CTV Toronto: An engineer has been called to inspect solar panels that have collapsed on the roof of a residential building on St. Dennis Drive near the Don Valley Parkway and Eglinton Ave East. Police said the rooftop structure collapsed about a week ago, but they were only alerted when a pole came down overnight.
How can they miss a 12′ overhang, especially when their noses are already in the air?
Why would the thinking include snow load in Canada ? Frames made in China ? At that angle they would be useless with any snowfall anyway. Nice building, shame the greenies had to get involved. Rent’s going up.
The panels were installed this Fall and lasted a few months. Hopefully long enough to cash the subsidy checks?
I see the expert installers left several cable spools behind aftger they finished, or did they even finish the installation? I wonder if the engineering and design companies bonds will cover the removal of the panels, much less the damages?
the sun was shining so heavily the other day, collapse was imminent
They forgot to hire the leprechaun to clear the snow off of the panels, or maybe David Suzuki told them they wouldn’t need the little guy since there will never be snow or ice in downtown Toronto ever again.
Another victim of Environment Canada’s “milder than normal ” winter forecast bits the dust.
Something might be a little awry when you can only tell your solution to global warming isn’t working, because the weight of the snow on it, causes it to collapse … and you don’t notice it for a week.
This was a poorly designed structure, the fact that they’re solar panels is rather inconsequential. It would have failed if it was a rooftop patio roof of the same design. Bridges also suffer from bad design, only fools blame the bridge. Bad engineering design is everywhere. The new crop of engineers rely too much on computers and not enough on good common sense. They’re learning that computers usually allow them to make mistakes ten times faster than ever before. Smart designers have learned the hard way that PV panels should never be placed at less than 45% in regions with snowfall. In almost all applications in Canada vertical is best when all factors are considered, especially if there’s snow on the ground.
I don’t know of too many bridges that have collapsed in the middle of any city that no one noticed for a week.
Well, one knows the fantastic quality of Chinese-made items, coupled with heavy panels that produce next to no energy at all and heavy snowfall, what could possibly go wrong?
non sequitur…, and so what?
apologies if the point went over someone’s head
Arena roofs and mall roofs also failed with recent record snowfalls. That’s what weather does. It has nothing to do with solar panels.
Got it now?
“It has nothing to do with solar panels.”
In this case I respectfully disagree. If it’s flat and on the roof it should have the same integrity as the roof itself if supported by frame. This thing is huge and would have a lot of pressure points on what looks to be a tar and gravel roof which is designed to spread the load, and was not designed to carry this monstrosity without proper equalization. The solar panels picked up the entire snow load and couldn’t handle it. It could easily have punched the framing through the roof instead of collapsing. As it is, there may be some damage to the roof but it could have been far worse. If the original building engineers would have been aware of the solar panel addition, I doubt if they would have let this pass as it was.
Try to grasp that anything on the roof with that faulty structural design would have been a problem. It could have been a rooftop disco bar glass roof. It was a bad engineering design of something on a roof. It doesn’t matter what they were. It’s likely it wasn’t properly engineered, or reviewed by the city or properly inspected.
If the review and inspection process was in any was circumvented by political interference for some ‘green’ initiative, than that’s another issue that would have to be investigated. In the meantime it’s a simple issue of faulty engineering design. That’s why they have to carry f**k-up insurance.
as usual north of 90 you make a know nothing fool of your self. As a millwright this is the sort of installation I would know how to do. As I applied a few years ago to do just such work, which I turned down because to ppl “hiring” didn’t have a clue as to what qualifications one needs. Yup, an engineer was doing the hiring, and they are notorious at being stupid. This article describes a classic kluster f*ck. Some fool calls the fire department, who call the cops, who call*******, didn’t anyone think of calling the super who would call the owners????? Liberals at “work” for sure. I doubt that it was a structural failure at all, just a poor installation job by incompetents!!!
This article describes a classic kluster f*ck.
at least you’re right about that part.
The rest is what we’ve come to expect of your incoherent ramblings to make more enemies… whatever floats yer boat dude, I couldn’t care less about your opinions of anyone.
As usual Kate’s great blog is my ‘go to’ first thing every day.
If I were to compare reading your blog to watching television, North of 60’s comments are when I would change the channel.
apologies if the point went over someone’s head
Solar panels are supposed to function like a solar panel … that is, produce energy. Energy that can be used to heat things, illuminate, etc. – some of things that people might want to have in the winter.
For example, I have lights bulbs in my house. If all the light bulbs go out at the same time, I pretty much know there has been a power failure … and as odd as it may seem, it doesn’t take a week for me to notice.
For most, the loss of functionality indicates a failure. I don’t need a light bulb to explode to let me know when it’s burnt out.
But don’t let that stop you chattering on about stadium roofs.
northie, as usual, misses the point. It’s ALL about solar panels. Had the installation in question been a patio roof, chances are it would have been properly engineered to handle the expected snow loads. But because it is solar panels, undoubtedly installed by a fly-by-night company that exists only to harvest government subsidies, competent engineering was not done. Or maybe the installers cut corners on a competent design. Who knows? The real root cause here is the fact that government subsidies encourage all kinds of shady operators to hang out their shingle as “green energy providers.”
I see solar panels every day, installed to power instruments at remote wellsites, and they don’t have this problem. Why? Because it’s an appropriate use of the technology. I’m sure if northie were to put up solar panels at his own home, they would stay up, too, because he wouldn’t do shoddy work on his own house.
The crane they brought in to secure the panels will cost them more than any amount of money that solar panel will actually generate.
You might wonder what the standards are for these installation and how thoroughly they are being enforced.
I’ll bet that the city and provincial bureaucrats are for more zealous about squashing permits for car ports and back yard sheds.
Expect more failures.
Still missing the point. That’s OK, myopia does that. There are thousands of solar panel installations all across Canada that were properly engineered and have experienced no problems.
NO60 …
So, needless and wasteful installations that are being promoted by governments and subsidized by taxpayers are somehow above criticism.
There are hundreds of thousands of compromised homes, commercial buildings and structures that have not failed YET. Your logic suggests that is not a problem.
And yet when they do fail they become the topic of all sorts of hysterical and uniformed opinion on the hows and whys of the failures. A shopping mall here and an arena there … who cares. There are thousands that did not … yet. Same for train tracks and machinery and automobiles and utility systems.
It isn’t common knowledge but TDHC maintenance staff were bidding on installing solar panels on community housing all around the GTA. So we have reports of TDHC buildings not being maintained while the maintenance staff were off installing solar panels at cost. There is something wrong with this picture. Is the St. Denis Drive building TDHC?
“Is the St. Denis Drive building TDHC?”
—
The whole street is TDHC
In other words subsidized housing
It gets worse than that. If some surgeons decided to attach an appendix to a human, and it fell off a week/year/whatever … NO60 would want to argue about the sutures used to attach the useless bit of anatomy.
Generally, the best you could hope from the solar panels and the appendix is no failure.
As gordinkneehill pointed out, it has some applications. But I doubt with those applications it would take stuff falling off a roof, a week later, before they figured out it wasn’t working.
NO60
THAT installation is up about 20 stories, and there in lies part of the problem, the wind effect is quit different than at ground level. When having chill towers installed I was often surprised that the installers never considered the damn things have “up” pressure applied to them by air motion, so they always thought the weight of the damn things would hold them down, stupid thought that. That solar panel arrangement would act like wing under certain conditions, but worst yet, with a flat roof at close proximity under it, there would be a pressure build up, thusly creating EXTRA lift. In my time at doing/supervising installations I’v learned to never “just” consider the obvious. I’v PO’d a lot of engineers in my travels.
BTW, I don’t come here to make friends, I do that in real life!!!!