Webinar 1

Designing a Building Permit Process for Residential Solar Water Heating Systems

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The City of Toronto has now issued over 150 building permits for the installation of residential solar water heating systems and has resolved the regulatory challenges in issuing permits for this increasingly popular technology. This webinar gives an overview of the regulatory issues and how the City of Toronto has developed methodologies to streamline the process and reduce the cost to citizens while ensuring that SDHW systems are installed according to building codes and product safety standards.

Webinar 2

Structural Requirements for Installing a Residential Solar Water Heater on a Roof

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Installing a residential solar water heating system on a roof places additional structural loading on the roof due to weight of the equipment and to wind loading. Some provincial building codes (such as in Ontario) define solar collectors as designated structures. This places additional responsibilities on municipal building departments to ensure that the roof is structurally capable of holding this additional load.

The City of Toronto has developed leading-edge methodologies to identify the roof’s structural capacity to hold a solar collector and to establish a “solar span table” which can be applied to all roofs. This webinar will outline the structural challenges of installing a solar water heater on a roof and how Toronto overcame those challenges.

Webinar 3

Inspecting Residential Solar Water Heating Systems

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The installation of a residential solar water heater system needs to comply with provincial building codes, national product safety standards and local zoning requirements. Building department inspectors need standard methodologies for the inspection of these systems to ensure compliance with regulations. Homeowners and government agencies that provide incentives need assurances that the installation is installed to maximize both its longevity and performance.

The City of Toronto has developed both a commissioning report (to identify quality issues) and a building permit inspection report (to identify compliance to codes and safety standards). This webinar will outline these methodologies and review some of the best practices developed by other jurisdictions in Canada and globally.

Webinar 4

Permitting of Residential Solar Water Heating Systems

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Across Canada, municipal building officials are responsible for ensuring that installations of residential solar water heating systems are in compliance with provincial building codes. However, many building officials are unfamiliar with this technology. This can create challenges in identifying what the regulatory issues are and how to deal with them.The City of Toronto has issued over 150 building permits for residential solar water heating systems and is one of the leading municipalities in North America in developing innovative methodologies to simplify the regulatory requirements for the permitting of these systems.

This webinar provides an overview of Toronto’s building permit requirements (both plan review and site inspection) for residential solar water heating systems from the development of “certified plans”to a solar roof inspection report and the solar inspection report.