[Chris Cottrell]

I had a request to put a price on cleaning some solar panels the other day & was wondering if any of you guys have had any experience in cleaning this sort of thing, the request was only for once or maybe twice a year, these panel are of the tube variety not the flat kind

[Rob.Hall]

Hi Chris,

I was thinking of offering this as a service but was unsure for damage reasons.

Might contact a manufacturer to see what they recomend.

Will post next week when I find out. Thats if no substancial answer is posted first.

[Chris Cottrell]

Rob

I was wondering if there was any protective coating on these or if there was any special chemicals that needed to be used

These things need to be checked incase they invalidate  any warranty they may have

[Elginn]

Just clean as normal, there is no protective coating on them and the tubes you see are covered with a normal sheet of glass.

[Dave Turley]

i've been thinking about this as well.

we should be able to command excellent rates for this service, especially for roof mounted panels which are inaccessable unless you have scaffold towers or a nice long pole   

when you consider how much these systems initially cost, I think most people would be happy to pay to have them cleaned, say, quarterly to keep them operating at optimum performance.

this market wil surely grow massively in the future, and could be very lucrative

there are the solar panels for electricity as well.

one thing though, I wouldn't like to have to pay for a panel which i've cracked with my hot water!   

[dmlservices]

another thing to check is , your insurance , would want to make sure i was covered in the event that anything went wrong , ie breaking a unit.


daz

[RSWindows]

Hi Chris,

I was thinking of offering this as a service but was unsure for damage reasons.

Might contact a manufacturer to see what they recomend.

Will post next week when I find out. Thats if no substancial answer is posted first.

I have already done some research to attempt to tap into this department and found that ALL the manufacturers use the fact that these are self cleaning as a selling point.  From my research i found that there was nowhere near the size of market for this service as i once thaught.

but anyway, no there are no protective films or anything on the pipe style water heaters or flat panel solar generators.
I wouldnt go setting prices too high as it is not a requirement to have these cleaned as there is no less power generated for a small amount of dirt that has settled on the panel/bars. owners would only want them cleaned for aestetical reasons

[Kevin R]

Stay well clear - one small tap with the edge of the brush and they break, especially on the ends.

Not worth the bother trust me 

[Chris Cottrell]

Stay well clear - one small tap with the edge of the brush and they break, especially on the ends.

Not worth the bother trust me 

Sounds like you speak from experience, care to elaborate

[Kevin R]

I was doing a pressure washing job on a series of flat membrane roofs. On the roof were solar panels on angled stands. They were the tube type like in your picture. Because of the spray of the pressure washer they got pretty mucky so we decided on jobs end to give them all a once over with wfp. After breaking six or so tubes we started hand cleaning them!!!! I couldn't believe how fragile they were 

[RSWindows]

that shouldn't have happened, the ones i have come across are aluminium type alloy and the tube ones tend to be "water heaters" as opposed to solar power generators.

these are designed to be subject to strong winds, hailstones, snow etc...
so a WFP should not cause any damage what-so-ever. Id have called tha manufacturer immediately and demanded a replacement along with an explanation as to why their product was so cheaply built 

[Kevin R]

that shouldn't have happened, the ones i have come across are aluminium type alloy and the tube ones tend to be "water heaters" as opposed to solar power generators.

these are designed to be subject to strong winds, hailstones, snow etc...
so a WFP should not cause any damage what-so-ever. Id have called tha manufacturer immediately and demanded a replacement along with an explanation as to why their product was so cheaply built 

One of the guys I was with seemed to think they were already damaged - but I can't say.  All I know is I won't be cleaning them again in a hurry.

[RSWindows]

Seems a fair stance to take i guess