I’d been thinking for a while about how to set up the mounting/foundation for the solar installation. I settled on “Superstrut” rails that normally are used to hold plumbing and electrical from building frames.
The way these work is they’re hung by threaded rods, and then a clamp bolt, which is just a small metal chunk with a threaded hole, clamps onto the curled rail edges.
If you’ve ever played “Kerbal Space Program” then you know that you just have to add more struts to get your rocket to launch. I only needed a couple in this case.
I marked with a chalk line down the roof, then installed 5/8″ rivet nuts into each sheet metal point where the roof ribs are riveted together. This provides a relatively robust bolt-down point for the strut. Later, when installing the panels I can slide the mount points up and down the roof as necessary. Maybe in the future I can “upgrade” to a tilting panel system or something…
