Kirpal: It seems to me this is a matter of defining "Flush-mount." I would call any installation where-in the panels are within the perimeter of the roof, parallel with the surface and not more than 10 or so inches from the surface of the roofing material a flush-mount. A proper tile roof installation satisfies this and should be allowed without engineering.
Here in smoky California we have lots of tile roofs. We have tried or reviewed all of the tile mount solutions. We rejected Quickmount as poorly designed and fabricated. The posts are hollow and the threads fail much too easily. Hooks are out of the question for lack of uplift resistance. Snap-N-Rack posts and flashings are too weakly built and don't look like they will seal well. Our preferred roofer rejected them. We settled on the robust DPW "Power Post" stanchions with two levels of flashing. On these we set Snap-n-Rack 100 series rail. The Power Posts are solid aluminum and allow two lags. However DPW had such a huge lead time for Power Posts that we tooled up to fabricate our own. You could check with DPW or Solar Rack Works. The biggest weatherproofing complexity is the sub-roof--the paper under the tile. It is the actual rain barrier while the tile is the UV barrier and aesthetic treatment. Over time, the sub-roof will become brittle. It is fine as long as you don't touch it. We try to never rely on caulk for the rain barrier and caulk won't stick to old sub-roof anyway. Instead we lap good quality paper under the next layer above and over the flashing below. This means we would be lifting the existing paper and it tears. Therefore we have a licensed roofer remove tile from eave-to-ridge and rake-to-rake and install new sub-roof. We use Oatey 11830 flashings over Power Posts, overlapping each course of paper. This requires some short courses, but felt is cheap. Over the tile we use a wide base galvanized flashing interleaved with flat tile or wide based aluminum flashing with curved tile. The roofer replaces the tile after we set stanchions. The licensed roofer adds thousands of dollars to any tile job but without this process a roof leak is likely. I figure a roof leak could cost tens of thousands of dollars so the arithmetic is pretty easy. By the way, these are trade secrets so don't tell anyone. William Miller Lic 773985 millersolar.com 805-438-5600 -----Original Message----- From: RE-wrenches [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Kirpal Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2017 7:26 AM To: RE-wrenches Subject: [RE-wrenches] Concrete Tile Roof Solar Installation - Oregon - Engineering requirements Hi Folks! We don't get many jobs installing solar on concrete tile roofs....there aren't many around here. In Oregon we are allowed to do an engineer-less installation on metal and comp roofs when the array is flush mounted to the roof. Concrete tile roofs don't fit into this scenario. My engineer quoted me $650 for a report authorizing the installation. Seems like this is way too expensive for a modest 5kW system. What are others doing for concrete tile roof installs. Engineering required? We usually use SnapNRack as our racking system. (will probably use QuickMount Tile Replacement Flashings for this project) Other Oregon installers - any advice on this hurdle? Not worried about the technical installation just the cost and formality of getting an engineers stamp for permits. Thanks in advance! Sunny Regards, Kirpal Khalsa Oregon LRT#25 NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional Oregon Solarworks LLC www.oregonsolarworks.com 541-299-0402 _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.htm l List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Redwood Alliance List Address: [email protected] Change listserver email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out or update participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
