For Solar Installers
Structural Letters for Solar Installers Working Texas
You are not buying a letter. You are buying the day it takes off your permit calendar, in every jurisdiction you work, without managing a different engineer in each one.
Opening soon
Sealed Engineering is not yet accepting orders. Firm registration is pending with the Texas Board of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, and no engineering services are being offered or performed under this brand until it is granted. Founding customers on the waitlist are contacted first when ordering opens.
What actually goes wrong today
Every jurisdiction words the requirement differently
Houston asks for one thing, Austin asks for it in different terms, and a county office in between asks whether it is required at all. An installer working across a metro is not solving a structural problem, they are solving twenty administrative ones, and the engineer who has already read all twenty checklists is worth more than the engineer who is faster at the calculation.
The letter is never the bottleneck until it is
It is a two page document on a project that took months to sell, and it becomes the critical path on the morning a crew is already scheduled. Consistency beats speed here: a schedule absorbs a known interval and cannot absorb an unknown one.
Restarting intake on every single job
The same installer sends the same racking, the same modules, the same attachment, and the same crew standards to a new engineer who asks for all of it again. Everything except the address, the framing, and the array layout is constant across a company's whole pipeline, and treating it as new information on every order is pure waste.
A rejected letter costs more than the letter did
A rejection costs a resubmittal, a review cycle, and a moved crew. Almost none of them are engineering errors.
What changes
Your standards are established once
Racking, module, attachment, fastener, and installation standards are recorded once at the account level. Per project intake then narrows to what actually varies.
Exposure and wind speed established at the address, every time
The most common defect in a template solar letter is an exposure B assumption carried into a site that is exposure C. Wind pressure scales with terrain as well as speed, so that single unexamined assumption is the difference between an attachment spacing that holds and one that does not, and across West Texas and the Panhandle exposure C is the norm rather than the edge case. It is the reason two identical arrays four hours apart get two different fastener schedules.
One relationship across every jurisdiction you work
One engineer covers the metro, the counties around it, and the coastal counties where a windstorm certificate runs alongside the structural letter. Nothing is handed to a second firm halfway through a market, which is what usually happens when an installer expands into the seaward counties and discovers their existing engineer does not do windstorm work.
Batch intake for pipeline volume
Projects go in together and come back as they finish, rather than waiting on the slowest one. Each address still gets its own sealed letter.
What this account orders
- Document reviewSolar Structural LettersThe stamped letter your plan reviewer asks for before a rooftop array goes on: existing framing capacity, wind uplift at the actual site, and attachment spacing that resists it.What it contains
- Site visit requiredWPI-8 Windstorm CertificationsThe Texas Department of Insurance certificate of compliance that windstorm coverage depends on, obtained through the licensed engineer path rather than the TDI inspector queue.What it contains
- Documents or site visitStructural Letters for PermitsPlan review asked for a sealed letter and the project stopped. This is the deliverable that restarts it: a specific structural question answered, sealed, and addressed to the reviewer who asked.What it contains
- Document reviewCarport and Patio Cover PlansA small plan set that passes plan review: footing schedule, post and beam sizes, and the uplift connections that matter more than anything else on a structure this light.What it contains
At intake: Tell us your monthly volume, the jurisdictions you work, and the racking and attachment you standardize on. That is what sets up an account rather than an order.
For Solar Installers: common questions
Can we get one letter that covers a batch of installs?
Not as a single document, and any engineer offering that is offering something they should not. Each address has its own wind speed, exposure, framing, and array layout, and one letter covering several would be sealing an opinion about roofs nobody examined. What batching changes is the intake and the tracking, not the seal.
What is the fastest way to submit a project?
Address, attic photographs showing framing with member size and spacing visible, the array layout by roof plane, and the attachment being used. When the account already carries your standard equipment, that is the entire per project submission.
Do you cover the coastal counties?
Yes, and a coastal project usually has two things running at once. The structural letter addresses framing and attachment. WPI-8 windstorm certification is a separate Texas Department of Insurance compliance path that applies in the fourteen seaward counties and part of Harris County. Starting both together rather than in sequence is what keeps a coastal install on schedule.
What if the framing does not support the array?
You get the reason and the remedy: reinforcement over a defined span, a reduced footprint on the affected plane, a different attachment, or tighter spacing. That is a real outcome and it happens. An engineer who tells you in advance what the letter will conclude is not doing engineering.
Do you do the interconnection or electrical review too?
No. This is structural work: framing capacity, uplift, and attachment. Electrical design, interconnection, and utility submittals are a different discipline and we will say so rather than take work we should not.
Other repeat buyers
- For Lenders and Loan OfficersThe condition shows up late, the borrower has movers booked, and the certification is now the only thing between the file and the table. That is the problem this is designed around.
- For Realtors and Title CompaniesAn option period is short and a closing date is a contract. This is engineering work organized around both, delivered as a document your buyer, seller, and underwriter can all read.
Set up an account rather than an order
Tell us your monthly volume, the jurisdictions you work, and the racking and attachment you standardize on. That is what sets up an account rather than an order.
Opening soon. Founding customers get first turnaround slots.