External house cleaning requires a gentle touch, and this old cottage that takes a beating from the surrounding farms got just that. Tractors stirring up dust, overspray and the slow build up of mould over time needed to be soft washed to bring back the original look of the Colorbond cladding. Washing Colorbond cladding can be tricky and involves a lot of rinsing because the corrugations provide a lip for soap residue or dirt to rest on.
After washing the house and windows, we threw in the solar as we noticed the build up from crop dust. All in all the results were spectacular and that’s another happy customer for Spark!
Well, solar panel cleaning. What will solar panel cleaners do for me? Do we need to do it? Is it worth it? Will I generate more power?
The answer is yes… and no. There are a whole lot of factors you need to consider when thinking about cleaning your solar panels. How large is the solar array, what sort of feed in tariff you are receiving from your power company, how old is the system, how is the system oriented… What impacts your solar in the environment? Yes, we clean solar, but no we don’t want to if you really don’t need to.
You can spend anywhere from $50, for Joe Bloggs to jump on your roof with a hose and broom, that much per panel from some electrical companies to check your system for faults, and give them a quick clean while they’re up there. How are you to know what to do? Get data.
Find a reputable company (actually, try and find one on recommendation) that cleans solar, but before they clean do a bit of research and check what your solar is generating. Pick a nice sunny day to check, then again after the panels have been cleaned. We used to be under the impression that warranties would be at risk if panels were not cleaned, however we need to stress that ‘would‘ should be ‘could‘. In fact we’ve not heard of any warranty be denied due to lack of cleaning.
It’s impossible for us to tell you whether or not your panels need cleaning without seeing them. We can tell you that we’ve seen improvements in performance from as little as 5% up to and over 50%. Yes, over 50%. The picture below is an example of that.
Our last word will be, don’t get pushed in to doing something you don’t want or need. Any company that peddles fear, like losing a warranty isn’t worth dealing with. And remember that a cleaning company (including us) cannot do anymore than clean and take a look. We cannot touch or fix anything, nor is it ethical for us to give advise other than to contact your solar installer or electrician.