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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Wrenches</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>I have a customer building a new 2 story home with a great
S-SW exposure but only to the wall that makes up the entire end of the house.
The owners want no ground mounted array to preserve the hot, dry,
rocky yet beautiful landscape.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>This will be a pretty straightforward wall
mounted, perfectly tilted pair of >30 foot arrays. The big glitch is
that they plan on finishing the entire house with natural limestone, Austin
stone it's called 'round here.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>My concern is this; to extend the mounting "standoffs"
6"-7" beyond the rock face and still keep the weight of the array from
putting excessive strain on the attachment lag bolts, I need something
with a diagonal rib or some other means of bracing the horizontal standoffs
supporting the top of each array.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Mounting a brace every 48", 3x16" centers, could do the
trick but turn into a lot of extra stone work and cost for the mounting
BOS. I would prefer fewer but stronger mounting brackets. Bolting completely
thru the wall studs is not an option.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The actual array tilt and rail hardware will be the Pro
Solar Roof track tilt up kits which should hold well for the
vertical pulling force as well as it does for its normal horizontal
dead-weight strength.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Any suggestions would be appreciated. This will be the
first wall mounted system I have tried so I want a no-regrets design even if
it's a bit overdesigned.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>thx</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Jim Duncan<BR>North Texas Renewable Energy
Inc<BR>817.917.0527<BR><A
href="mailto:ntrei@earthlink.net">ntrei@earthlink.net</A><BR><A
href="http://www.ntrei.com">www.ntrei.com</A> </FONT></DIV>
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