Should you wash your solar panels? • Hacker News Board

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#41

Post by pton_xd » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:29 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #36

wodenokoto wrote: post #6

> why would you clean them when you're about to sell the house? So they look good and the potential buyer sees something that looks to be in good condition and working well.

Exactly the same reason you should probably clean the rest of the house when you're selling it. Theoretically, the price of the house before cleaning should be equal to the value if the house after cleaning, minus whatever the cleaning costs. In reality, you'll get much less for your house without cleaning it, because human emotions.

> because human emotions.

If I tour a house with pet urine stains all over the carpet, it's only logical to conclude that the owner is likely not maintaining the rest of the house to a very high standard.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#42

Post by kevincox » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #36

wodenokoto wrote: post #6

> why would you clean them when you're about to sell the house? So they look good and the potential buyer sees something that looks to be in good condition and working well.

Exactly the same reason you should probably clean the rest of the house when you're selling it. Theoretically, the price of the house before cleaning should be equal to the value if the house after cleaning, minus whatever the cleaning costs. In reality, you'll get much less for your house without cleaning it, because human emotions.

See also why houses are often painted when being staged for selling just so that the new purchaser can paint immediately after with their preferred colour. Wasteful but it works.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#43

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:36 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #36

wodenokoto wrote: post #6

> why would you clean them when you're about to sell the house? So they look good and the potential buyer sees something that looks to be in good condition and working well.

Exactly the same reason you should probably clean the rest of the house when you're selling it. Theoretically, the price of the house before cleaning should be equal to the value if the house after cleaning, minus whatever the cleaning costs. In reality, you'll get much less for your house without cleaning it, because human emotions.

It's perfectly rational to assume someone who didn't bother to clean the house before selling probably didn't take good care of the house in other, less visible ways.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#44

Post by DharmaPolice » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #31

namdnay wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because the kinds of people who pay higher prices are looking for clean and tidy things. I'd say it's also "because the kind of people who clean and tidy things also maintain them"

Exactly. "Is it clean and tidy right now" is a decent proxy for "Has this been properly taken care of in the past" Obviously it's not infallible. But even if the owner only cleaned their stuff now that they are selling it that still tells you they are the type of person to take action where it's beneficial

I think it's more of a negative indicator. It's like turning up to a job interview wearing dirty clothes - unless you're a savant it's probably indicative that you don't give a shit or have some sort of other problems in life. But wearing clean clothes doesn't give you points because it's assumed to be the norm in that setting.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#45

Post by kaelwd » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:39 PM UTC

cestith wrote: post #21

Tade0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar panels are increasingly being oriented east or west instead of south, as while it reduces overall yield, it maximises power when it's needed the most - during morning and evening peaks. I don't have numbers, but I suspect it alleviates issues with dust buildup and temperature.

Tracking systems are also becoming more popular. You spend a little more up front but get a lot more usable power.

Panels are so cheap now you're better off just installing twice as many without tracking.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#46

Post by jpgvm » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

Definitely wash the panels.

However if you are using a string inverter you will want to wash all the ones on the same string in one go if you can, you don't really want them generating different voltage or you will miss out on a lot of power.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#47

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

collabs wrote: post #4

Maybe the thing to do is to NOT upgrade existing working panels but rather set up a different/separate entity with completely different accounts and new panels? And about the washing, I wonder if it would be worth it to automate the process with a spray of water periodically? You can still wash the panels but I suspect it won't be necessary if there isn't too much dust accumulation? Isn't rain supposed to wash away t…

Look at any outside surface in a rainy climate.

The dirt may not be piling up, but it's far from clean.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#48

Post by Nzen » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #32

throw0101d wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also "staging": * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_staging

Why is it written like that lmao

Wikipedia is written by various people, but likely someone with interest in a given topic. One or more realtors probably wrote or edited this post.

Actually, the history of edits shows that this is contested territory where people regularly remove what they term as spam links. So, while a disinterested editor might remove a link to a listicle about how to stage your home, they might leave in the breathless tone as harmless. The drive by editors probably feel that they have no more time to rewrite it than we do, given that they watch over many articles, not just this one.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#49

Post by trimethylpurine » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

hgomersall wrote: post #15

Our peak daily export energy jumped by about 35%-40% when we had our panels cleaned for the first time in 8 years. They _look_ much cleaner, and the measured export shows it.

If export energy is 10% of your total output, and it jumped 35% then you got a ~3.5 - 4% gain in total output, not far from the author's experience.

Of course, you can math that any way you like to make the numbers bigger or smaller, depending on whether you're representing the buyer or the seller of the system.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#50

Post by harrall » Mon, Jul 27, 2026, 2:42 PM UTC

delusional wrote: post #36

wodenokoto wrote: post #6

> why would you clean them when you're about to sell the house? So they look good and the potential buyer sees something that looks to be in good condition and working well.

Exactly the same reason you should probably clean the rest of the house when you're selling it. Theoretically, the price of the house before cleaning should be equal to the value if the house after cleaning, minus whatever the cleaning costs. In reality, you'll get much less for your house without cleaning it, because human emotions.

It’s not just emotions, it’s a sign that, when presented with something annoying that you should do but not strictly required, it shows that you pushed through and did it anyway.

It doesn’t prove that you’ve been generally on top of things for the lifetime of the house but the inverse situation where you couldn’t clean one time for guests sure doesn’t.