Solar system for a 5 marla house in Lahore

What 560 square feet of roof actually holds

A 5 marla plot is 125 square yards, about 1,125 square feet of ground. On a standard Iqbal Town or Township layout the covered area is close to 950 square feet with an open courtyard or side space. The roof deck available for panels, once the stair mumty, the overhead tank and the parapet margin come off, works out to roughly 540 to 600 square feet on a single storey and slightly more on a double storey because the mumty sits on the second floor and the first floor roof stays clear.

At 42 square feet of real footprint per 585W panel, 560 square feet takes 13 panels. Nine to ten go on comfortably with wide walkways. Twelve fits if the crew tightens the rows and the roof has no mid-slab water tank. That is 5.3 kW to 7 kW of DC capacity, and the reason most 5 marla builds settle at 5 kW is not roof space, it is the inverter and the budget.

The load a 5 marla family puts on the meter

From jobs done in Township, Awan Town, Faisal Town's inner lanes and the smaller Bahria Town sectors, a 5 marla household in Lahore typically runs:

• Two split ACs, usually one 1.5 ton in the master bedroom and one 1 ton upstairs
• Eight to twelve fans
• Fridge plus a deep freezer, because most families here keep meat stocked
• Water motor, washing machine, microwave, two televisions, an iron
• Twenty to thirty light points across two floors

That produces 700 to 950 units in June, July and August, and 300 to 400 in winter. The annual average sits near 600. Summer LESCO bills of PKR 32,000 to PKR 48,000 are normal, and the jump happens because the household crosses out of the protected slab and gets billed at the higher rate on every unit, not just the extra ones. That slab cliff is explained on the LESCO bill after solar page.

4 kW or 5 kW: the split

Both are defensible. The deciding factor is not roof area, it is how many hours the ACs run.

Household	Recommended size	Monthly generation	Covers
Single storey, one AC, 4 people	4 kW (7 panels)	500 to 560 units	Most of the bill except peak July
Double storey, two ACs, 6 people	5 kW (9 panels)	640 to 720 units	Bill drops to a fixed charge in spring and autumn
Double storey, two ACs plus rented upper portion	6 kW (11 panels)	760 to 850 units	Two separate meters can be handled with one array

The rented portion case is common in 5 marla Lahore and it is worth planning properly. Two LESCO meters on one property cannot share a single net metered system without the connection being merged, so the array either feeds one meter and the owner settles internally with the tenant, or the wiring is split. Detail on that sits in the 2026 net metering changes article.

Full bill of quantities for a 5 kW hybrid

This is the actual line-by-line for a 5 marla install with a battery. Nothing bundled, nothing hidden in a lump sum.

Line item	Specification	Amount (PKR)
Solar panels	9 × 585W tier-1 @ 19,500 each	175,500
Hybrid inverter	5 kW single phase	165,000
Lithium battery	5 kWh wall mount	285,000
Mounting structure	Standard GI, 5 kW @ 7,000/kW	35,000
Electrical items kit	DC/AC breakers, SPD, combiner, earthing rod	35,000
Cabling	DC 90m, AC 20m	25,000
Installation labour	3 day crew	20,000
Net metering file	LESCO application, drawings, follow-up	15,000
Turnkey with battery		755,500
Turnkey without battery	Same build, battery removed	470,500

Swapping the standard 585W panel for a 645W bifacial at PKR 21,000 raises the panel line but cuts the count to eight, so the structure gets cheaper too. On an N-type Astronergy 585W at PKR 25,450 the panel line jumps to PKR 229,050, which buys a better temperature coefficient and a longer warranty. Compare the options on the panel price page and the Longi panel breakdown.

Payback, month by month

Assume the house was averaging PKR 24,000 a month across the year, with July at PKR 46,000 and January at PKR 9,000. After a 5 kW system without a battery, the pattern from actual customer bills in Township and Wapda Town looks like this.

Month	Bill before	Bill after 5 kW	Saved
March	PKR 11,000	PKR 1,900	PKR 9,100
May	PKR 29,000	PKR 8,400	PKR 20,600
July	PKR 46,000	PKR 21,000	PKR 25,000
October	PKR 18,000	PKR 3,600	PKR 14,400
December	PKR 9,000	PKR 4,100	PKR 4,900

The yearly saving lands near PKR 175,000. Against PKR 470,500 that is a payback of about 32 months. December is the weak month and always will be, because Lahore's smog cuts irradiance hard and the days are short. See the winter output article for the December numbers before assuming a flat monthly saving.

Add the battery and the arithmetic changes. The PKR 285,000 battery does not generate a single extra unit. It shifts units from daytime to night, which saves money only on the difference between the export rate and the retail tariff. Buying a battery is a decision about load shedding comfort, and it should be framed that way, not as an investment. The load shedding battery guide works through that honestly.

Double storey adds cost that nobody quotes

On a double storey 5 marla, the array sits on the top roof and the inverter usually goes in the ground floor store or car porch. That is a DC cable run of 60 to 80 feet through a conduit, sometimes cut into the outer wall. Two extra days of work, and if the customer wants the conduit chased and plastered rather than surface clipped, that is a mason's charge on top. Budget PKR 12,000 to PKR 20,000 extra on a double storey compared to a single storey of the same capacity.

There is also the parapet. Many 5 marla double storeys in Lahore have a decorative front elevation that rises three feet above the roof line, and it shades the front row of panels until about 9:30 am in winter. Setting the front row back solves it, at the cost of one panel position.

What actually breaks on 5 marla installs

Over eleven years of installs in Lahore, the failures repeat in a predictable order. The AC-side breaker trips first, usually because the original house wiring was sized for a 5 kW sanctioned load and the solar backup circuit was added to a board that was already full. The second recurring fault is DC connector corrosion where the cable was left lying on a wet parapet during monsoon instead of clipped into a UV conduit. Third is the earthing rod, which in the sandy soil of newer schemes dries out and loses continuity by the second summer.

None of these are expensive to fix if caught early, and all three are avoidable at install time. Rates for call-outs are on the solar repair cost page and the repair service page.

Where 5 marla solar makes least sense

If the family is out of the house all day, uses one AC, and the annual bill averages under PKR 10,000 a month, a 5 kW system is oversized. Under the 2026 export rates the surplus does not come back at a rate that justifies the extra panels. A 3 kW build would serve better, and that case is covered in the 3 marla sizing article which applies to any low-consumption home.

The other bad fit is a rented house. Solar on a 5 marla rental only makes sense with a long lease and a landlord who agrees in writing, because the array cannot be shifted later without damaging the structure and losing panels.

Booking the survey

The survey fee is PKR 3,000 and it comes off the final installation bill. The engineer measures the roof, checks shading through the day, inspects the main distribution board, notes the sanctioned load, and returns a panel layout with the BoQ priced against it. Homes in Johar Town, Wapda Town and Model Town are usually surveyed within two days of the call.

Run the numbers first on the solar calculator, or read the 5 kW price article for tier-by-tier comparisons. Questions about hybrid behaviour go to the hybrid and battery page, and net metering documentation is listed on the net metering page. To send documents directly, use the contact form.