UniSolar Shingles [RE-wrenches]

Jim Hartley grail at inil.com
Fri Apr 20 06:23:34 PDT 2001


I have no prior experience with this product but I have a probable 
client who has an interest in using the product.  These shingles would 
be applied onto a converted barn used both as living space and for the 
client's business operations.  The current roof is shingled but is now 
leaking in areas.  Re-roofing seems necessary at this point.  The barn 
is quite large and has far more roof surface than would be necessarily 
"power producing" or economically feasible in its entirety.  Hence, only 
a portion of the roof would end up being re-surfaced with solar 
shingling.  Happily, the roof has two very workable primary facets, the 
lower of which is an ideal seasonal average pitch for this area.  The 
roof is facing directly south across a quite large open farmfield 
protected from development for the next hundred years.  The upper, lower 
pitched facet would be better for summer.  The underside of the roof is 
presently fully exposed and readily accessible if somewhat high up from 
the current loft floor. This loft area is being considered for future 
finishing off. My question in this connection is multi-fold for anyone 
with experience using this product.  First, can you go over existing 
shingled surfaces or are we looking at removing what's there now and 
starting from scratch?  My thinking is the latter would be the case.  
The roof substrate is barnboard [planking], not conventional roof 
decking.  Secondly, can you successfully mix and match real shingles and 
these UniSolar shingles so that just a particular area of the new 
surfacing is occupied by the solar shingles?  Thirdly, who really should 
be doing the application?  In Illinois, roofing/re-roofing is only 
supposed to be done [officially] by licensed roofing contractors.  Since 
I have done roofing myself before I know this isn't always the case [I'm 
not a licensed roofer] but this situation will certainly draw some 
attention from the local code people. Assuming this is the approach one 
must pursue, how have roofers responded to using this product so far if 
anyone has faced this issue before?  Finally, what unknowns might we run 
into here?  I should note also this client has a very nice wind location 
and the overall project [should it prove financially workable] could 
prove to be something of a showcase thing since the client is fully open 
to public visitations.  For this reason it would be quite nice to have 
everything work out well. :-)

Jim Hartley
http://www.homestead-specialties.com
Business Email: JamesHartley at homestead-specialties.com
Direct Email: grail at inil.com

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