Maintenance Tips for Solar Panels

If you have solar panels on your home, you have made a good decision. Not only are you saving on energy costs every year, but you have very little upkeep to worry about! Solar panels are very easy to care for. The front of a solar panel made out of tempered glass and will hold up well in tough conditions. . Outside of an occasional wash, you don’t really have anything to worry about.

Don’t worry about cleaning if it rains regularly where you live. If it rains where you live , you really don’t need to clean your panels. The rainwater will be enough to wash away any dust or debris from your solar panels. It’s not recommended to use strong soap on your solar panels anyway, so it’s usually unnecessary to get up there and scrub the panels manually.

• Solar panels are made out of tempered glass, which tends to be pretty resilient. Still, it’s best to take a quick look from the ground after any hail storms or thunderstorms to look for cracks. If you ever have a cracked panel, contact the installation company to have it repaired. Solar panels are typically covered by warranty for 10-25 years.
• To make a long story short, you probably aren’t losing that much power even if the panels are filthy. One study found that solar panels produce 96-98% of the energy they’d normally produce when they’re dirty.

Don’t worry about cleaning if it rains regularly where you live. If it rains where you live , you really don’t need to clean your panels. The rainwater will be enough to wash away any dust or debris from your solar panels. It’s not recommended to use strong soap on your solar panels anyway, so it’s usually unnecessary to get up there and scrub the panels manually.

• Solar panels are made out of tempered glass, which tends to be pretty resilient. Still, it’s best to take a quick look from the ground after any hail storms or thunderstorms to look for cracks. If you ever have a cracked panel, contact the installation company to have it repaired. Solar panels are typically covered by warranty for 10-25 years.
• To make a long story short, you probably aren’t losing that much power even if the panels are filthy. One study found that solar panels produce 96-98% of the energy they’d normally produce when they’re dirty.

Spray the panels with a hose if they’re a little dirty and there’s a drought. If you live in the desert or it hasn’t rained in a while, you may notice a layer of dust or dirt building up on your panels every month or so. When this happens, head outside and grab a garden hose. Use a nozzle attachment to spray water on your roof to rinse your panels off. Let them air dry when you’re done.

• You might also want to wash off your panels with a hose if you live someplace that has a lot of pollen, sandstorms, or ash.
• If your panels are really filthy and you have a flat roof, you can wipe them down with water and a cloth-covered sponge or squeegee. If your roof is pitched though, you may not want to clean them by hand unless you have a harness, roof anchor, and a personal fall arrest system. If you want the panels clean, you may be better off hiring a crew to do it.
• Do not wash your panels when it’s especially hot and sunny out. Wait for an overcast day or clean them early in the morning to keep the panels from experiencing abrupt temperature changes.

Knock snow off of the panels with a broom, squeegee, or leaf blower. If snow builds up on your panels and you have a roof access hatch, head up with a broom and knock the snow off from the hatch. If you have a flat roof, feel free to walk up there, but don’t leave the hatch if you have a pitched roof. Alternatively, you can get a squeegee with an extension rod and wipe the panels from the ground. If the solar panels are on a 1-story building, you can also use a leaf blower if the air reaches.

• If there’s a thin layer of snow and it will get sunny in the next day or so, don’t bother. The sun will slide off as the panels heat up in the sun. You really only need to remove snow during a prolonged period of heavy winter weather.
• Don’t worry about damaging the panels by wiping the snow off; they’re pretty resilient. So long as you aren’t using any abrasive cleaning methods  the panels should hold up just fine.

Hire a professional cleaning crew to clean filthy panels on a pitched roof. If your panels get really dirty, you can’t reach them with a hose, or gunk is building up and you have a pitched roof, hire a cleaning crew that specializes in solar panels to come out and clean them thoroughly. It isn’t safe to get up on your roof on your own unless you really know what you’re doing. And even then, a professional crew will do a better job cleaning the complex panels.

• It isn’t that expensive to hire a crew for solar panel cleaning. Most companies charge $100-300 for a thorough cleaning.
• You really shouldn’t need to hire a crew to do this more than once a year.
• You can hire a contractor to install cleaning robots and automated systems that will do this kind of thorough cleaning automatically, but these systems can cost thousands of dollars and they’re typically unnecessary.