Provo covers two very different housing stocks. Near campus you find homes that have been added onto, rented out, and reroofed at unknown intervals, cut into small roof planes along the way. Farther out, subdivisions built in the last couple of decades offer broad surfaces and a roof age someone can actually document. Solar behaves differently on each. Solar 801 puts Utah County homeowners in touch with residential installers and stays out of the sales pitch, because we publish no savings figures and have no way to predict what any particular house will do.
The older neighborhoods carry the complications. Dormers, chimneys, and additions break a roof into small faces pointed several directions, and each face has its own orientation, pitch, and exposure to shade. Some of those homes have been reroofed more than once, occasionally with a second layer laid over the first, which affects how racking attaches and what the deck can reasonably carry. A homeowner who has owned the place for six months may have no paperwork on any of it. That is normal, and it is precisely what a thorough site visit exists to resolve.
Newer construction east and south of town is simpler. Larger uninterrupted planes, documented build dates, and modern service equipment remove several unknowns at once. The remaining questions become ordinary ones: which direction the main planes face, how steep they are, where the vents and evaporative coolers sit, and whether the builder left anything useful behind the drywall. Simpler does not mean automatic, but it does mean fewer surprises between the day you sign a proposal and the morning an install crew shows up in the driveway.
If the roof needs replacing within a few years, that reshapes everything. Panels have to come off before a reroof and go back on afterward, and you pay for that removal and reinstallation as a job of its own. Nobody enjoys learning this after the fact. Ask any installer to state, in writing, what they observed about the roof covering and how much life they believe remains in it. Then get a second opinion from a roofer who has no stake in whether you buy a solar system at all.
Sequencing is usually the answer. Reroof first, then mount panels on a surface with a full service life ahead of it. Some solar companies coordinate with roofing crews and some do not, and either arrangement works as long as you know which one you have. Keep the documentation from both trades together in one place, since a future leak claim tends to involve both of them, and paperwork settles who is responsible far faster than anyone's memory of a conversation from three summers ago.
A large share of housing here is rented, which splits the decision in two. The owner controls the roof and signs the contract; the tenant pays the utility bill and receives whatever benefit the production delivers. Before anything else, work out who is gaining what, because a system that helps a tenant's monthly bill may do very little for the owner's ledger, and the reverse holds just as often. Lease terms, occupancy turnover, and how the utility account is held all belong in that conversation early.
If you own the property and expect to sell it eventually, the ownership structure matters enormously. A purchased system conveys with the house. A lease or power purchase agreement is a contract the next buyer must accept or you must resolve at closing, and that can complicate a sale in ways owners rarely anticipate. Read the transfer clause yourself before signing. Incentives exist and their terms change over time, so confirm anything tax related with a tax professional rather than with the person holding the tablet.
Start with the seller's disclosure and any permit records the city holds, then have a roofer look at it directly. Age alone is not the whole answer, since exposure, ventilation, and the quality of the original work all affect how long a covering lasts. What matters for solar is remaining life, not the date on a receipt. If that answer is short, replace the roof first and mount panels on the new one.
Yes, as the owner you can, but sort out the economics before any roof work starts. The tenant's utility account, not yours, is usually the one production offsets, so decide how that gets reflected in the lease. Turnover, vacancy, and future rent changes all affect whether the arrangement holds up over time. Talk to your own accountant about how a rental property changes the treatment of any incentive.
Not necessarily, but it needs measuring rather than guessing. Shade reduces output, and the effect shifts through the day and across the seasons as the sun's angle changes. An installer should model the array with the tree in place and show you what the shaded area does to the design. From there the call is yours: trim it, take it out, use only the clear planes, or walk away.
A few details about your home is enough to start. Or call 801-644-9000 and skip the form.