Solar in Cleveland starts with lake snow, ice slide, and an older roof, not with a clear-sky sketch. Piles cover modules for long stretches, especially on lower slopes and porch roofs that should never carry an array. Steep house roofs shed in sheets that can tear at mounts. Gray days off the lake are part of the design talk, not a surprise after the equipment is up. Street trees and the next house shade tight lots. If the covering is tired or dammed with ice every winter, the roof comes before any module.
A person has to get on the slope, because lake snow hides the deck and a photo from the sky will not show mortar that released the chimney flashing. Ask who answers when an ice dam wets a mount. Ask how the modules come off the day this steep roof is replaced. Side yards fill with plowed snow, so the path for materials is part of the job, not a drawing detail.
Modules and inverters should be named as specific gear. Equipment that can isolate a shaded or snow-covered corner behaves differently from a single string when one eave stays buried. You should know who gets the call when an inverter goes quiet under a January lake sky. A garage behind the house may see a different snow pattern and may be the weaker deck. Say if the gear should belong to you. Flat porch roofs are not leftover space.
Permits and the utility permission to operate are part of the work. Ask who files them and what changes if the layout has to avoid a soft, dam-prone eave. Winter output on this shore will not resemble a bright summer afternoon. Say that before mounting. Ice leaving a valley can beat on anything in its path. A short safe season on the roof is a scheduling fact, not a detail.
Say the age of the roof, how steep it is, and whether snow is on it now. Mention ice dams if they are a yearly event. Call the number on this page.