Solar in Raleigh is an oak-shade problem before it is anything else. Inside the Beltline a south roof can be in canopy by noon, cut up by dormers and chimneys on an older house. North and east, a later roof may have a clearer plane and only a pine at the corner. Hail is secondary here to shade, attic heat, and the occasional ice limb. Tropical wind tests attachments without being a beach design. A drawing from the sky will miss the soft deck and the small older service. Ask someone to stand on the roof and open the panel.
Do not set mounts on a covering that is already tired, curled, or patched after a limb. Ask how every anchor is weathered against rain blown in for a whole day, and who returns if a drip shows at a bracket. Ask how the array is removed when the roof itself is due. A bungalow full of valleys and a simple ranch are different sheets of paper. Skylights and dormers steal area under the oaks. Say what the slope actually holds. Ventilation under the array still matters because these attics cook.
Put module and inverter names in the writing. Say whether electronics are at each module or gathered in one place, and who can tell that production stopped after a storm or a quiet fault. Beltline electrical services are often modest. A backfed breaker and a disconnect may not fit the panel that has been there for decades. That is a first look, not a footnote. So is ownership: who holds the equipment, and who takes it down to open the deck.
Filing the permit and the utility request is part of the work. Ask who does both, and whether the system remains idle until operation is allowed. Shade from a street oak, a neighbor pine, and wind from an inland tropical day are the site facts. This is not salt hardware and not a high-country snow design. Skip any monthly-account story. Structure, flashing, and the equipment names are the talk that helps.
Say Raleigh, the age of the roof, and how hard the oaks shade the south. Solar in this city is a canopy layout with more rain than people plan for. Call the number on this page.