My name is Jeremy Allen, solar design tech here at Wholesale Solar.

Today we're here to discuss one of the most important parts of your solar array, the solar

racking system.

We're gonna go over the installation of the IronRidge XR100 racking system on an asphalt

composition roof using the FlashFoot 2 flashings.

There are many other types of roof this is the most common, but if you have a tile or

metal roof don't be afraid, we do have a solution for you.

We choose to work with the IronRidge racking system because of its ease of installation,

code compliancy, and included state-stamped engineering that will include your wind and

snow load requirements specific to your state.

Before we jump on the roof, be sure to have all of your tools prepared, your parts laid

out, and the engineering report that we've provided you with so that you know how to

lay out the panels on the rooftop.

I do wanna make sure each one of you is being safe up there.

You can get a fall protection kit from your local hardware store or roofing supply store

to make sure you're extra safe.

With that said, let's get started.

One of the pieces of information that is not included on your engineering report is the

distance between the rails up on the roof.

That's gonna be dictated by the holes that are pre-drilled on your specific panel.

In this case, we've got a solar panel here, about 100 watts, its holes are gonna be 35

and a half inches apart.

That means the rails on the roof are gonna be 35 and a half inches apart.

To get started, we need to find out where our rafter or truss is within this rooftop.

Now, keep in mind some local Authority Having Jurisdiction or your local building department,

may require you to have full three feet or more from the edge of the roof.

In our case, we don't have that much roof, so we're gonna go right up to the edge of

it.

Where we're gonna wanna start out is finding nails if we can in the facia, or on that nice

pretty board that goes along the bottom of your rooftop.

In this case we can see a couple nails and we know generally that that truss is gonna

be located somewhere in this area.

We don't need to know that exact space yet, because we're gonna drill a spot hole through

the roof and into the attic so we can measure exactly where that is.

The other figure we wanna keep in mind is the 35 and a half inches that we discussed

earlier, in this case we'll see, doesn't line up exactly with the center of our shingles,

which we'd really like to.

And as long as we're within two to three inches of those pre-drilled mounting holes on the

back of the solar panel, we're okay.

So we're gonna know, we're gonna go in the center of this shingle length right here,

and the center of this shingle length right here.

So first thing we're gonna wanna do, we're gonna wanna get our drill and we're gonna

wanna drill right close to this to see how close we actually are to that rafter.

Alright, so the first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna put a pilot hole in here.

And again, we found our truss location somewhere in here and we know we've gotta be somewhat

centered on this course of shingles so we're gonna go ahead and put a hole right here and

see where we come out in the attic.

Now we can leave the drill bit in place so that we can go into the attic and find out

where we are in comparison to that truss.

At this point we're gonna come into the attic space and measure from the center of our drill

bit to the edge of our truss to find out exactly how far we have to move over.

And we see we've got about one and five eighths inches.

We've gotta another three quarters of an inch to that to be sure we're centered inside of

the truss.

So let's go ahead and go back up on the roof and make that happen.

Alright so we know we're an inch and five eighths from the center of this drill bit

to the edge of the truss here so we're actually gonna mark out that exact measurement.

And know we've got the edge of our truss.

Now, from there because all of our standard lumber is gonna be about an inch and a half,

we wanna measure three quarters of an inch from that point to the center of what's now

gonna be our new hole.

Now you're asking, "You've got a hole in your roof!

What are you gonna do about that!?"

We actually will just use a standard sealant, something like Henry's or whatever your roof

specific manufacturer requires and put it into this hole to make sure it stays water

tight and essentially, that flashing is gonna go over that hole to make sure it stays weather-proof

and water tight anyway.

So from this step, we'll go ahead and remove our drill bit.

So now that we have our center mark here, we're gonna make another center mark for the

next one up, again 35 and a half inches from the bottom hole.

So we're gonna go ahead and measure, in this case we know we've got a good square structure,

may not always be that way, so there may be a couple trips into the attic to spot holes

to be sure you're hitting the center of your truss.

But in this case, we'll go ahead and move along and we'll find out we're about 27 and

three eighths of an inch from the edge of the roof.

Now I'm gonna take that same measurement up to this course of shingles we're gonna go

27 and three eighths inches up here and know we've got a line now that we can take with

our chalk and make a good visible line for future holes that we're gonna be drilling.

Now if you have multiple panels high or multiple panels wide, you'll just do this that many

more times to be sure you have all the holes lined up before you actually start drilling.

So we've got a good chalk block and we're actually gonna get in here, we're gonna chalk

out a line on here so everyone can see exactly where we're gonna be drilling.

And pretty simple now from here, again, as long as the framing's standard, you should

have about a 24 inch center-to-center line.

Your truss is typically your 24 inches from each other, but again, that's not gonna always

be the case so you'll wanna double check.

We're gonna go ahead and pull the tape measurer 24 inches over and know that should be the

next truss.

So now we have our two trusses marked out where we're actually gonna be drilling into

the roof.

The other thing that we need to do is actually get that line lined up here where our rails

are actually going to be sitting.

So we're gonna take a measurement from the bottom of the roof to the center of this or

if you really trust your roofer and know that they made straight lines to begin with, a

lot of times you can follow their course of shingles and know you should be really close.

So if we did that right, we'll know these'll be our first few real holes that will hold

the flashings in place.

So we're gonna go ahead and drill in.

Now that we have all of our holes drilled, we're gonna get up underneath each course

of shingles to make sure that our flashing has a good place to slide up and seat itself.

So we're gonna take our flat bar and we're gonna slide it up under here and look for

any resistance where there might be actually nails popping up and we're going to try and

remove them.

Sometimes you're gonna get lucky, which, in this case it looks like we may have with this

flashing, where there's not gonna be any nails that would obstruct that flashing.

Other places, you might find out there's gonna be a couple nails and you're gonna have to

remove those and possibly replace them if need be to keep those shingles in place.

Before we put the flashing in place, we are gonna put the appropriate sealant in the holes

to make sure our roof remains water tight.

In this case, we've got some good old Henry's, we're gonna fill that hole up completely,

knowing that the flashing's still gonna cover this hole and keep it even further weather

tight.

Get a good amount in there, make sure it's good coverage, and if you need to, go through

on the other side into the attic to make sure that did fill that hole completely.

Now we're gonna go ahead and put our flashing in place, lag it down into the hole that we

drilled already, and go from there.

We're gonna slide this flashing up under that course of shingles, knowing we don't have

any nails up there.

These center lines, there's actually little punches in the flashing to line you up.

If you've got a chalk line going the length of your roof, which you will in longer solar

arrays, you can line up these little notches right with those chalk lines and it'll center

you right to where that hole should be.

Now in this case, we know we're close to that hole and we're gonna go ahead and start threading

our bolt in place make sure that we don't have anything in that hole.

You can use an air compressor to clean out the hole if you need to.

And then, just a basic ratchet and we're gonna tighten that guy up until it starts to seat

all the way to the roof.

Now, we don't wanna over-tighten to where it's concaving that flashing, you can actually

cause issues in doing so.

And again, we don't wanna get too tight we just wanna seat firmly against the rooftop.

And you'll feel it.

I don't recommend doing this with a power tool because you will over-tighten them and

you can ruin the flashings or break the bolt just from the excess heat going into the truss.

And so we're fully seated there, we actually have a cap that's now gonna go on the top

of this that's gonna connect it to the rail that we're putting in place.

This is the proprietary piece that IronRidge has come up with to make their flashings this

easy to install.

As you see, the bolt is raised off of the roof surface so that if water does come through

here, even without this cap being on there there's no way of that water actually getting

down into the rooftop.

So we take this piece here, and it's gonna go in place and it can have two different

locations: it's either gonna be up and down that like that, which we actually don't want

that, we want to go back one quarter of a turn and lock it so that the rail will sit

right across it like this.

Alright, our last little guy here and we're ready to move onto the rail install.

Alright, so the next portion of this installation is gonna be the actual rails being attached

to these flashings.

Each setup's gonna have some different amounts of hardware that we're gonna have to look

at before we put the rail in place.

In this case, we've got it simple, because we only have two attachments from the rail

to the flashings.

And we're gonna use the supplied hardware that's actually gonna be a square on one end

and a regular nut on the other end.

That square end's gonna slide down the rail channel all the way to the one side, we'll

get both of those in there, so we have them in place.

And we can even line them up, close to where the flashings are if you've got the rails

sitting on the rooftop like this.

In a lot of cases, I am gonna suggest to get that rail ready ahead of time down on the

ground if possible.

In this case, we'll loosen up these nuts enough to where they slide right over these flashings.

So in this case, we're actually gonna mount this rail with the non-hardware side facing

down towards the ground so that you don't see any of that hardware if you're looking

up at the array.

So we're gonna spin it around, we're gonna line it up with those flashings and we're

gonna drop it right down over the top of these.

We're gonna keep it loose for now, just hand tight, until we get the other rail in place

to make sure that they actually line up.

We're gonna wanna measure from a common point on the roof, in this case the edge of the

roof, to make sure that these rails are flush.

In a lot of cases, you could actually cut the rails up on the roof, however I don't

suggest doing that just because of the metal shards that you'll have all over your rooftop

and because you could damage the panels if there already mounted on top of these rails.

So we're gonna go ahead and measure, and then we'll tighten everything down.

And then we'll hand-tighten as we go through, making sure that the elevation of the rail

is where you want it to be.

Now, some rooftops aren't completely flat, so because of that, IronRidge's flashings

do have an elevation adjustment so that you can make sure that rail itself does remain

flat and consistent through the whole array.

Now, there are gonna be torque specs on each one of these.