Most rooftop regrets trace back to decisions made before any hardware was chosen. Three checks put the project on solid ground.
Read the roof before the catalogue
Orientation, pitch, shading and structural reserve decide more than any component choice. A chimney shadow that crosses the array at 3 p.m. costs more than a cheaper inverter ever saves — walk the roof with a sun-path app before sizing anything.
Size strings for the site, not the datasheet
String voltage rises on cold mornings and current climbs on bright afternoons. Both must stay inside the inverter’s window at your site’s extremes, not at standard test conditions. East–west roofs usually want two trackers; long single-pitch roofs often run best on one.
Plan the electrical room early
Inverter, protection, metering and a future battery all want wall space near the consumer unit, with ventilation and cable routes that do not fight the house. An hour with a tape measure beats a change order every time.
Match components that already speak
Monitoring, export limiting and backup switching work best when module electronics, inverter and meter come from one coordinated family. Mixed fleets work, but every interface is a place for a fault to hide.
