Maintaining Panel Warranty

This property is at Roseville, in Sydney’s northern suburbs and within the Ku-ring-gai Council areas. There’s lots of greenery and birdlife due to its location, being a short drive to some of the best national parks. It’s a peaceful and very liveable area, for everybody, including nature!

As a result of this, homes are subject to all sorts of natural growths and contaminants on their roofs. Many of these much loved historic and classical terracotta tiled homes are subsequently under the constant attack of nature.

Heavy amounts of naturally occurring lichen are a common sight. Terracotta roof tiling is a perfect breeding ground for lichen as it is not glazed like many modern tiles, allowing the lichen to bond to a greater degree and thrive.

This home was no exception, with its solar panels being badly affected. These three solar arrays* were only installed in the second half of 2018. In this relatively short period of time since, six years, the two smaller arrays, installed horizontally, became heavily contaminated with lichen. The angled panels, in a much larger array, to a much lesser extent, but were heading down the same path, a path towards damage and a measurable reduction in power generation. This only adds to the owner’s power bill since this shortfall must be drawn from the mains supply.

The problem with this also (lack of cleaning), is that new panels are warranted for anything from 10 years to 25 years under certain conditions. Manufacturers recommend, and have an expectation, that the panels will be cleaned and maintained for customers to receive their full and generous warranty. Manufacturers also expect the panels are cleaned in the manner they specify.

This means that timed^ cleaning, using pure water technology and correct methods, is essential to take full advantage of any warranty period. Looking after a major household investment and keeping power bills to a minimum is also worthy of consideration.

Should any of these panels had failed, there would be real issues with any sort of warranty claim. Replacing single panels is not always possible either, technology moves on, and newer panels may not be compatible with your current system. The best approach is therefore to maintain your existing solar panels.

On this occasion, Extra Hand Solar Clean, with our onboard pure water system, specialist tools and equipment, saved these panels from further damage restoring them to a very good condition, especially the flat panels, where lichen had started eating into the panel coating.

*A solar array is a group of solar panels.

^We recommend cleaning take place in periods not exceeding 18 months in these harsh conditions.

Learn more about our solar cleaning and contact us today.