Flimsy roof hooks

[fresun]

Hello PV crew,
I am disapointed with progress so far on my first install. Basicly the roof hooks -plain tile design, but they are the long 250 reach style and with no sideways adjustment. So fitted roof hooks and rails using hooks at 900 centres fixed with 8mm coach screws and maintaining a 4-6mm gap between roof hook and tile below. Had to cut a loads of tiles - not much joy and use loads of lead flashing - not very eco! and to top it the damn structure is so flimsy I wouldn't land in it if I were a bird for fear of collapse. the length of the bracket means the weight of the panels force the brackets down onto the tile below despite the requested gap, so having all sorts of alignment problems to boot. Wishing now I had listened to the salesmen who hinted that another bracket design is more popular - perhaps the shorter and surely more rigid design brackets i have now seen on the portal. Now I am considering starting all again from scratch with my east west split as this is supposed to be for MSC assesment. Why are these brackets so flimsy are they supposed to sit on the rafter AND some battoning rather than just floating.
Any advice would be very welcome Thanks Duncan

Deep breaths:shame:

 

[Gavin A]

strip it off, get the right brackets, do it properly, don't have to worry about warranty issues down the line.

fwiw, we're going to have to go back this summer to our first rosemary tile install where we made the exact same mistake of using the plain tile brackets you've got there... 5-6 cracked tiles under the array when I went to check it recently as I had a suspicion all would not be well with it.

There's a supplier on here now stocking specialist mounting gear for rosemary, sure they'll post up tomorrow I'd suggest going with that option for the MCS assessment - we're probably switching over to it I think.

 

[Worcester]

That's why products like:
Solar Limpets ( Solar Limpets-roof hooks-solar pv-solar installation-slate roof hook - Home Page )
Redtip M100 and Hook Stop (See Andy at Sibert Sibert - automated equipment manufacturer and supplier of process consumables )
exist and work.
Neither need any flashing or tile grinding and we've succesfully used lots of both - did a 20kWp array with Limpets earlier this year.
Rosemary / plain tiles seem to be the most common tile around here (even my house got them..)
W'eve also used the Azur UK Flat Tile Roof Hook (Type 1) however in that case you will have to cut and flash tiles, that's it.

Both the top 2 are specifically designed for rosemary tiles.

You live and learn.

 

[SibertSolar]

Thanks Gavin/Worcester, appreciate your recommendations.

Duncan/Fresun - feel free to contact us at any time on 01252 815518 or drop me a mail on andy.oleary @ sibert dot co dot uk. Links to the products mentioned are here and here