Sharing San Jose DIY roof top install process and steps...

[sr2005]

Want to share my experience installing roof top solar DIY here in San Jose and approval process.
I am doing this because I had a hard time to find this information myself and spent some time researching.
Actual install was around 2-3 days but to get all info needed I spend month or 2 months watching youtube videos and asking chatgpt.

I found out that city of San Jose tries to make solar install as easy as possible.
On their SJ permits web site they have information that smaller systems up to 400 lb does not require engineering review (see Bulleting265.pdf).
Also during city inspection they do not require documents to be submitted for approval.
Basically SJ city inspector give you yes/no studying your situation during first inspection.

Permit office allocate 1 hour time for inspection (30 min each) and if you know what you are doing you could do final on the first inspection.
In my case inspector found 2 problems during first inspection and on second inspection when I corrected problems I got pass with city inspection.

First step I did I upgraded my main electrical panel.
House itself is 50+ years old and I had 100 A Zinsco/Sylvania panel and I was not sure if my solar install requirements would require panel upgrade.
It turned out that solar install has requirements to have 2 ground rods; ground water pipe and UFER (see attachment PerElect.pdf)
By upgrading my main panel I met those requirements.
I hired company through yelp to upgrade main panel and it took $5+k and 2 months (pge approval and city inspections)... this is different story... if someone interested I could point to my yelp review about process

When main panel was installed I already had 425W solar panels (45x68 inch 45 pound bifacial panels).

I watched youtube for installation tips and I found out video how to install APSystems micro inverter and APSystems training DS3 video.
It looks very DIY friendly and did not require any additional knowledge.
From the video you need Y3 bus cable with needed numbers of drops (micro inv connection); DS3 micro inverters (those are compatible with Rule21 from PGE and rapid shutdown requirement) and you need to have wireless communication unit to setup/get production info from your panels.
After connecting your micro inverters to bus cable you connect this to conduit with your cables which would go to AC disconnect and after that go to your main panel.

I created sitePlan (attached redacted version) (this might not be needed) and electrical diagram (see attachment) using LibreCAD.
In electrical diagram I put conduit/wires info and all components I used for micro inverters, junction box and disconnect.

After that step I was stuck with mount and how to buy correct mount for my shingle roof.
Solution was to use iron ridge web site and create a project there.
when you create a project it generate mount related documents and it give you all mounts you need.
you also could submit quote to local warehouse and they give you competitive price for mount and you could pick up everything yourself next day.
This is what I did.

Since I wanted to have my system under 400 pounds I selected 6 panels and 3 micro inverters. using this design I got mount documentation for inspection and ordered all parts at once. See MountQuote attachment.

When I got mounts; micro inverter; bus cable; junction box and disconnect I started install.
I thought at first that finding a rafter for big mounting screw it would be a problem but it was very easy to find (I watched couple of youtube video about installing those). After that I drills wholes and install flash foot and rails. All process took couple of hours of installing roof mount.

After that I installed junction box and cables + 3 micro inverters.
Next day I spend installing conduit and disconnect with wires.
It was not super complicated but I spent some extra time because I am soft eng and not an electrician
Again chatgpt helped a lot ... but you need to ask right questions.
I used 20 amp double pole breaker to connect wires from disconnect to my main panel (breaker should be placed as far as possible from grid wires)

when wires and ground was installed I lifted panels to roof.
Each panel is 45 pounds... it is not that heavy but it is big.... For this task I need second person who lifted panels from ground and I pull those on the roof while standing on the roof.

Mounting panels were not complicated. You need to mount one screw first to keep panel in place and after that mount remaining screes.
Unexpected problem was wire management. I found a video on youtube how to manage wires using clips (I bough: Heyco S6405 SunRunner Stainless Steel Cable Clips (Package of 100)) and it was OK solution.

When everything was connected I printed all components spec; mount spec files from iron ridge web site and waited for inspector.

Also I bough PV stickers from amazon in hope that this is what I need (I was wrong about this)

Inspector showed up and studied my electrical diagram and after that he looked at my panels (he did not climbed into roof at all) and was satisfied with what he saw.

He found that I am missing 2 things:
1) I used gray wire to connect bus cable to ac disconnect and ac disconnect to main panel. It should be red and black instead.
2) SJ requires to use custom site map picture

For second inspection I changed wires to be black and red
And i use ebay to order plackard (look for something like: Solar Photovoltaic Site Map on ebay). Those guys ask my site picture (sitePlan helped) and they created custom map within a day and ship it to me.

Second city inspection was quick. I showed wires and site map card and it was done.

Next step was to order pge transfer NEM 3.0. I asked chatgpt and got on needed site and enter all info about my panel and paid 145$ fee.
This steps is one online form only.
PG&E grid connect took 5 business days. After that I got email from PGE that my system is ready.
I used communication module from APSystems to add inverters by serial number and select Rule21 for grid profile.

this is it. I am producing solar energy now

Here is cost:
6 * 75 =450 (GStar 425W bifacial solar panel)
3* 180 =540 (APSystems DS3L inverter; one for 2 panels)
100$ APSystems comm ECU-R module (bough it used from ebay)
550 complete ironridge mounting system
450 city permit (not sure; need to look my records)
55 AC disconnect
50 solar deck box
300 wires; conduit; misc
LibreCAD - free

PGE connect 145
total cost around 2500 before tax rebate for 2.5kW system…
I also got a quote from solar installer and it was around 10 k.

 

[fatjay]

I just put mine up with a welder and some drills and nuts and bolts, then the code enforcement showed up so i got out my second best #2 pencil and a piece of paper and drew up what i made and sent him on his way.

Why do you live there again?

 

[DavidHouse]

Thanks for sharing all that info, that's great. I think San Jose actually makes it easier than many of the surrounding cities. I wish more people knew that the cost was that low, assuming you can do the work yourself. Where did you go to buy your panels?

 

[sr2005]

I got palette (36 panels) from warehouse for 14 cents per Watt in December and paid 600+ in shipping+fees to deliver this 1800 pound box to my garage.
average cost panel+shipping was about 75$
I checked prices on "liberation/tariff" day and price per watt was 26 cents...
do not have any interest to check now
but panel would cost much higher.
good news is you could always buy new panels from fb marketplace from 150-200 per panel and they give you receipt to claim fed tax rebate and deliver in some cases to your door for free if you but 6+ panels.

Regarding procedure in different bayarea cities... Your cost would be a bit higher.
I created account with Greenlancer (just in case if my inspector would require pro prepared plans) and package without eng stamps costed 350 and with eng stamps 500 or around that.
Also I contacted local solar installer (website www.mysolareng.com) and they told me that they could create documentation for around 550$

So I was ready to have this like a backup plan in case SJ would be more strict with documentation.

Another interesting fact was about document retention by SJ. I asked inspector why they do not require me to send them document online. Or they did not even bother to get copy of prepared by me documents for their records. And his answer somewhat surprised me. He said that if they put complete documentation in their db another agency might review those and raise a red flag... to avoid this situation SJ gets bare minimum info about your system... like size and panel numbers... and this is it.
Not sure if this is accurate but this is what I was told by inspector

 

[raba64577]

@sr2005 How did you find out if your main electrical panel needed to be upgraded?

I live in Redwood City, around 20 minutes north of San Jose and we're getting ready to install a solar system ourselves since my dad is a retired roofing contractor with connections for different people that can break up the project into different steps so as to get the system installed. We plan on installing around 24 panels with micro inverters and a self-consumption battery with no backup. Figured we'd save a lot doing it on our own.

 

[sr2005]

@sr2005 How did you find out if your main electrical panel needed to be upgraded?

I guess in my case (I have 6 panels system) if I would install 2 ground rods + grounded water pipes and stucco I probably would be fine with an old main panel... I might only need to add sub panel to have additional space for breakers.... but you never know

I had a problem with old main panel ... it was more than 50 years old and I did not feel safe working on that old panel (old plastic parts breaks easily in your hands) ... also it did not have free breaker to connect solar or anything else (so I would need to add sub panel if I kept old main panel)... Also I was concerned with home insurance that an older main panel (silvania/zinsco) might be an issue with home insurance in the future.

There is one more thing...
During my quote investigation I asked solar installers this question about including main panel replacement cost to cost of solar install because it might be a requirement and I've got encouraging answers... so if you are plaining to get 30% fed credit this year this might be something you need to think about...

Also if you have a bigger solar system size PG&E might have some limitations. Like when I filled up interconnect PG&E forms/agreement it had some validation regarding main panel size and solar breaker size (I was fine with 240V 20 AMP breaker for my system size).
Also PG&E warned me that my solar system annual production should be within 110% of my annual needs (last 1 year of PG&E usage)... I was well within this limit.

 

[sudopk]

Thanks for the post. I am also trying to install a system at my house in San Jose.

Did the inspector ask about UL certifications (documentation or labels on the hardware) for racking/mounting, inverter or other components?

I was thinking of getting this minirail system, as it is about half the cost of ironridge, but it doesn't seem to have UL 2703.

 

[sr2005]

Thanks for the post. I am also trying to install a system at my house in San Jose.

Did the inspector ask about UL certifications (documentation or labels on the hardware) for racking/mounting, inverter or other components?

I was thinking of getting this minirail system, as it is about half the cost of ironridge, but it doesn't seem to have UL 2703.

I showed inspector docs generated by ironridge website and this was good for mounting (he was familiar with ironridge system). for all other components I printed component spec to show that it has UL cert (micro inverter; disconnect; solar deck). For micro inverter inspector studied spec for several minutes (I think not much apsystems micro inverters installed in SJ).

 

[unome]

Great post , I am in san jose as well and am looking to setup an offgrid solar system with battery storage, to primarily charge the cars. Currently sjce is paying out 125/Kwh of battery storage which makes it much more enticing. Thinking about getting a server rack of 25kwh and setting up some solar panels on the roof to charge the batteries without any grid connection. Unfortunately I am not confident enough to install the solar on my own. Would you know any contractors that can setup solar on the roof. Thanks.

 

[sr2005]

Great post , I am in san jose as well and am looking to setup an offgrid solar system with battery storage, to primarily charge the cars. Currently sjce is paying out 125/Kwh of battery storage which makes it much more enticing. Thinking about getting a server rack of 25kwh and setting up some solar panels on the roof to charge the batteries without any grid connection. Unfortunately I am not confident enough to install the solar on my own. Would you know any contractors that can setup solar on the roof. Thanks.

Battery+Solar is great! However do not make mistake I made with none ul listed battery or inverter.
I bought some components which are none ul listed for those I would not be able to get city approval or get 30% fed rebate
ended up installing second (9kW) system to be off grid without permit (I used transfer switch to physically isolate this systems from PG&E)... would get permits for that system when would replace battery/inverter with UL listed version.

I did not use any installers so I could not recommend...
I only called one local installer to get help with electrical diagram (the one I submitted here for free) and this guy asked for 500$ for this document...
So I am just imaging it might be an effort to find some installer to install only solar panels for cheap when everyone wants to install solar before end of this year...