New installation
We rank every qualifying roof in the territory you name, commercial and residential, on usable area, obstructions, roof age, ownership and utility context. The first 3 are free.
Free preview: 3 properties, delivered 3 business days after we confirm your territory. No card, no call.
Sec. 01 — The decision
Your rep spends fifteen to twenty-five minutes ruling one building out — metal deck, triple-net lease, array already there — and a residential street is dozens of them. We run that pass first.
See how the research worksSec. 02 — Evidence
Eight indicators decide whether a property belongs in a solar pipeline, commercial or residential, each from a named source with a hard edge past which remote evidence stops.
| Indicator | Where it comes from | What it settles — and what it does not |
|---|---|---|
| Usable roof plane area | Aerial imagery at 15–30 cm ground sample distance, building footprint polygons | Measures the contiguous membrane left after curbs, skylights and fire-code setbacks, which is what sizes an array. It does not confirm structural capacity for ballast. |
| Roof form and membrane type | Imagery, oblique views where flown, assessor construction and roof-cover fields | Separates low-slope single-ply and modified-bitumen decks, where ballasted racking is normal, from standing-seam metal, gravel BUR and steep-slope tile. Thickness and remaining life need a core cut. |
| Obstruction and shading load | Imagery, adjacent building heights, tree canopy extents | Counts rooftop units, condensers, exhaust fans, skylights and parapet height, and flags buildings shaded from the south. A shade-loss percentage needs a 3D model or a site survey. |
| Roof age and last roof event | Assessor year-built, municipal reroof and recover permits with valuations | Gives the date of the last permitted roof work, the best predictor of whether an owner will accept a 25-year asset on the deck. Unpermitted reroofs and coatings leave no record. |
| Residential roof planes and street pattern | Imagery, assessor roof-cover, year-built and living-area fields, residential reroof and PV permits | On houses the evidence shifts to plane orientation, pitch and canopy shading, plus the assessor's roof-cover and year-built fields. Permits cluster by subdivision, so one filing often marks a street. It does not establish household finances. |
| Utility, tariff and interconnection regime | Utility service territories, published commercial and residential rate schedules, state net-metering and interconnection rules | Establishes which utility, rate structure and interconnection process a project runs through — a live market or a dead one. It does not give the account's rate class or service size. |
| Owner-occupied versus leased | Assessor owner of record, owner mailing address (the rental test on a house), business listings | Flags the properties where whoever benefits from the power also controls the roof, which is the fastest path to a signature. Whether a specific lease permits a rooftop asset is only in the lease. |
| Array already present | Imagery panel signatures, PV-scoped electrical permits, state interconnection registries | Removes roofs already served from the new-installation queue. Those buildings are the input to a maintenance and repair territory, which is a different report. |
Most US metros are reflown every 12–24 months, assessor rolls refresh annually, and permit indexes range from same-week to non-existent. Every row carries its source and date.
Sec. 03 — The engagement
One ranked document, ordered so a rep opens it at rank one instead of opening imagery.
Every qualifying building, ordered, with address, parcel identifier and the rank rationale in one row.
Contiguous usable area, roof form, apparent membrane type, and the count and placement of rooftop obstructions.
Owner of record and mailing address, apparent owner-occupied or leased status, year built, and every reroof, recover or PV permit located.
Serving utility, the commercial rate schedules that apply, and the state net-metering and interconnection regime.
The market in aggregate, which buildings we excluded and why, and where records were too thin to rank.
Sec. 04 — Limits
Everything below the line needs a person on the roof, a document, or the utility.
Sec. 05 — Questions
Both, and one territory can mix them — the buyer is always a company, the property type is whatever you sell to. On houses the ranking leans on plane orientation, pitch, canopy shading and assessor roof records.
No. It is a ranked research report on the territory you defined, with the evidence for each rank attached — it does not establish owner interest, feasibility, or consent to be contacted.
No. A high rank means the most usable area, the cleanest obstruction picture and a workable tariff and ownership position; structural capacity, service size, consumption, membrane life and permitting are all still open.
Yes. Minimum roof area, property types, roof-age windows, owner-occupied only, single-utility territories — the free 3-property preview exists so you can test yours before committing to a larger scope.
They are excluded from the new-installation ranking and listed separately. If you also sell operations and maintenance, those buildings start a solar maintenance and repair territory report instead.
Further reading
The method behind this report, written out in full.
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Explore this solutionStart with your real territory
Name the geography, your minimum usable roof area and the property types you sell to. We return 3 ranked buildings with the full evidence set in 3 business days, free.
3 properties · 3 business days · no card
