Why Hire a Professional Solar Panel Cleaner
- Written by Auzzi Shopping
Australia is one of the best countries in the world in which to use solar panels. The countless hours of sunshine the country enjoys compared to its cloudier overseas friends helps people take advantage of clean, seemingly limitless solar energy, the efficiency of which is improving constantly.
As great as solar panels are, one slightly problematic fact is that they get dirty. What’s more, a lot of people are unsure about cleaning them themselves. Is it a good idea? Can you just clean it the same way you’d clean a window or wash your car? Most people aren’t sure, and it’s probably right. If you’re a Victorian looking for solar panel cleaners in Ballarat, for example, you’re probably doing the right thing. Solar panel cleaning is best left to the pros, and here’s why:
1. The Highest Cleaning Standards are Needed
When solar panels get dusty or dirty, they start to lose their efficiency as you might expect. Not as much sunlight can penetrate the solar cells, causing power loss. If you clean them yourself, you’ll get some of that energy back, but in order to restore energy back to full you need to clean them to a pristine standard. Power loss when dirty can be as high as 30 percent, and it’s critical that you get all of that back. That’s why it’s best to call in the professionals.
2. Solar Panels are Often Mounted on the Roof
There’s another good reason to hire the professionals for solar panel cleaning and that’s the fact that they’re nearly always installed on the roof. In 2020, almost 1 in 4 homes had rooftop solar panels. Some people have them at ground level in the yard, but most get rooftop panels for maximum exposure. That makes sense, but it makes them a lot more dangerous to clean than people realise. Some think they can just climb a ladder and safely clean the panels, but it can really end in disaster.
We’re not talking about rooftop fires here, but that certainly is a risk too and another good safety reason to leave solar panel matters to the experts. The other big risk of course is falling from ladders or falling off the roof of the house and being seriously injured or even killed. Falling from a roof can result in both life-altering or life-threatening injuries, which is why you should leave the rooftop solar cleaning to those with the experience and safety gear needed.
3. The Job Will Get Done Faster
A professional cleaning crew that cleans multiple sets of solar panels in a day, possibly dozens of sets through a working week has the knack for cleaning solar panels down to a fine art form. However fast you think you could be in cleaning your panels --- assuming you could even clean them half as thoroughly as the pros can --- you’d likely never beat the pros. It’s the same with most cleaning services. Window cleaners, house cleaners, gardeners, post-construction cleanup crews and so on are all faster and more efficient at what they do because they do it all day every day.
4. The Pros Use the Right Water
Professional solar panel cleaners are privy to one more fact that most of us probably don’t know. The condition of the water in the local area is extremely relevant to how effective it will be for cleaning. Using tap water, for example, has been shown to leave mineral deposits on the panels after drying. The pros know to test the water in the area where they’re working, and then treat it appropriately before using it to clean the panels. They know how to use the right cleaning agents, too (IE, not dish soap!)
