Are exterior conduits the new norm????

[sorka]

Nearly every install I've seen talked about on this forum has had exterior conduits. I called a half dozen friends/family that has solar and the installers all did through attic running of the lines and in the cases where inverters were on walls that had attic access, ran those line into the walls to the inverter.

So it is normal? I'm asking because half my array as proposed has an exterior conduit going about 130 feet vs if it just went through the attic which would be half the distance. Not only that, the only way to get that conduit on the exterior to where the inverter will be will require some 25+ bends (complicated in my case).

Is this a code thing? Cost thing? Both?

 

[BrettS]

I think it is done on a case by case basis. My install was done in June and they ran the DC conduit from the solar arrays through my attic. My Powerwall conduit was run outside the house (and Tesla painted the conduit to match the house) because there wasn’t really a good way to hide the conduit for the powerwalls since my walls are cinderblock.

 

[bkp_duke]

Installers are like everyone else . . . they are lazy and take the path of least resistance. They are familiar with external conduit, and more importantly they don't have to get into your attic (punch through the roof, etc.) and open up potential issues by doing that.

I'm with you, I HATE external conduit. To me it violates my sense of asthetics. I forced SunPower (solar) and Tesla (PWs) to do internal conduit. Both installers hated me for it, but it's my house and I get to look at it for the next 30+ years.

 

[mnsweeps]

@BrettS did you provide the paint or did Tesla get it for you?

 

[SMAlset]

@bkp_duke I’m kind of like that too on many things but with covid and not really wanting workers walking through the house and attic, elected the exterior routing of our solar conduit. Actually really happy with the job. Waiting to have them finish all the work before sharing photos of our setup but here’s a few illustrating the exterior conduit run.

They smartly (and economically) did the shortest run of conduit from what I can tell. The side wall enters our garage near the ceiling. We had a main panel upgrade done in our stucco wall so that area needs painting anyway at which time we plan to have that entire southwest facing wall repainted along with the vertical conduit. Should really minimize the appearance of it. House was painted in 2013 and that wall undoubtedly has experienced a lot of fading. We thought our HOA and us for that matter would be happier getting the whole wall painted.

Need to weigh the positives and negatives but felt if at some time there becomes a wiring issue, it would also be easier to address and fix it with no house access required. That was kind of a biggie for us. Now while I think they did a nice job in the garage, I ideally would have preferred the drywall removed and wiring ran and then re-sheetrocked. Just didn’t want to go through all that.

BTW Tesla supplied the paint for the roof conduit.

 

[SMAlset]

BTW for the consumer it’s their choice but something you need to talk about with them as it probably factors into their cost of runs etc. Otherwise you could get surprised with additional costs of installation down the road.

 

[wjgjr]

BTW for the consumer it’s their choice but something you need to talk about with them as it probably factors into their cost of runs etc. Otherwise you could get surprised with additional costs of installation down the road.

When I was in the contracting phase (though for solar roof) they indicated it would be a $1k charge to run the conduit inside the wall. We declined as we weren't sure it was even possible (old brick house with essentially no way to run in exterior walls and almost all interior walls filled with duct work.) Despite declining, the installers said they would consider an interior run at no additional charge, but in the end did not feel like they could find a way to make it work.

 

[bemyax]

My external conduit goes up and over the roof, loops around the gutter, and down the side. The house is 116 years old, previous owners have boxed things in all over the place. There is no break in the external wall/soffit to pop back out of an attic run. The designer completely ignored all of that stuff. Fortunately, the installer also lives in a home that's over a hundred years old and knew exactly what the problem was.

It's on an old two-story in a cramped neighborhood. And trees. You can see it with the drone. But in this "low-income" neighborhood nobody even thinks to try to look up there for solar.

 

[BrettS]

@BrettS did you provide the paint or did Tesla get it for you?

I had paint that matched my house, so I provided that. They provided the brushes and the labor. It sounded like it would be possible for them to provide the paint as well, but I had it so we didn’t really discuss it at all. There was a small amount of exposed conduit on the roof and they did provide the paint to paint that.

 

[Electrph]

In general, with tesla doing install is running conduit thru roof / within attic, if feasible an additional cost or just something you would have to convince lead into doing ?

 

[BrettS]

In general, with tesla doing install is running conduit thru roof / within attic, if feasible an additional cost or just something you would have to convince lead into doing ?

Maybe it depends on the location or the install team, or even the particular house. But in my case they ran the conduit in the attic without charge and without me requesting it. It just appeared to be a standard part of the install.

 

[mnsweeps]

You guys talking about conduits on the roof, right? how about the conduits running from the roof to the junction box down on lower floor? those have to be on the side of the house, right?

 

[bkp_duke]

You guys talking about conduits on the roof, right? how about the conduits running from the roof to the junction box down on lower floor? those have to be on the side of the house, right?

Mine are in the wall (running from attic through an internal wall down to the garage). But I paid SunPower a small fortune for that

 

[SMAlset]

Every home install will be somewhat different I suspect. Apart from the AC Disconnect switch mounted on our exterior wall near the main service panel, all of our equipment is inside our double garage.

In our case (see photos above, #5) the metal conduit from the roof enters the interior garage wall near the ceiling and runs along the ceiling over to the Inverter (placed with our Gateway and PWs on the far left side of our double garage). It then runs from the Inverter to the Gateway and then to the PWs. From the PWs it goes to one of the two load center panels. The other panel (distribution) has metal conduit running thru the interior garage wall to the AC Disconnect next to our main service panel which is located on the exterior of the home. It was a more complicated install due to the distance of the equipment from the wall where our service panel was.

Here’s a photo of our exterior wall at service panel. We’ll paint the panel and box the house color after they complete our install. Overall the work visible from the street should look pretty minimal. Apart from the solar panels located on the side of the house, the conduit that runs from roof to first floor ceiling level and the addition of the AC Disconnect both of which will be painted, people wouldn’t know we had the install done.

 

[BrettS]

We’ll paint the panel and box the house color after they complete our install

You may want to paint before the install is complete. The very last step in my install was for them to install just under 100 little red stickers all over the panels and conduits. Painting the panels is going to be way easier if you do it before the stickers are on the boxes so you don’t have to paint around them.

 

[jboy210]

I had paint that matched my house, so I provided that. They provided the brushes and the labor. It sounded like it would be possible for them to provide the paint as well, but I had it so we didn’t really discuss it at all. There was a small amount of exposed conduit on the roof and they did provide the paint to paint that.

I did the same thing. We had paint leftover from repainting the exterior a few years ago. They used it for the gutters (part of SolarRoof at the time), downspouts, stucco (very minor from holes), and conduit.

 

[jboy210]

Nearly every install I've seen talked about on this forum has had exterior conduits. I called a half dozen friends/family that has solar and the installers all did through attic running of the lines and in the cases where inverters were on walls that had attic access, ran those line into the walls to the inverter.

So it is normal? I'm asking because half my array as proposed has an exterior conduit going about 130 feet vs if it just went through the attic which would be half the distance. Not only that, the only way to get that conduit on the exterior to where the inverter will be will require some 25+ bends (complicated in my case).

Is this a code thing? Cost thing? Both?

Don't know why they did that. We have some, but the lines come together in a box installed in the attic (solarroof), and from there is a conduit inside the attic connecting to a conduit run down the outside to the inverters.

 

[SMAlset]

You may want to paint before the install is complete. The very last step in my install was for them to install just under 100 little red stickers all over the panels and conduits. Painting the panels is going to be way easier if you do it before the stickers are on the boxes so you don’t have to paint around them.

Our painter is planning to mask them I believe. Doubt he’d want to come out to just paint boxes and come back later to touch up drywall and roll out the house wall. Wouldn’t be worth his time or our cost likely. Applying to metal might have better adhesion than over house paint. Tesla still has our NEMA 14-50 to move and drywall area (one of the maintenance items). But yeah I know there’s a ton of them that get applied.

 

[wjgjr]

Don't know why they did that. We have some, but the lines come together in a box installed in the attic (solarroof), and from there is a conduit inside the attic connecting to a conduit run down the outside to the inverters.

That's what they did for our solar roof as well after they determined they could not run a conduit down an interior wall (since our inverter is in the basement, that would have been ideal.) I do wonder if they are more reluctant to punch holes in an existing roof for solar panels.

 

[SMAlset]

If you have an accessible eave to run it down through like in our photo they can go that route and not enter the attic. Add flashing just like for any vent pipe and seal around.