Everything, Under One Roof
One partner for
your entire energy system
Most solar companies sell you panels and hand the rest to subcontractors. We don’t. SBZ Solar engineers, permits, installs, and supports every part of your system in-house — from the first energy audit and the electrical panel to decades of monitoring. Below is everything we do, and exactly how we do it.
Residential Solar
Own your power — locked in for 25 years
Every roof is different, so every SBZ system is engineered from scratch. We start with twelve months of your utility bills, a full roof inspection, and a shading study — then size your array to the kilowatt-hour. You get exactly what your home needs, never an oversold system padded with panels you’ll never use.
Premium monocrystalline panels, sleek black-on-black framing, and concealed wiring keep your roofline looking intentional rather than industrial. And because we self-perform every installation, the quality we promise is the quality you actually get — backed by a single 25-year warranty covering panels, workmanship, and performance.
- 60–90% reduction in your monthly electric bill
- 30% federal Investment Tax Credit applied to your install
- Net-metering credits for every excess kilowatt-hour
- 25-year workmanship and performance warranty
Commercial Solar
Turn your roof into an asset, not overhead
For a business, electricity is one of the largest expenses with no ceiling — utility rates simply rise year after year. A commercial solar system converts that volatile operating cost into a fixed, depreciating asset with a clear return on investment, often paying for itself in well under a decade.
We handle the entire project: utility load analysis, structural and electrical engineering, financing guidance, permitting, interconnection, and installation. Whether it’s a single rooftop, a solar carport, or a ground-mount array on unused land, you get one accountable partner from feasibility study to switch-on.
- Cuts both demand charges and energy charges
- MACRS accelerated depreciation plus the 30% federal credit
- A hedge against decades of utility rate increases
- Production data ready for ESG and sustainability reporting
Battery Storage
Keep your power when the grid fails
Pittsburgh sees more grid outages than most cities — ice storms, summer demand spikes, and aging infrastructure all take their toll. A lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery stores the energy your panels make and deploys it the instant the grid goes down, automatically and silently, in under twenty milliseconds.
We build around LFP chemistry for good reason: it’s non-combustible, charges to 100% daily without degradation, and holds roughly 80% capacity after 6,000+ cycles — over sixteen years of daily use. Start with whole-home or essentials-only backup, and stack more capacity later as you add an EV or electrify your home.
- Automatic backup switchover in under 20 milliseconds
- Stackable capacity — start small and expand later
- Non-combustible LFP chemistry, safe to install indoors
- Whole-home or essentials-only backup configurations
EV Charging
Charge at home on your own sunshine
Public fast-charging is expensive and inconvenient. A properly installed Level 2 home charger adds 25–40 miles of range per hour — enough to fully recharge overnight — so you leave every morning at 100% without ever stopping at a station.
Integrate that charger with your solar and storage, and you can prioritize charging from your own production. That’s driving on electricity you generated yourself, at a fraction of the cost of gasoline or grid power. We assess your electrical panel, add a dedicated circuit, and handle the permit so the install is safe and future-ready.
- Level 2 charging — up to 6–9× faster than a standard outlet
- Solar-aware charging that prioritizes your own production
- Clean, code-compliant wiring on a dedicated circuit
- Compatible with every major EV brand and adapter
Electrical Services
Licensed electricians, not subcontractors
Solar, batteries, heat pumps and EV chargers all terminate in the same place — your main panel. Rather than hand that work to a third party, we employ our own licensed journeyman electricians. They install and upgrade panels and service equipment, diagnose faults with test instruments, and bring older wiring up to current code.
Main panel upgrades and meter replacements are the two we are asked for most: a 100-amp or fuse-era service replaced with a modern load center, or a failing meter socket, mast and service entrance renewed with the utility disconnect coordinated for you. All of it is standalone work — you do not need a solar project to book it.
- Main panel upgrades to 150 A, 200 A or 400 A
- Meter socket, mast and service entrance replacement
- Troubleshooting, diagnostics and thermal inspection
- Rewiring, grounding, AFCI and GFCI compliance
- Permits, inspections and utility coordination handled
Roofing
A roof built to carry the sun
Solar panels last 25 years or more — your roof should too. There’s nothing worse than installing an array on a roof that needs replacing in five years, because removing and reinstalling panels is a costly, avoidable expense. So we evaluate your roof’s condition honestly before a single panel goes up.
If your roof has life left, we mount with manufacturer-approved flashing and proper detailing. If it doesn’t, we replace it and install solar in one coordinated project — one crew, one timeline, and one warranty covering the roof and the system as a single unit. No finger-pointing, ever.
- Honest roof condition assessment before you commit
- Roof replacement and solar in one coordinated project
- Flashing and sealing engineered for Pittsburgh winters
- One unified warranty across roof and array
Energy Audit
Find the waste before you spend
Most homes quietly waste 20–30% of their energy through air leaks, thin insulation, aging appliances, and phantom loads. Installing solar over that waste just means paying to generate power you’re throwing away. The cheapest kilowatt-hour is always the one you never use.
Our audit pairs twelve months of utility-data analysis with an on-site assessment to build a complete energy profile of your home. You walk away with a prioritized, dollar-ranked list of improvements — many of them low-cost — plus a solar recommendation sized to your true, optimized needs.
- 12-month utility-data analysis and load profiling
- Insulation, air-sealing, and appliance review
- Improvements ranked by return on investment
- A solar recommendation sized to optimized usage
Energy Modeling
See your results before you buy
We don’t ask you to take production claims on faith. Using industry-standard modeling tools fed with your roof geometry, panel placement, tilt, azimuth, and real shading data, we simulate your exact system against decades of measured Pittsburgh weather — hour by hour, month by month.
The result is a complete production forecast and a 25-year financial model: projected output, bill offset, payback period, and lifetime savings, all before you sign anything. Our projections target accuracy within ±3%, and we walk you through every assumption so nothing is a black box.
- Hourly production modeled across a full year and beyond
- 25-year financial projection: savings, payback, ROI
- Accounts for tilt, orientation, and measured shading
- Production estimates accurate to within ±3%
Solar Shading Analysis
Put panels where the sun actually is
A single shaded module can drag down an entire string, so shading is one of the biggest threats to long-term production. Trees, chimneys, dormers, vent stacks, even a neighbor’s rooftop cast shadows that shift through the day and across the seasons — and guessing wrong about them costs you for 25 years.
We use LiDAR-derived terrain data and hourly sun-path modeling to simulate exactly how light and shade fall on your roof throughout the year. That tells us where to place modules, how to wire strings, and where module-level optimizers will recover the most energy — with the resulting annual shading loss quantified and built into your forecast.
- Hourly, year-round sun-path simulation for your roof
- LiDAR-based obstruction mapping — not eyeballed guesses
- Optimized module placement and string layout
- Quantified annual shading loss in your model
Monitoring & Maintenance
We don’t disappear after install
Most solar problems are invisible from the ground — a failing optimizer, a tripped breaker, gradual soiling. Without monitoring you only notice when your bill creeps back up months later, and by then you’ve lost real money. A solar system is a 25-year asset, and we treat it like one.
We monitor your output continuously and compare it against its modeled expectation. When something drifts, we know before you do — and we reach out. Combined with periodic inspection and cleaning, and warranty claims we handle on your behalf, that keeps your array generating what it was designed to for decades.
- Live power flow and battery state of charge on your phone
- Continuous remote production monitoring
- Proactive alerts when output drifts from forecast
- Periodic inspection, cleaning, and tune-ups
- We manage equipment warranty claims for you
The App
You get the same view we do
Monitoring is only worth something if you can see it too. Every system we commission reports to an app on your phone, and we set it up and hand it over before we leave.
The home screen puts the whole system on one picture: what the house is drawing, what the roof is making, whether you are pulling from or pushing to the grid, and what the battery is doing. Below that sits the state of charge and the operating mode — self-consumption, backup reserve or time-of-use, depending on what your rate plan rewards.
- Live consumption, production, grid and battery flow
- Battery state of charge, and whether it is charging or carrying the house
- Operating mode you can change as your usage changes
- Daily, monthly and lifetime history to check against your production model
The app shown is FranklinWH, paired with an aPower battery and aGate controller. The exact app depends on the hardware specified for your system — we configure it, verify it is reporting, and walk you through it at handover.
How It Works
From first call to full power.
No matter which services you need, the path is the same — clear, engineered, and handled end to end by our own team.
Consultation
We learn your goals, energy usage, and budget — no pressure, no jargon.
Site Survey
On-site measurements, roof inspection, and a precise shading capture.
Design & Permits
A fully engineered plan set, permits, and interconnection — handled by us.
Installation
Certified in-house crews complete most installs in one to three days.
Activation
Final inspection, switch-on, and lifetime production monitoring.
The SBZ Difference
Why homeowners choose engineering first
Anyone can bolt panels to a roof. We design systems that actually hit their numbers — and we’re here for the next 25 years.
Licensed & Insured
Pennsylvania-licensed, fully insured, and certified — with the credentials to prove it.
Engineering-First
Every system is modeled and stamped before a single panel is mounted.
Clean Installation
In-house crews, black-on-black hardware, hidden conduit, and a tidy worksite.
Transparent Process
Clear proposals, honest answers, and no high-pressure sales tactics — ever.
Not sure where to start?
Tell us about your home or business and your goals. We’ll recommend the right mix of services — or design a complete system that ties several together.