Can you use a pressure washer to clean solar panels
A set of good solar panels on your home rooftop not only help you to get the utility when you need it. It also ensures you are not damaging the natural resource or not going to count a huge utility bill at the end of the month.
The fact is, maintaining or cleaning the solar panels is the only drawback that might pull you off to install these. However, maintaining or cleaning solar panels is not so easy, are not so tough! So what is it? Certainly, we will discuss it.
Let’s go through today’s session on ”using a pressure washer to clean solar panels”. We will find out the efficient way to clean solar panels and other relevant issues-
Can You Use a Pressure Washer To clean Solar Panels?
The most awesome matter about solar panels are-these doesn’t need to be cleaned frequently in a year. Rather a heavy rain, do your cleaning task most often. So you don’t need to go in the roof and don’t need to focus on the solar panels regularly.
However, though cleaning the solar panels is a less frequent job, still, outsider dirt and debris got a contact with the solar panels, making them less functional. Besides this, bird dropping is another object you need to clean from the panel surface. When a bird dropping falls onto the panels, it becomes baked and sticks to the panel surface due to its high heat of it. To clean this bird-dropping pressure washing seems the only effective way on your mind at first.
So overall at least two or thrice in a year you need to roll your shirt and take initiative to clean the solar panels. Whatever, Solar panels are an outside product, still, it’s a sensitive item that needs to clean in the proper ways. Improper cleaning of these wonderful gadgets can lead these damage soon.
However, you can’t clean your solar panels using a pressure washer. The high water flows using the pressure washer, easily can damage the sensitive surface of this device. That means you have the option to pressure wash solar panels, but it will make your solar panels less effective and with shorter life span.
You can use the pressure washer to clean the rooftop, gutter, or the whole outside of your home, but you can’t use a pressure washer for cleaning solar panels. Though pressure washers can reach high and can clean the large section of the panels deeply, they ultimately will damage the panels and will make them less efficient!
What Happens When You Pressure Wash Solar Panels?
If you are still determined to clean your solar panels with high water flow, this section is for you. You can clean the panels with pressurized water, but it will damage your whole solar panel system, cost you high, and will give you some additional hassle. The term solar panels safely don’t match the pressure washing. Also, it brings the following disturbance at a while!
Will damage the paint:
You might don’t know, that solar panels have a protective coating shield to protect them from any unwanted weather-related problem or pressure. This coating is on the metal frame of the panels and can easily come out from the metal frame due to the high pressure of the pressure washing.
If you continue using of pressure washer to clean your solar panels, even the painting may come out from the glass panels and let the sensitive panels exposed to all unwanted environmental factors like thunder, and heavy rain. So ultimately it will let your solar panels become rusty and corroded soon.
This damage will cost you high if you once again try to shine your solar panels like before. Besides it, if you want to resell the solar panels, customers will be demotivated to see the rusty, de-painted solar panels.
You will not get the warranty:
Yes, maximum (almost all) manufacturers deny allowing the warranty of your solar panels if you use a pressure washer to clean them. The aforementioned factors are the responsible factors, for why all manufacturers deny their warranty. The high pressure of the water flow forces the water to directly invade the PV system through the glass pans. Finally, this water innovation demolishes the vacuum seal, therefore damaging the solar panel function.
Overspray:
The high water spray comes from the pressure washing not 0nly exerts overpressure on the solar panel, but it also impacts the surroundings a lot. Though pressure washing makes roof cleaning very easy and lighter, still you need to know the even orientation of the water spraying.
The uneven orientation of this highly pressurized water spray also can damage the outer painting, and coating of your home. Also, the underneath tiles and clay roofing materials can damage upon the shoot of the pressurized water. So if there is any other option available, just avoid pressure washing solar panels.
How To Clean Solar Panels?
So if you cannot clean your solar panels with a pressure washer, how you can clean them? The good news is that lots of options are popular nowadays to clean these solar panels. Obviously, there are fully automated techniques, also the manual techniques-you can go through what suits you more.
Yes, heavy and long-time rain is strong enough to clean all the dirt and debris from your solar pans. But perhaps you are not living in a rainy area, or your solar panels may be acting less due to heavy dirt conjugation-so you need to clean it.
Solar panel cleaning is an easy task if you use the proper solar panel cleaning equipment. It’s usually an automated process, sometimes expert involvement needs at first.
However, you can only use brushes, sponges, and the regular cleaning agent to effectively clean solar panels. It’s a manual task, and the more time you spend on such cleaning the premier solar cleaning service it offers.
Another option is the soft bristle mechanical wash, it’s also good for solar panel cleaning. Using the aforementioned process are all manual and old, But all these are effective comparatively. Some new solar panel cleaning technologies are using robots, vibration, unique coating, etc. These techs are costly and suit better on commercial solar panel installation.
FAQs:
kind of cleaner do you use on solar panels?
I use vinegar to clean the solar panels. Detergent or soap water with a bucket of normal water and a soft brush with sponge-that all things I use to clean my solar panels. However there are several solar panels cleaner available on the market, and you can go through which.
What should you not clean solar panels with?
Hard Bristle Brushes, Strong Cleaning Agent, and the pressure washer-these three items should not use to clean the solar panels.
Finally,
That’s all today for your seeking of-Can you use a pressure washer to clean solar panels or not? If you already read the whole article, now you know you should not pressure wash your solar panels by any means. Pressure washing not only damages the solar panel, but it also gives you the hassles to repair the damaged portion at a high cost.
You better go through the manual cleaning. It is time-consuming, but acts well.
