[zesty]

A turbo nozzle on solar panels?

I've heard it all now.

And if it was like cement you get bet your arse you damaged the solar panels; simply because you've had to apply that amount of pressure to them to effectively remove cement.

Of course not slacky!

Goodness me mate, it was medium pressure at an angle, panels were absolutely fine.

Chill.

 I love this forum, everyone cry’s when anything mildly controversial takes place   

How many time’s do I need to say, the Cusomer agreed. No damage occurred. The job came up great. The panels still work. There was no water ingress.

In fact, I’ll now be offering it to customers if they except the risk in future. It worked so well.

You don’t fire water Into the edges of the panels, and with a turbo nozzle, you don’t need much pressure to lift the lichen.

I do shed loads of pressure washing mate, this was a calculated risk. Which worked an absolute treat.

Solar panels are mighty solid, their not flimsy, and certainly wouldn’t break from a bit of medium pressure washing. It’s water ingress that’s the issue, which can be managed easily with some knowhow and care.

[zesty]

Got a link to it ooooog?

Cleantecs

Just out of interest  what does one of those brushes cost ? They don’t have prices on the web site for some strange reason , that tells me they must be mega money 😂😂😂😂

About 5 or 6k depending on what you need.
We do a lot of poultry sheds and agricultural buildings. Perfect tool for the job. Guzzles water though.

A team of three of us clean a large solar farm on the roof of a massive commercial property, this device would come in handy, but it’s very expensive.

If the panels aren’t that bad then WFP suffices, but with lichen, it looks to be a good shout.

Way too expansive for me brother with, its rare I get panels plastered in lichen this.

[SB Cleaning]

A turbo nozzle on solar panels?

I've heard it all now.

And if it was like cement you get bet your arse you damaged the solar panels; simply because you've had to apply that amount of pressure to them to effectively remove cement.

Of course not slacky!

Goodness me mate, it was medium pressure at an angle, panels were absolutely fine.

Chill.

 I love this forum, everyone cry’s when anything mildly controversial takes place   

Now many time’s do I need to say, the Cusomer agreed. No damage occurred. The job came up great. The panels still work. There was no water ingress.

Chill 😊

I agree with Slacky, no way would I use a Turbo on Solars medium pressure or not

[zesty]

It worked SB, I’ll be more than happy to do it again.

No issue at all.

My Risk 👍🏼

It’s always very easy to judge on here,

But If you were with me, and saw how it was done, it’s one those jobs where you’d have said ‘yeah, fair play, that actually worked well and wasn’t causing ant damage what so ever’

I tried fan nozzles, they weren’t touching it.

The turbo was the only way, and it amazes me still (after years of pressure washing) how low a pressure you need to get good results from a turbo.

[zesty]

https://youtu.be/QDXsBpPvyoA


Example here of someone using a pressure washer.

The reality is, it sounds a lot worse than it actually is.

Solar panels are tougher than you think.

It’s a last resort, but it’s by no means a dangerous resort. I now know this first hand.

[Smudger]

Turbo works fine - had a farm full of them with lichen 1000 +

Turbo nozzle won't damage them

Good job mate

Darran

[zesty]

Turbo works fine - had a farm full of them with lichen 1000 +

Turbo nozzle won't damage them

Good job mate

Darran

I think its easy for people to judge on here Darren, it’s so easy when someone writes a post to criticise it, if it sounds remotely ‘dangerous’ or ‘out of the ordinary’.

It does work fine, it’s just people have it in their heads that solar panels are flimsy and breakable. The reality is, they’re not.

Then again, this is clean it up, we love a critical post.

Slacky and SB, no issues, let’s crack on.

👍🏼

[Ooooooog]

It’s about the manufacturers recommendation re cleaning.
I’ve not read one that advices pressure washing. Be careful!

[Splash & dash]

It’s about the manufacturers recommendation re cleaning.
I’ve not read one that advices pressure washing. Be careful!

We used to do tens of thousands of panels for one of the largest panel manufacturers/installers and the cleaning instructions are very specific , if they found out you were doing that they would go nuts , there is no need to be using a pressure washer there are other far safer methods , but it’s not worth spending the money as far as ime concerned, we only do a small number now there’s no money in it any way earn far more doing easy windows

[Slacky]

Turbo works fine - had a farm full of them with lichen 1000 +

Turbo nozzle won't damage them

Good job mate

Darran

I think its easy for people to judge on here Darren, it’s so easy when someone writes a post to criticise it, if it sounds remotely ‘dangerous’ or ‘out of the ordinary’.

It does work fine, it’s just people have it in their heads that solar panels are flimsy and breakable. The reality is, they’re not.

Then again, this is clean it up, we love a critical post.

Slacky and SB, no issues, let’s crack on.

👍🏼

My response was because I would be most aggrieved having to put a claim through on insurance. I would definitely not consider cleaning solar panels this way and if I did I would expect problems.

If you clean solar panels this way I would expect eventually you’ll come unstuck and have problems getting insurance again.

Each to their own.

[zesty]

It wasn’t a commercial job slacky, it was domestic, and remember they agreed the risks.

But...

To be honest, having now used the pressure washer and turbo nozzle, I can safely safe it’s absolutely fine. It sounds worse than it is.

You obviously don’t blast the edges, but the panel itself is all good with some medium pressure.

[zesty]

It’s about the manufacturers recommendation re cleaning.
I’ve not read one that advices pressure washing. Be careful!

We used to do tens of thousands of panels for one of the largest panel manufacturers/installers and the cleaning instructions are very specific , if they found out you were doing that they would go nuts , there is no need to be using a pressure washer there are other far safer methods , but it’s not worth spending the money as far as ime concerned, we only do a small number now there’s no money in it any way earn far more doing easy windows

Splash, it wasn’t commercial, the customer agreed to it, and as Darren said, it’s perfectly fine with seriously stained panels.

Trust me, there was no other way. It was a joke jow stubborn the lichen was.

I agree there isn’t much money it, but I charged well for it. I hate doing them , so always quote high.

These days I get around 1 in 10 quotes as i price do high.

[Slacky]

It wasn’t a commercial job slacky, it was domestic, and remember they agreed the risks.

But...

To be honest, having now used the pressure washer and turbo nozzle, I can safely safe it’s absolutely fine. It sounds worse than it is.

You obviously don’t blast the edges, but the panel itself is all good with some medium pressure.

I don’t understand what difference commercial/domestic makes....

[zesty]

It wasn’t a commercial job slacky, it was domestic, and remember they agreed the risks.

But...

To be honest, having now used the pressure washer and turbo nozzle, I can safely safe it’s absolutely fine. It sounds worse than it is.

You obviously don’t blast the edges, but the panel itself is all good with some medium pressure.

I don’t understand what difference commercial/domestic makes....

A domestic customer is far less risky in my opinion. They agree to the potential for damage. Job done. They’ve agreed to the risk. Pen to paper. No issue.

Commercial, different story, they’d fight it harder if something went wrong.

End of the day though mate, no damage occurred and never would. I’d be more than happy to do it again.

You’ll never know if you hadn’t tried it mate, so you can’t really judge. Darren has, he knows (and he’s no newbie to this). Once you’ve done it, you’ll quickly find it is perfectly safe.

If you don’t trust yourself (plural) with high pressure then no problem, run things your way bud.

👍🏼

[Slacky]

Its not that I don’t trust myself with high pressure. I dont trust the method for cleaning solar panels. Theyre not designed to be cleaned that way.

I would dispute your theory that a domestic wouldnt fight it. If you write off £10,000 worth of solar panels of a domestic customer, their electricity generation and potentially burn their house down through your negligence (which is what it is; check out the manufacturers cleaning instructions and recommendations) you’re for the high jump.

[zesty]

Its not that I don’t trust myself with high pressure. I dont trust the method for cleaning solar panels. Theyre not designed to be cleaned that way.

I would dispute your theory that a domestic wouldnt fight it. If you write off £10,000 of solar panels, their electricity generation and potentially burn their house down through your negligence (which is what it is; check out the manufacturers cleaning instructions and recommendations) you’re for the high jump.

Slacky, your probably one of those people that walks round wrapped in cotton wool.

I’ve been in this game 12 years, pressure washing all those years as well. Chill. You ain’t gonna damage the panels.

As said, I would happily do it again, having now done it.

We can agree to disagree. As someone who has now actually done it, I can safely say, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll cause any damage, it’s also unlikely you’d need to use high pressure in the first place. In this instance, it was the only way.

I leave with you with this. The actual LPM needed isn’t much, you just need that turbo nozzle to create a concentrated pressure onto the lichen. It’s a very different technique to pressure washing a patio etc etc.

You have far less spray because you turn the unloader valve down such that the LPM is around 8-9lpm. Rather than 21lpm i would usually run. You’re also running at circa 1000psi, rather than 3000 psi.

All of the above means that the chance of damage is almost zero, and in my case, it was zero.

The panel itself is extremely tough, and there is absolutely no way you’d damage the panel. The single only issue is water ingress. You remove that issue  by reducing the flow and pressure.

It’s very effective, and very safe in that instance.

Heck, if it were that dangerous, how on earth did Darren clean a massive solar farm that way with no issue? Could it be because your massively over thinking it, and have never tried it to actually know?

 

[Smudger]

In these cleaning instructions what is the frequency of cleaning?

I worked very closely with an installer and the panels are pretty bullet proof they used to drive their 4x4 pickup over them in demo's
As with a lot of these things, there's plenty of opinions about what you can and can't do, likewise the manufacturers will put every disclaimer they can (just imagine some customer hiring a 4000 psi pressure washer, blating not only the top surface but the frames and wiring to boot) to get out of any claims against failure

IMO you are less likely to damage the surface by flooding it with clean water that blasts away debris than scrubbing it with a bush nd dragging th dirt over the surface

Darran

[zesty]

Here you go slacky

https://youtu.be/grmOcOV5k9E

Think of the massive hail stones these things have to cope with, as well as torrential, wind driven rain. Snow. Ice. The lot.

Solar panels are flipping strong. Little bit of pressure washing is about as dangerous as you walking through a ball pit in all that cotton wool of yours.

I’ll concede this. If you are stupid enough to full pelt pressure wash under the panels at the wiring, or right Into the panel edging. Then yes. It’s a bad idea.

Mind you, you’ve have to be a complete moron to do that.

[KS Cleaning]

Where’s Solar Steve when you need him 😂😂

[Splash & dash]

Where’s Solar Steve when you need him 😂😂

He is banned 😂😂😂😂😂 he would have a heart attack at the thought Of  using a pressure washer on panels