Epic Engineering’s Structural Engineering team partnered with Alpenglow Solar to provide a solar panel design for the Zion's Bank call center, located at 1850 South Redwood Road in Salt Lake City. Our design team utilized ballasted solar panels in order to not penetrate the existing roof membrane. The ballasted system weighed 7.5 psf.
Unique to the design was that no existing drawings were available for the building, so field measurements were taken of the existing steel roof joists, girders and columns. When the building was modeled using SAP 2000, it was found that the joists did not have adequate capacity to support the additional loading. It was also found that the some of the existing girder trusses were at risk of failing. We drew up plans for the sections of the joists and girders needed to be strengthened.
This repair work was designed to be as economical as possible, while satisfying building code and safety requirements. Our team also performed necessary load calculations for the wiring and connecting the system to the existing electrical system. Our Construction Management team also performed site inspections to assure the electrical work was performed according to NEC codes and wrote a letter to allow the project to be commissioned.