Brick Fence for PV

[ChrisG]

Doing some landscaping in back yard and had a few Bradford Pear trees taken out. Makes this brick wall prime for some PV. Faces 162° so not terrible and close enough to South.

Any mounting ideas on wall directly with some angle. Would like to hide from the county drone if possible.

 

[45North]

Best year-round angle is same as your latitude degrees.
Looks like some of your neighbour's trees are still shading the fence.

 

[ChrisG]

Best year-round angle is same as your latitude degrees.
Looks like some of your neighbour's trees are still shading the fence.

Yeah. He’s ok if I cut those back. It’s actually my yard on the other side. Long story. Bad contractor. Don’t ask.

I’m at 35° lattitude. Would like use fence as some ballast for at least the top mount.

 

[45North]

So aim for 35 deg. Even better is 35 +/- 15 if you change tilt seasonally.
So, 50 winter, 20 summer and 35 in between.
Just have to decide if you can be bothered.

 

[ChrisG]

So aim for 35 deg. Even better is 35 +/- 15 if you change tilt seasonally.
So, 50 winter, 20 summer and 35 in between.
Just have to decide if you can be bothered.

Any idea how I can use the wall as a mount?

 

[kommando]

I use Unistrut with hinges so can vary angle with season. Panel is 50% over top of wall for max adjustability.

 

[Steve_S]

You could probably "hang" them with proper brackets without much effort. If you could "hinge" them for 2 or 3 angles to squeeze more juice out, may be worth it. Alternatively, is using bi-facials and painting the bricks white... (dunno if I would, I like red brick, somehow, it would just be wrong).

There are several mounting options available commercially, Even DIY using stock aluminum & rails is quite possible. Secured anchoring into the walls will be the key. Running PVC conduit for the panels wires etc, can also run along the wall till it has to get to your equipment. Depending on how many panels & their layout (portrait or landscape). For example, having 4 panels on an adjustable set (even the bigger 400+W) is not hard to manage by hand.

There are several examples here with a lot of creativity & KISS applied to boot.

Perfect example above, UNIstrut is available in bog-big & online and has all sorts of accessories to do stuff. Not crazy expensive either...

 

[ChrisG]

You could probably "hang" them with proper brackets without much effort. If you could "hinge" them for 2 or 3 angles to squeeze more juice out, may be worth it. Alternatively, is using bi-facials and painting the bricks white... (dunno if I would, I like red brick, somehow, it would just be wrong).

There are several mounting options available commercially, Even DIY using stock aluminum & rails is quite possible. Secured anchoring into the walls will be the key. Running PVC conduit for the panels wires etc, can also run along the wall till it has to get to your equipment. Depending on how many panels & their layout (portrait or landscape). For example, having 4 panels on an adjustable set (even the bigger 400+W) is not hard to manage by hand.

There are several examples here with a lot of creativity & KISS applied to boot.

Perfect example above, UNIstrut is available in bog-big & online and has all sorts of accessories to do stuff. Not crazy expensive either...

Thanks for the tips. Time for some forum searching and prototyping. I do like the unistrut idea above. Not going to paint the brick but plan on white rock under it all. Would love to do vertical mount but horizontal might make it easier. Definitely want to put hinges on it for 1) if hurricanes come in this far and 2) put down to hide from county assessments drones which is only once a year in spring before trees bud.

 

[ChrisG]

After some measuring, I can mount 4 panels vertically within each section of fence. Will start with the 12 400w panels I have and see where this goes. Looking at the Home Depot unistrut, I can lag three verticals to each fence section (between pillars) with hinge at top to 3 more verticals to have some ability to change angle. Will then have two horizontals across the three hinged verticals for the panel to mount to. Have to look deeper into the angled connectors between the movable and fixed vertical pieces.

Think this will work fine.
Approx 1150 bricks per section at 4lbs per brick without mortar is over 4000 lbs of ‘ballast’ per 4 panels.