When Ryan Potter, Vice President of Renewable Energy Services for Green Seal Environmental, first saw Roof Tech’s products at the PV America tradeshow in Boston in February 2016, he knew he had found something that worked for his business.
“I had been searching for a mounting solution to serve as our go-to product,” said Potter. “After assessing the competition, it was clear that Roof Tech had a superior product. The components are small, easy to ship, and simple to handle on the roof. And the decorative skirt creates a nice, clean look that our customers love.”
Green Seal Environmental provides environmental consultation and engineering services to municipal, federal and private clients throughout Southeastern Massachusetts. Their team of professional engineers, master electricians and project managers works with residential and commercial clients to deliver design, construction, commission and maintenance of solar photovoltaic systems. Green Seal was founded in 1997 and is headquartered on Cape Cod in Sagamore Beach, Mass.
Soon after the Boston tradeshow, Potter spoke with another Roof Tech customer in his region who gave high marks to Roof Tech products. At that point, Potter decided to install a 9.9-kW photovoltaic system on his own home using E Mount AIR. After finalizing his residential system in mid-April, Potter enlisted his subcontractors to install 96 solar panels on his office – also using E Mount AIR – and that project was approved by the end of May 2016.
The benefits of RT butyl tape
While the use of butyl tape to seal flashing is new to many solar installers, Potter was already familiar with its superior performance.
“I’ve had confidence in this material for a long time,” he explained. “I started using butyl tape on my solar racking systems more than six years ago. Before anyone had developed a mounting solution for corrugated metal roofing, we designed our own flashing using butyl tape. It’s a real comfort when you see the goo come out from the edges of the flashing and you can be confident that you have a truly watertight seal.”
Potter noted that when he first saw Roof Tech products in Boston, his company wasn’t doing many residential projects.
“About 90 percent of our projects are commercial,” he said, “but we needed to keep pace with the incentives, so we began to install solar on more homes. Now we do two or three residential projects a month.”
At the beginning, Potter’s installers weren’t very savvy about asphalt roofing. “I come from a construction background, and I know the carpentry aspect can be challenging,” he said. “You have to know exactly where the rafters are and pull back the shingles to place the flashing. Now E Mount Air makes that whole process fast and simple.”
Since installing solar panels on his own home and office, Potter has completed two more residential installations for his customers using E Mount Air – and, he has a third project in development.
“Now that I’ve seen for myself how fast and easy it is to mount panels using E Mount Air, I plan to keep using it on future residential projects,” said Potter. “I’ve finally found that go-to product I had been searching for.”
— Solar Builder magazine
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