Johnson Soils Company (JSC), a division of Bertin Engineering, was recently retained by Prudent Publishing to inspect the installation of solar panels located at their Landing, New Jersey office.  Prior to this new solar panel installation, Prudent Publishing had installed solar panels on the roof of their building. However it was quickly realized that the installed solar panels did not provide the proper electricity to operate their daily activities as intended. Therefore, Prudent Publishing opted to install five (5) additional solar panel arrays alongside the site's existing parking lot. 

JSC was contracted to oversee the construction work and confirm that the field work matched the proposed design plans and specifications. JSC inspected all 224 foundation excavations, supervised construction techniques and provided complete concrete compressive strength testing for the proposed solar panel foundations.  

The foundation installation of the proposed arrays was extremely difficult for both machinery and manpower due to the extreme steep slopes within the construction site. JSC confirmed that the depth of the excavations met the minimum requirements and the soil conditions within the excavation were acceptable for the foundations. In addition, JSC coordinated with the site's contractor and developed a system to keep the foundation excavations clean of debris prior to the concrete pour.  During the concrete foundations pours, standard concrete cylinders samples were taken to confirm that the strength of concrete met the design requirement of 4,000 psi (pound per square inch). 

With the construction of these additional solar panels, Prudent Publishing will be able to generate the necessary amount of electricity and realize a cost savings of approximately $10,000 a month in energy bills.  It is estimated the construction cost of the solar panels including both the materials and installation will be paid off in as little as five years.