Solar panels on damaged roof?

flyinggoose

Alright so this is going to sound a bit dumb and usually it would be a big fat no from me, but here's my situation.

I'm having solar panels installed at the end of this month, the installer came to take a look and noticed that two or three of the rosemary tiles were damaged so I agreed to get a roofer out before the installation date to get these fixed, would be pretty simple I thought.

But here's the thing, after speaking to a very experienced roofer in my area who's also discussed this with other roofers he knows he's saying it's not worth trying to repair or replace a few rosemary tiles because trying to do that will probably damage the other tiles leading to more problems, I've found the same advice looking around on the net aswell when it comes to rosemary tiles.

So I don't know what to do at this point, I guess my options are:

1) Replace the roof (pretty over the top and expensive, I mean if the damage was extensive then that would have been a different matter)

 

2) Don't have the solar panels installed (this option seems pointless)

 

3) Have the solar panels installed and hope for the best

What do you guys think? The roofer said the damage to the other tiles will occur when they'll climb onto the roof to get to the damaged tiles, but then again the solar installers will be doing the same to put the panels on... I'm so confused at this point!

Verdigris

Have an "in-roof" installation. It'll look great and you can have the roof refurbed at the same time. You'll have plenty of spare tiles!

Solar panels, even in-roof, are cheaper than Rosemary tiles, per square metre.

2nd_time_buyer

I believe you can repair with lead flashing under the broken tiles. Certainly that is what a friend has done.

Verdigris

2nd_time_buyer said:

I believe you can repair with lead flashing under the broken tiles. Certainly that is what a friend has done.

It sounds like the roof is "nail sick". It will probably need re-battening, so by fitting in-roof panels to cover as much area as possible, it will reduce the amount of actual re-tiling to a minimum, as well as looking a million dollars.

flyinggoose

The in roof solar panels is a really good idea, i'll have to check with the installer to see if they do in-roof installations.