Site Assessment: What to Document Before You Design
From Client Experience: In our Definitive Guide to Working with Clients, we introduced the discovery process. This article covers site assessment.
The Site Assessment Is Not the Consultation
These are two different visits with two different purposes. The consultation is a conversation with the client about what they want. The site assessment is a technical survey of what the property demands. Some installers combine them into one visit — that works, but only if you treat the assessment as its own disciplined checklist rather than something you do while chatting.
The data you collect here determines everything: your design options, your pricing accuracy, your material list, your crew assignments, and your liability exposure. Installers who skip the formal assessment and "figure it out on install day" consistently underprice complex jobs, bring wrong equipment, and generate callbacks that eat their margins.
Walk the Full Perimeter First
Before you take a single measurement, walk the entire property perimeter. Do it slowly. You are building a mental model of the property that will inform every decision that follows.
Start at the street. Stand where a car would pull up and look at the front of the house. This is what the client sees every time they come home and what every guest, neighbor, and delivery driver sees. Then walk the driveway approach, the path to the front door, and continue around both sides of the house to the back. Note which areas are visible from the street, which are visible from inside the home, and which are hidden.
This five-minute walk reveals the property's story: the focal points, the problem areas, the opportunities, and the constraints. Do it before you pull out a measuring tape.
The Five Documentation Categories
1. Power Sources
This is the most commonly underdocumented category, and it causes the most installation-day problems.
For every exterior outlet, record:
- Location (front left of garage, rear patio, etc.)
- Type (standard duplex, GFCI-protected, weather-rated cover or not)
- Circuit identification (flip breakers if necessary to determine which outlets share circuits)
- Measured distance to installation zones (a 15-amp outlet 80 feet from the roofline requires different planning than one 10 feet away)
- Current load (what else is on that circuit — porch light, garage door opener, outdoor refrigerator)
Capacity math you need on-site: A standard 15-amp residential circuit at 120V provides 1,800 watts total, but NEC limits continuous loads (running more than 3 hours — which holiday lights always do) to 80% of capacity: 1,440 usable watts. A 20-amp circuit gives you 1,920 usable watts. If a circuit already runs a 200-watt porch light and a 150-watt garage door opener, you have 1,090 watts remaining for lighting on a 15-amp circuit.
LED C9 bulbs draw roughly 0.6-1.0 watts each. A 200-bulb roofline installation at 1W per bulb pulls 200 watts — well within a single circuit. But add incandescent elements, inflatables, or animated features, and the math changes fast. Do the calculation on-site, not in your truck.
Photograph each outlet with a wide shot showing its location on the house and a close-up showing the outlet type and condition. Label photos immediately.
2. Attachment Points and Surfaces
Walk the roofline section by section and document:
- Gutter type: K-style (the flat-front residential standard), half-round, box, or no gutter. Each requires a different clip type. K-style gutters accept all-in-one clips. Half-round gutters need specialty clips. No gutter means you are clipping to fascia or shingles.
- Fascia material and condition: Wood, aluminum-wrapped, vinyl, PVC, composite. Note any rot, warping, peeling paint, or soft spots. A rotten fascia section will not hold a clip under wind load.
- Roof material: Asphalt shingle, architectural shingle, metal standing seam, tile (clay or concrete), flat/membrane. Each has different clip options and safety considerations.
- Roof pitch: Estimate or measure. Under 6/12 is walkable for most crew. 6/12 to 8/12 requires caution and possibly harness work. Over 8/12 is steep-pitch and requires fall protection or ground-based installation methods.
- Problem areas: Dormers, valleys, hip returns, gable peaks, areas where the roofline changes material or direction. These are where generic clip spacing fails and custom solutions are needed.
For accent areas (columns, window frames, railings, trees), document the surface material and note which attachment method will work without causing damage. A client's new cedar columns require different clips than painted aluminum.
3. Pre-Existing Conditions
This is your liability documentation. Photograph and note every defect you observe:
- Cracked or missing shingles
- Loose or sagging gutters
- Rotted fascia or soffit
- Peeling paint or stained siding
- Damaged screens or storm windows
- Cracked walkways near ladder placement areas
- Stained or damaged landscaping in work zones
Use timestamped, geotagged photos. A phone camera with location services enabled handles this automatically. Take these photos before you touch anything. If a client calls three weeks after install claiming you cracked their soffit, your pre-install photos with timestamps are your defense.
4. Access and Safety
Ladder placement: Identify every location where a ladder will be set. Check for level ground, firm surface (not soft mulch or wet clay), adequate clearance, and stable contact points on the structure. Note areas where ladder work is not feasible — setback landscaping, steep slopes, overhead obstructions.
Overhead utilities: Identify power lines, cable lines, and phone lines. Mark a 10-foot clearance zone around each. If a power line runs within 10 feet of an attachment point, that section requires alternative installation methods or utility company coordination.
Roof access requirements: If any portion of the install requires getting on the roof, note the access point, pitch, walking surface condition, and fall protection anchor points. Get explicit permission from the homeowner for roof access — preferably in writing.
Ground conditions: Irrigation heads, sprinkler lines, buried utilities, tree roots, decorative rock beds. Your crew needs to know where they can and cannot set equipment.
5. Sightlines and Neighbor Context
Primary sightlines are the three views that matter most: from the street (curb appeal), from the driveway approach (arrival experience), and from inside the house looking out (the view the client lives with for six weeks). Stand at each position and note what is visible, what is blocked by trees or structures, and where the eye naturally goes.
Neighbor considerations:
- Will your lighting shine into a neighbor's bedroom window? If so, note it and plan directional control.
- Are there shared-property trees that require neighbor permission to light?
- Does the neighborhood have an HOA with lighting restrictions? Get the rules in writing before you design.
- What are the neighbors' displays like? A client may want to complement or deliberately differentiate from the house next door.
The Assessment Toolkit
Carry a dedicated assessment kit in your truck:
- Laser distance measurer — faster and more accurate than a tape measure for roofline lengths. A $40 unit from any hardware store is sufficient.
- Outlet tester — a three-light plug tester ($8) verifies wiring immediately. A GFCI tester is even better.
- Phone or tablet with camera, annotation app, and notes app.
- Clipboard with printed assessment form — even if you use digital tools, a paper backup prevents lost data when your phone dies.
- 25-foot tape measure — for close measurements the laser cannot handle.
- Pitch gauge or inclinometer app — for roof pitch estimation.
Time Investment
A thorough site assessment takes 20-45 minutes depending on property size. That investment pays back immediately: your design will be accurate, your material list will be right, your pricing will be honest, and your crew will not waste the first hour of install day figuring out what you should have documented.
For detailed documentation protocols including photography systems, folder structures, and annotation methods, see The Site Visit: What to Document Before You Design. For how this feeds into your design process, see The Consultation: Discovery & Design.
Key Takeaways
- Walk the full perimeter before measuring anything. Build the mental model first, then fill in the data.
- Document power sources with circuit-level detail. Capacity math done on-site prevents installation-day electrical problems.
- Photograph pre-existing damage with timestamps before touching the property. This is your liability shield.
- Map all three primary sightlines (street, driveway, interior) — these drive the design, not the roofline geometry.
- A 30-minute assessment saves hours of install-day troubleshooting and prevents the callbacks that destroy your margins.
What's Next
With site documented, the budget conversation determines what's possible.
Next: Budget Conversations That Build Trust, Not Awkwardness