Solar & battery
Solar and storage, sized to your actual bills
We read a year of your hydro statements before we draw a single panel. The system that comes back is the one your roof and your consumption justify — not the biggest array we could sell you.
Scope
What a CIRO solar install includes
Panels & racking
Tier-1 modules on flashed, sealed rail systems anchored into rafters — not into sheathing. Layout drawn around vents, valleys and future roof work.
Inverter & rapid shutdown
String or micro-inverters chosen for your shade profile, with module-level rapid shutdown so firefighters can de-energise the roof from the ground.
Battery storage
Optional lithium storage with an automatic transfer point, so the essentials — or the whole panel — ride through an outage without a generator.
EV charger
Level 2 charging wired off the main panel or a load-managed feed, scheduled to draw your own midday surplus before it touches grid power.
Monitoring
Per-string production in an app you can actually read, plus alerting on our side — we usually spot an underperforming string before you notice the bill.
Permits, ESA & net metering
Building permit where required, structural review, ESA inspection booking and the utility net-metering application — all filed and followed up by us.
Rough maths, in the open
What would your roof pay back?
Move the slider to your average monthly electricity bill and pick the way your roof faces. The model behind it is four numbers wide and printed underneath — no black box, no email gate.
It will get you to the right order of magnitude. It cannot see your shade line, your roof pitch, your panel capacity or your rate plan, which is exactly what the site visit is for.
per month
Assumptions: 1,150 kWh per kW per year for an unshaded south-facing GTA roof (×0.86 east–west, ×0.72 mixed or shaded); $0.18/kWh blended delivered rate (energy plus the variable part of delivery); systems sized to offset about 90% of annual consumption and capped at 3–13 kW; installed cost of $2.60–$3.20 per watt, with smaller systems at the top of that band. No rate inflation, financing or incentives are applied.
Estimate only — a real number comes from the site visit, where we measure the roof, read your bills and check the service panel.
Honest screening
Does your roof qualify?
Signals of a good fit
- South, south-east, south-west or a clean east–west pair of slopes
- Asphalt shingle, standing-seam metal or flat membrane in sound condition
- At least 15 years of roof life left, or a re-roof you were planning anyway
- Roughly 30 m² (320 sq ft) of clear plane, free of vents and dormers
- No large tree, chimney or neighbouring wall shading the array between 9am and 4pm
- A 200 A service, or a panel with room for a solar breaker
- An annual bill worth offsetting — usually $130 a month or more
When we will tell you not to
A north-facing main slope, mature trees on the south side, or a roof with only a few years left in it will all push the payback past the point where solar makes sense — and re-roofing under a live array costs real money. Steep or heavily dormered roofs can leave too little unbroken plane to be worth the racking. A 100 A service with an electric range, dryer and EV already on it may need an upgrade before anything is added, which belongs in the decision rather than in a surprise change order.
If that is your house, we will say so at the site visit and walk through what would change the answer — a re-roof, tree work, a panel upgrade, or simply waiting. We would rather lose the job than install an array that underperforms for twenty-five years.
How it goes
Six steps from first visit to first kilowatt-hour
Site & shade assessment
Roof measurement, pitch and azimuth, structural check, a shade reading across the day, and a year of your bills. About an hour, free.
Design & fixed quote
Panel layout, production model, battery and EV options priced separately, and one all-in number — equipment, labour, permits and inspection.
Permits & applications
Building permit where required, structural sign-off, the utility net-metering application and the connection agreement. We file and chase them.
Installation
Our own crew: racking and flashing, modules, DC runs, inverter and disconnect. Most homes are done in one to three days.
ESA inspection & connection
ESA inspects the work, the utility swaps or reprograms the meter, and the system is authorised to export.
Monitoring handover
App set up on your phone, a walkthrough of the disconnects and what the readings mean, and the as-built paperwork in one folder.
Battery backup
Solar alone goes dark in an outage. A battery is what keeps the house running.
For safety, a grid-tied array shuts down the moment the utility drops — otherwise it would energise lines that crews are working on. Adding storage with an automatic transfer point changes that: the house islands itself in under a second, the battery carries the critical circuits, and the panels keep refilling it the next morning.
- During an outage: furnace or heat-pump controls, fridge, sump pump, internet and lights stay on
- Every day: charge on cheap overnight or surplus midday power, discharge through the expensive peak window
- Over the year: less export at a low credit, more of your own generation used at full retail value
Questions
Straight answers
The five we get asked on nearly every driveway. Anything else, ask us on the site visit.
What happens in winter, and does snow have to be cleared?
Production drops in December and January and climbs again from March — a system is sized against the whole year, not one month. Panels are glass on a pitch, so snow generally slides or sublimates off within a day or two of a storm, and the dark surface helps it along. We do not recommend climbing up to clear it; the few kilowatt-hours are not worth the ladder.
Will the mounts void my roof warranty or cause leaks?
Every penetration is lagged into a rafter and sealed with a flashing that tucks under the course above it — the same detail a roofer uses for a vent. We carry our own workmanship warranty on the roof penetrations. Shingle manufacturers generally do not void coverage for a properly flashed solar mount, but we check your specific warranty before we quote, and if your roof is near end of life we will tell you to re-roof first.
How long do panels last, and how much do they fade?
Modules carry a 25-year performance warranty and typically degrade a fraction of a percent per year, so a panel is still expected to produce the large majority of its original output at year 25 — and they usually keep going after that. Inverters are the shorter-lived part: plan on one replacement over the life of the array, and we quote that honestly rather than pretending it never happens.
How does net metering actually work?
Your meter measures the net of what you draw and what you export. Surplus generated on a sunny afternoon becomes a credit that offsets what you pull at night, and credits can carry forward for a period set by the program. It is a bill offset, not a cheque — which is why we size the system to your consumption rather than to the maximum the roof could hold.
What if I sell the house?
An owned, paid-off system transfers with the property; we hand over the as-built drawings, permits, ESA certificate, warranties and monitoring account so your lawyer and the buyer have a clean file. The net-metering agreement is reassigned to the new owner through the utility, and we can walk their inspector or agent through the system. If the system is financed, the balance is settled or assumed at closing like any other secured obligation.
Next step
Book the free site visit. Get a real number.
An hour at your house, a year of your bills, and you will know exactly what solar and storage would do for this specific roof.