I always wanted to be self sufficient and be able to separate myself from the constantly growing costs from the grid and other government related costs as part of life.
In 2021 I started asking for quotes for solar installations to gauge how much it would be. I was getting around 17-18k prices for maxing out my area on my shop, about 8kW DC. At the time it wasn’t making financial sense as the payback period was 15+ years. It would have been smarter to just invest in the SP500 (8 year payback). I pondered over that year and started to think about doing it myself. After doing research into the winter and talking with a few people and friends I started to get supply only quotes. At the time there wasn’t really any online suppliers that had good prices. I ended up getting supplied locally from a new company in town which was cheaper than online and I was able to deal with any issues locally if they arose (and eventually they did, but small). I was able to get the greener homes grant with the federal government natural resources Canada with a homeowners permit for electrical work. So I was able to knock of my solar installations by around 5k.
I first installed all my racking and grounding per drawings from my supplier and from manufacture requirements. Finding truss locations for the rail supports was interesting. I first tried to measure on the roof using measurements from inside the attic. Turns out it’s easier to just knock on the singles to generally find centres. After all my supports were in I installed the rails and spent a lot of time getting those very flat with each other so the adjacent panels wouldn’t be offset at all. I bonded my rails with a continuous #6 green to my soladeck JB. Each rail had through bolt of beaver lugs. My TSBC inspector needed pictures to verify the grounding of the racking system. Before I could install the micros and panels.
Bonding was passed over text, then I installed all my micros and bus cable with a ton of tie wraps. I installed all the romex cable to my soladeck and combined a few bus cables there. The inspector wouldn’t pass any kind of AC combining there unless it was a designated load centre. Although the solar supplier was doing this everywhere it wouldn’t pass. So I ran separate romex cables to each of my bus cables on the roof. Each bus has their own breaker in my sub panel in the shop. Now I was passed to install the panels finally.
Panels went in very fast with a ladder slider I made that allowed me to get them on the roof by myself with a pulling system from my truck. The kinetic racking system was super easy to use and highly recommended. Wiring management of the solar cabling was difficult. No matter how tight you have it they will sag in the future by way more than you think. It’s also difficult with the older APS QS1A quad micros which require cable extensions for your other two panels farther away. I recommend wiring all panels such that the cables are all tie wrapped to the side of the panel you plan to “hinge” when installing/removing and have tie wraps every 10” max everywhere. Even the SWO bus cables that need to span between points will sag big time. I ran some PVC conduit with brackets between rails to tie cables to. It’s the only way. Later years I had to redo some wiring due to the sag.
Once everything was all connected, the inspector came out in person and signed off. We switched on the breakers right away and started back feeding. Once I had my certificate of completion I was able to give that to the BC Hydro net metering program and it was authorized.
At the time we were essentially 100% energy offset, making about 10,000 kWh a year off of 21degree south facing 8.2kW DC.
I have had one micro fail since then which was generally easy to get a replacement from APS but took longer than I wanted. I think it took about 3 weeks. They actually had to have it made as there was no stock in Canada. With quads, you lose 4 panels. Not really recommended. Duos are becoming the norm with more reliability and more power. It was super easy on the app to switch out the micro.
I also had two spare panel inputs in my system (5 quads so 20 panels, but only 18 panels installed) so later I made a custom aluminum rack off my shop wall and installed two more 500W bifacials. So now I’m at 9.2kW DC, 7.5kW AC.
I have since installed a 5 ton heat pump myself and we have an EV. We still have electricity bills but really only in the winter.
Overall it wasn’t a hard project but I do have an engineering degree and deal with this sort of electrical at work. Solar installation is about 30% electrical overall. I spent about 30 hours solo installing the system. I calculated if a company installed the system it would have been about $200 an hour. So well worth it for a DIY install. I was all in at around $9,000. About $1/W with the greener homes grant. 
