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Distributed and serviced in the USA by

Hot Sun Industries Inc

1440 N Benson Ave Ste D,

Upland CA 91786

858-683 0800

e-mail: h2otsun.com@gmail.com

web site: http://www.h2otsun.com

Safety First!

You will be tempted to walk backwards when taking measurements and rolling out product. Never walk

backwards on a roof. Fall protection training is available and to use safety equipment you are required to

be certified in the use of ladders and fall protection techniques and equipment. These courses are

inexpensive and only take one day of your life and they look good on your CV. Hot Sun assumes no

responsibility for injury or death caused by the work described in this manual. Most importantly watch out

for your helpers. Young inexperienced people who want to impress old guys like you are at risk of making

a dumb mistake. One wrong step can ruin someone’s future. Wear eye protection. Fumes from CA

adhesive will burn your eyes. Glue headers to fin tubes so your face is upwind.

SHINGLE ROOF SUMMARY

INSTALLATION MANUAL

METHOD 2: STAGGERED HEADERS

The staggered technique means two rows of staggered header manifolds are used at each end of the fin

tubing. This technique affords us the ability to positively secure the header manifolds at each end and

eliminate all the spaces between adjacent one foot wide (11.25” to be exact) Powerstrip sections. This

technique can be employed for conventional or sideways orientations.

This technique is very similar to what we do when ballasting the system (weighing it down) on a flat roof.

The difference here is we are going to make roof penetrations. On sloped shingle roofs we bolt to the roof.

Above you see a rack installation. If it’s a rack we aren’t fussy about our roof connections. We can bolt a

slip collar to the rack at every single header manifold as shown below.

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locations of slip collars

A slip collar is a short piece of 2” pvc pipe. It slips over the 1.5” pvc pipe allowing the 1.5” pvc pipe to

expand and contract and move with temperature. The 2” slip collar can be fastened to the roof via a strap

bracket and a gear clamp and no stress except dead weight is transferred to the roof or rack connection.

Also the 1.5” pipe and header manifold assembly glued to it is now elevated off the roof slightly so nothing

will abrade the rack surface as things shift with temperature change. Note we build racks same as we build

any other structure and we roof the surface.

ss strap bracket slip collar and gear clamp flashing it properly

If you do use this method on a roof use a piece of flashing (buy a 6” wide roll of aluminum flashing and cut

to length) under the strap bracket. This is exactly how you secure plumbing on a roof. Apply polyurethane

roof and flashing sealant, slide flashing up under shingle above, more sealant, position strap bracket, #10

ss (stainless steel) screw thru assembly. Then gear clamp the slip collar to the strap bracket.

The above technique is fine on a rack but on a roof we’d like to have a lot less of these major weight

bearing roof connections. The solution is to interface between the slip collars and the roof with P4100

slotted shallow unistrut or an alternate slotted strut. This type of building material is available at local

hardware stores.

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Roof connection hardware 8” long slotted unistruts and slip collar Flashing shown

The spacing between these two UNISTRUT rails will be determined by the plumbing between the two

rows of staggered headers. Make up the tee and elbow first so you know the spacing. The slip collars are

attached to the unistrut simply using #44 all stainless steel (ss) gear clamps. These slip collars can be

easily repositioned.

As an alternate to the 8” pieces of unistrut Hot Sun now supplies the above aluminum flat bar with the

bolts pressed in at the right positions. Note the 3 holes. The middle one is for a ¼” lag bolt. You’d use that

if you were hitting the rafters for a structural connection (building code Florida). Alternatively two #10 ss

screws can be used thru the 2 smaller holes if you are securing into just the roof sheathing (not trying to

locate rafters).

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Its very important to attach the fin tubes to the headers before assembling the header manifolds to each

other and to the UNISTRUT. Attach to the top headers and leave the tubing longer than needed if flow is

to be up the roof. If flow is side to side then complete one side before doing the final cuts to length of the

fin tubing..

STEP 1: LAYOUT

Remember the fin tubing comes in 88 foot lengths. Half a roll is 44 feet. 1/3 a roll is just under of 30 feet

and ¼ roll is 22 feet. Chances are you are aiming for fin tubing lengths just shy of these ideal dimensions.

You’ll want to leave 2 feet from the edge of the roof usually. Lay it out first and don’t walk backwards on

the roof while you’re measuring. Don’t take a single step or move a muscle when working at height without

first considering where you are. Even on large jobs we recommend no more than 3 workers on the roof at a

time. Two is ideal. Communicate and watch out for each other and don’t talk about anything but the job.

Don’t get distracted.

STEP 2: LOCATE AND INSTALL FIRST UNISTRUT ASSEMBLY

Start at the left or the right and locate the first 3 pieces of aluminum flat bars) so they support the lengths

of unistrut. One in the middle and the others about a foot from each end. If for example you are using 12

headers at each end then scab 2’ of Unistrut onto the 10’ pieces. Little pieces of Unistrut along with nuts

bolts and washers can be used to join Unistrut to Unistrut.

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Locate these roof connection points using a stud finder or other creative means. Lay out the UNISTRUT

assembly at one side (sideways orientation) or at the top (conventional orientation).. Pilot drill first and

apply generous black polyurethane roof and flashing sealant in the pilot hole and between the flashing plate

and the roof surface and also between the flashing plate and the aluminum flat bars (old 8” Unistrut

method shown in pics)

This flashing plate is located like a flashing between shingles to naturally shed water so there is less

reliance on the actual sealed roof connection. Metal to metal above the flashing is easy to seal. It’s the

connection from metal to roof that is the challenging roof connection where we take advantage of flashing..

STEP 3 GLUE STRIP INSTALLATION

Install the glue strips. Glue strips go under the solar panel so they must be installed before the fin tubing

is placed in position. Glue strips are pieces of Powerstrip material stripped into 2 tube wide strips. They

glue tube side down to the roof using construction mastic. Our preferred construction mastic is Loctite PL

Premium 3x. Glue strips and roof connections can be located so all roof connections go into the roof

rafters. That’s only a concern when meeting hurricane codes. When screwing glue strips to the roof use a

stainless steel fender washer above and below the glue strip and use a #10 ss screw and plenty of black

polyurethane roof and flashing sealant. Recommended maximum spacing of these roof connections is 6

feet. A flashing between shingles first can be used at your option. As always pilot drill first when using

stainless steel screws to minimize required torque because they can strip.

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On a sideways installation as shown above the glue strips need to be much more frequent than on systems

oriented conventionally because of gravity. Typically we’ll space the glue strips every 2 feet on sideways

installations as shown above and every 6 feet when orientation is conventional.

STEP 4: HEADERS TO FIN TUBES ONE END

Think about the order you glue things. Study these 2 pictures.

Assemble one header to one end of the fin-tubes and assemble that to the UNISTRUT framework and slip

collars. See main installation manual. Apply the CA adhesive (Turbofuse) all the way around all 18 nipples

and then push the fin tubes on 2 at a time. Nick at the perforation on the fin tubes and strip out 6” or so so

you can handle the fin tubes 2 at a time. CA on nipples only. That’s different than pvc to headers. Treat the

headers just like a piece of pvc or a fitting. Follow the instructions on the can. We don’t use primer

because the pvc cement reacts with our header material more than it does with pvc. The length of the pvc

pipes between headers is 9-5/8” . Don’t forget the slip collar before gluing the assemblies together. You

can’t slip a slip collar on after the headers are glued. All this gluing is done with heavy body grey PVC

cement. Refer to Section 4.2 of the main manual for more on cements. The slip collars are short lengths

of PVC pipe one size larger. In this case 2”. Pay attention to rotation of the headers as you glue your way

along. You want the fin tubes coming off at the same angle from each header. Don’t crank the #44 gear

clamp down so hard it collapses the slip collar and prevents the free movement of the assembly with

temperature.

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AGAIN: DO NOT GLUE THE HEADER ASSEMBLY TOGETHER WITHOUT ASSEMBLING FIN

TUBES TO HEADERS FIRST. You need the header free to attach fin tubes using the header vice and you

need to be able to get CA adh4sive around the nipples fully.

STEP 5: TACK THE FIN TUBING WITH CA

Once the first (lowest on the roof) header is attached to fin tubes those fin tubes can be tacked to the glue

strips. Tack the lowest on the roof first so the next ones have something to rest against and don’t need as

much tacking. Bend back the fin tube at the glue strip location with one hand and tack in place with the

4oz bottle of CA adhesive. Hold it for a second so the bond takes. Tack the whole system in place this way

before opening any construction mastic tubes. Construction mastic is messy. You can’t get it off your

clothes and it stains your skin. Construction mastic (Loctite or Lepages PL premium 3x) is the absolute

final step. You usually put water thru the system and run it while you apply the construction mastic. Note

you don’t have to tack every piece of fin tubing. It depends on roof pitch. If you start at the bottom and

work your way to the top the fin tubes will stack. The construction mastic takes days to dry but it’s the

final and real adhesive. The CA tack is temporary although if it takes well it will last forever as well. Don’t

tack all the way to the far end. You still have to cut fin tubes to length and attach headers and assemble

that end. Here’s a quick recap for clarity. Start at the bottom of the roof. Header to fin tubes, fin tubes to

glue strip, next header to fin tubes, then those fin tubes to the roof. Add collars and intermediary pvc pipes

as you go logically. Watch the video under videos at www.h2otsun.com

STEP 5: ASSEMBLE OTHER HEADER ASSEMBLY

Once the fin tubes are all in place and tacked down think about building the far end. Snap 2 chalk lines the

right spacing apart. Its about 6”.

Cut the longer fin tubes and attach those headers first. This way you won’t make a mistake and cut a long

fin tube short. Then cut the inner fin tubes for the inner row of headers. Glue the headers on and then glue

these inner headers together via the 9-5/8” pvc stubs and again don’t forget to slide those slip collars on

first. Once the fin tubes are chalk marked you can install the unistrut framework knowing exactly where to

locate it. Its hard to mark the fin tubes with that assembly in the way so chalk lines first, then assemble

headers to fin tubes staring with cutting the longer pieces and attaching those headers. Then fold them out

of the way and cut the shorter fin tubes and attach those headers. Locate and install unistrut at this stage

,then plumb header to header and attach to unistrut. DON’T FORGET THE SLIP COLLARS. Rookies

always forget slip collars. It helps to tape the slip collars to the 9-5/8” stubs ahead of any gluing. Note you

may have to adjust that 9-5/8” length a little here and there for perfection.

STEP 6: CONSTRUCTION MASTIC

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Do the plumbing and run water thru the system first. It’s a lot more comfortable to crawl around on the roof

on a cold sheet of black instead of a very hot sheet.

When sticking the fin tubes to the glue strips with the construction mastic also glue the glue strips to the

roof at the same time. All construction mastic in one operation to keep it off yourself and so nothing has to

be messed with after the construction mastic. It takes several days to dry sometimes. Use the 12oz tubes not

the large ones because the big tubes are too heavy for one handed operation and also the stuff keeps

coming out after you finish squeezing. Its too hard to manage the big tubes.

ANGLED HEADERS:

Often the roof will not be a rectangular shape, rather one end or both will be at an angle to the fin tubes.

This angle will vary depending on the gable design. If you angle the header assembly to match the roof

line you can usually accommodate fin tubes with no spacing between them without having to stagger the

headers. You can do it with one row of headers. There are 2 ways to do this depending on how much

space the angle of the roof line affords you. You can alternate the headers and vary the length of the pvc

stub between female ends to accommodate the fin tube spacing or you can keep all the headers facing the

same direction. The advantage to keeping them all in the same direction is the spacing between headers

stays the same and that does look better. Usually however the way to do it is to glue the male ends together

via pvc glue on couplings and vary the length of pvc pipe between female ends. Use a slip collar over the

stub between female ends and clamp it to a bar of unistrut.

The method is similar to staggered. Insert the flashing plate between shingles with sealant first. Here we’re

often using a 6” piece of unistrut as the foot. Next pilot drill thru and then screw to the roof. The screw

should be #14 or ¼” but in light wind, normal pitch, with no structural engineering signoff requirement

we’ll use #10 ss screws. Then both the main unistrut rail to the foot using a unistrut nut bolt and washer.

Now you have a nice member to gear clamp your slip collars to. You’ll vary the length of that stub

between female ends to achieve the spacing as you go. This little piece of Unistrut has now been upgraded

to an aluminum flat bar.

To attach fin tubes to headers at an angle read section 4.5 of the main installation manual

PLUMBING

At the 2 other corners ideally you want to just cap those pipes. That’s better than joining them together

with 2 elbows or an elbow and a tee. The capped bottom corner can trap water. You need for that

water to drain out. A great trick is a small ¼” OD copper tube from those low points to the return or

feed line plumbing. Its OK if water leaks out there constantly during operation. We can afford to lose

1-2% of our flow. In the photo below we’ve drilled 7/16 and tapped ¼” NPT just using a crescent

wrench. Then Teflon take on ¼” compression fittings with ¼” NPT male threaded ends.

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Copper auto drain line Vacuum breaker on pipe entering collectors

Paint all your plumbing especially any pvc joints. UV gets right thru PVC and attacks the joints. We

don’t like spray paint. Its too thin and it wears off. Use paint from a can. Apply with a 1” brush and a

small roller. Gloss black looks better and seems to hold up better. Acrylic paints are ideal for plastic

but we’ve found we get away with any paint as long as it comes from a can, even latex.

Once system is plumbed, check pressure at vacuum breaker location with solar off and with solar on.

It should be zero with solar off and no more than 3 psi with solar on. If not read the full manual or

consult with Hot Sun or your dealer.

The main installation manual is your reference. This manual covers the specifics of an installation done

with structural members on a shingle roof.