to the sound of rain leaking into our bathroom, “Drip, drip, drip.” I went up on the roof in the middle of the night during the rain, and moved some tiles around to help cover any openings. Turned out that the only leak was coming in through an improperly sealed exhaust vent, and nothing was damaged. Things look pretty tight now.

The job should be finished tomorrow, with solar panels attached and wiring complete, though at the rate they worked today I’m not sure if they will be able to finish up. We’ll see. After they are done, it will take another couple of weeks to get city and utility inspections before it can be turned on.