Viva, you fail to consider a zombie outbreak into the equation. Then who will have the last laugh about my roof deck.
Okay in all seriousness, good point taken into consideration!
I plan on using my roofdeck for
- putting up chairs, having drinks with a girlfriend/friend.
- holding impromptu Burning Man style art car dance parties
- putting up a fold-up table and chair, pulling out my laptop and doing work (I work from my computer remotely)
- putting camping sleeping pads and sleeping bags up there and sleeping under the stars
- fighting off the zombie apocalypse. as you know, zombies can't climb ladders.
Right now with 200W solar panels, it looks like I'd have about 7 feet x 4.5 feet of space for those things (which is basically the minimum considering my sleeping desired use case (although, perhaps our heads could rest on the solar panel on a pillow). If I found a way to cover the solar panels, I could get up to 11 feet x 4.5 and (maybe more importantly) get 300W or more of paneling.
But yes everyone's points are very helpful and things I'm considering (like do I really need that much space). Thx so far for answers!