Who permits the work
Bethesda is not a city. It is unincorporated Montgomery County, so there is no Bethesda town hall to permit your project — every permit, plan review and inspection runs through Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services, and the county's rules on lot coverage and setbacks are what decide how big an addition can be. Two things catch Bethesda homeowners specifically: parts of the neighbourhood sit inside designated historic districts, which adds a separate design review before the building permit, and Montgomery County requires electrical work to be permitted separately and performed by a licensed master electrician — so a kitchen or basement job is at least two permits, not one.
For a rooftop array that generally means two permits rather than one: a building permit for anything fastened to the roof
structure, and a separate electrical permit for everything downstream of it, pulled by the licensed electrician on the job. We
sequence both and pull the building permit under our licence — you file nothing yourself.
What Bethesda homes are actually built like
In the older stock we expect plaster over wood lath, original single-pane windows, and undersized electrical service.
For solar that matters in two specific places: the age and condition of the roof covering, which decides whether the array
goes on now or after a replacement, and the capacity of the electrical service, which a licensed electrician confirms before
anything is designed.
What we will not tell you about your Bethesda project
No production figure, no payback year, no incentive percentage and no equipment warranty term. Those depend on your roof,
your bills, your tax position and programmes that change — and a number published before anyone has measured your roof is
a guess. Your specialist puts the real ones in writing after the free assessment, and tells you to confirm anything
tax-related with your own tax adviser.
Permit authority and code requirements are summarized for general guidance and can change; we confirm the current requirements for your specific parcel before work begins. Nothing on this page is tax advice.