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Weight of Typical Pitched Roof Solar System

Weight of Typical Pitched Roof Solar System

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Weight of Typical Pitched Roof Solar System

The purpose of this document is to provide the typical weight of a pitched roof solar system. For this example I’ll use the above image to represent the typical layout of the solar array.

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The typical 60 cell solar module is 39.1” by 65.94”. (39.1”) x (65.94”) / (144” / ft2) = (17.90 ft2) x (8 modules) = (143.2 ft2)

(498.16 lb) / (143.2 ft2) = 3.5 PSF

If you eliminate the micro inverters (458.16 lb) / (143.2 ft2) = 3.2 PSF Compared to shingles, solar modules are light. The typical 3 tab or laminated shingle will weight 200 lb (thin 3-tab shingle) to 480 lb (30 year architectural shingles) per roof square (100 sq ft) that works out to be 2 to 4.8 PSF.

Since the 70’s residential roofs have been designed to hold two layers of shingles so if a house has just one layer of shingles it should be able to easily support solar modules.

Image Credit: SolarWorld SunFix Rack

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