Part of the reason to do the roof with real plywood, instead of OSB, etc., was to make it nice and solid for the metal roofing and solar panels. Should make it good for mounting the racking.
We had some nice weather today (sunny AND above freezing!) so most of the snow melted off the roof. That lets me actually make some measurements.
From the peak to the eave is almost exactly 18 feet. I don't actually have a tape measure long enough to measure the width of the garage, but on the plans, the building is 27 feet wide PLUS a one foot roof overhang on each side.
A projection for three rows of 8 solar panels comes out to 27 feet wide by 16 and a half feet tall.
That would put the edges of the solar all the way out to the edge of the frame of the building itself, but NOT put any weight on the overhang.
It seems like every solar install I've ever seen has an extra couple inches of rack on either end. I'd also need someplace for the combiner box to go, which usually is mounted on one of the rack rails. Because of the one foot overhang all the way around, this should give enough space for a few inches for racking and a 6x6" combiner box.
Again, I still have to go talk to the local building inspector in person to see exactly what he expects. I've kept my eye on the only other PV installation that I know of under the same jurisdiction, and it comes pretty close to the roof peak and a pair of valleys, so I think that the local regulations shouldn't be overly restricive.
I overlaid the solar panel layout on top of my garage plans diagram. The solar panels image is web-generated from a wizard, so it's not necessarily perfectly to scale or an exact representing. I think I got it pretty close though.
