Solar in Atlanta collides with the canopy before it collides with anything else. A bungalow in a tunnel of oaks may have no useful sun on the south roof for half the day. A ranch outside the denser neighborhoods may have a long clear plane and only a pine at the corner. Dormers, chimneys, and valleys on older roofs chop the area into pieces. Ice and limbs are not theoretical here. An array on a roof that already catches trees is a design problem, not a decoration. Start with shade and the age of the covering.
Ask for someone to be on the roof and at the electrical panel, not a drawing made only from the sky. Shingles that are curled, bruised by hail, or patched after a limb should be replaced before mounts and flashing go down. Ask how each penetration is flashed and who returns if water shows up at a bracket after a thunderstorm. Ask what happens to the array when the roof is due again. A simple perimeter roof and a chopped intown roof are different layouts, and the plan should look like your house.
Name the modules and the inverter in the writing. Ask whether electronics sit on each module or in one place, and who can tell that production dropped on a hot afternoon when a fuse or a string goes quiet. Older intown services are often small. A panel that was sized for a bungalow in another era may need work before any backfed breaker is honest. That belongs in the first visit. So does the question of who owns the equipment when the installers leave the driveway.
Permits and utility interconnection are the job. Ask who files both, and whether the system stays off until permission to operate is real. Hail, a falling limb, and shade from a neighbor's pine should be spoken as site facts. Salt is not the Atlanta problem. Trees and attic heat are. The useful talk is shade, structure, flashing, and the name on the equipment.
Say Atlanta, say how old the roof is, and say whether oaks cover the south side. Solar in this city is a canopy question first. Call the number on this page.