attaching solar panels
I was wondering if I should use well nuts or just wood screws to attach the panels to the roof, of course a healthy amount of Dicor. I was going to use 1" stainless wood screws.
Forum Discussion
Before I started, I was told - good luck finding the rafters. So I bought "one the newer stud finders" ;) that cost $60 on Amazon and getting stellar reviews. Drywall installers writing those reviews have no clue what difficulties we are facing here. The accuracy was mediocre, 1" at best, but the rafter was mere 1.75" wide.
Per my request the manufacturer emailed me diagram of ceiling assembly and it was not very useful, other than telling me 1.75" width and that 2 rafters were not a regular spacing. The centers were 18" BUT at the rear and at the interior partition it was 10" and 14".
Yes, you can find them from below but how are you going to transpose this accurately to the outside?
Yes, bathroom vent and A/C are always sitting on the rafters but transposing it from there to the edge of the roof with 0.5" accuracy is not easy.
50 cent rare earth magnet helped me a lot, you slide it across the roof in the approximate location of rafter and find screws holding the 3/4" particle board. They "should be" in the middle of rafter, but $10 workers are not too accurate, screw heads were all over. You want to find those screws anyway, to avoid drilling right into the screw.
In the end, after checking and re-checking my markings obtained using all the above methods, I had to drill a very thin pilot hole where I thought the rafter center was. Where rafter was not expected, I didn't drill any pilots. Once the pilot went right into the edge of the rafter, now I knew where the center was, closed the first hole with toothpick and glue (it was tiny, a "dowel" that thin doesn't exist), and drilled another hole in the bracket. On another occasion, when checking the rafter through the pilot with thin wire, I found lighting wires.
It was fun.
Per my request the manufacturer emailed me diagram of ceiling assembly and it was not very useful, other than telling me 1.75" width and that 2 rafters were not a regular spacing. The centers were 18" BUT at the rear and at the interior partition it was 10" and 14".
Yes, you can find them from below but how are you going to transpose this accurately to the outside?
Yes, bathroom vent and A/C are always sitting on the rafters but transposing it from there to the edge of the roof with 0.5" accuracy is not easy.
50 cent rare earth magnet helped me a lot, you slide it across the roof in the approximate location of rafter and find screws holding the 3/4" particle board. They "should be" in the middle of rafter, but $10 workers are not too accurate, screw heads were all over. You want to find those screws anyway, to avoid drilling right into the screw.
In the end, after checking and re-checking my markings obtained using all the above methods, I had to drill a very thin pilot hole where I thought the rafter center was. Where rafter was not expected, I didn't drill any pilots. Once the pilot went right into the edge of the rafter, now I knew where the center was, closed the first hole with toothpick and glue (it was tiny, a "dowel" that thin doesn't exist), and drilled another hole in the bracket. On another occasion, when checking the rafter through the pilot with thin wire, I found lighting wires.
It was fun.
