Flat roof spacing

[Stig]

You'll have to remember to clean them from time to time as flat panels aren't going to get so well washed by the Cornish rain.

Will there be any shading from the house or garage? Doesn't really affect the flat / angled decision, just whether optimisers or micro inverters would be worthwhile or not.

[Stan]

Yes, the aluminium frame stands proud of the glass by about 2.5mm, probably with a chamfer. I have a pair of monsters at 6 degrees inclination and the water pools along the junction, wide enough for the dirt and alga to partly cover the edge of each cell. Zero inclination will bring its own problems. It might be worth inclining them at say 20 degrees for this reason alone.


At least they are readily accessible with a squeegee.

[Stinsy]

Here is what happened to the bottom of my 12° inclined panels after a year:

[pudding]

Thanks for the info. The car port is yet to be built. I ordered the timber and roof sheets for it today and yesterday and will be building it myself. It's going in between these two buildings, from the open garage section to the house.



I'll probably try and build it with a 5deg slope, so hopefully that'll be enough to see off the worst of the dust and algae. I think we've only cleaned the other solar panels there once in 6/7years and theres no algae at all, i think because its pretty windy here and there no trees nearby to blow organic bits onto them, v lucky!