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Should you wash your solar panels?

incoherency.co.uk

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Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#161

Post by jhot »

Aurornis wrote: post #78

Washing solar panels is one of the current popular business ideas on social media. It’s an easy pivot for anyone who already has some experience with much harder home repair handiwork involving a ladder. The reason it’s popular is because most people don’t understand the economics at all. Someone can go door-to-door in a neighborhood offering to clean solar panels and making huge claims about improving efficiency so…

I asked a friend with a window cleaning business and they charge about $10 a panel. At that rate I'm tempted to try it but I'm not sure if it's even worth that.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#162

Post by WalterBright »

epiccoleman wrote: post #157
WalterBright wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump wrote in one of his books that a person selling their car that does not detail it beforehand is a fool.

i find it extremely hard to imagine that Donald Trump would have ever been personally involved in the sale of a vehicle at the level that he'd be making decisions about whether or not it was detailed, but I guess it's sensible generic advice

Visit a used car lot. The cars are all clean and detailed.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#163

Post by asdff »

austinl wrote: post #53
delusional wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having recently bought a house, I love thinking about things that increase perceived value relative to cost (more so because they're nice to have, not because we plan to sell any time soon). A few things we changed right away: - new mailbox (replacing a rusted 30+ year old one) - lots of landscaping work (the majority of which I can do myself) - installed a wine fridge (I always felt it gave the sense that the kitche…

What is funny is it is kind of going full circle now with the home decor. All the 70s-80s era finishes boomers are currently gutting and replacing with builders special grey modern blegh are actually becoming popular again among millennials and gen z buyers.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#164

Post by Scoundreller »

Archelaos wrote: post #62
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.

I would generalise this a little: The problem with buying a complex item is information inequality. The seller knows more about it than the potential buyer. When inspecting the item, the buyer therefore looks for signs of hidden defects or for evidence that the item is in good condition overall. In this way, cleanliness becomes a proxy for the general condition of the object. Similar mechanisms are at work elsewhere…

Aka: a heuristic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#165

Post by asdff »

dlubarov wrote: post #68
austinl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having recently bought a house, I love thinking about things that increase perceived value relative to cost (more so because they're nice to have, not because we plan to sell any time soon). A few things we changed right away: - new mailbox (replacing a rusted 30+ year old one) - lots of landscaping work (the majority of which I can do myself) - installed a wine fridge (I always felt it gave the sense that the kitche…

To add a few more: it's similarly easy to swap cabinet handles, vent covers, outlet wall plates. Fresh caulk is nice too, even if it's a bit sloppy, still beats stained or cracked caulk.

I hate when sellers do this. Replace all the finishes and hardware with the cheapest possible hardware from the store just because it is new. You end up paying for a top dollar house (because now you can argue its worth more than comps that didn't get this treatment) with bottom dollar components.

What would be better is not doing anything and letting the new owner install what makes sense to them, instead of having them pay markup essentially for these placeholder finishes, but obviously we can't have any altruism on this capitalist earth.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#166

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

WalterBright wrote: post #111
Archelaos wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would generalise this a little: The problem with buying a complex item is information inequality. The seller knows more about it than the potential buyer. When inspecting the item, the buyer therefore looks for signs of hidden defects or for evidence that the item is in good condition overall. In this way, cleanliness becomes a proxy for the general condition of the object. Similar mechanisms are at work elsewhere…

"Information inequality" is known as "risk". Risk is inherent in any transaction. That factors into the price: one is willing to pay less the more risk there is, and will pay more for less risk.

Much too simple.

Most "risks" have an upside and a downside. In this case, for example, the solar PV system may be working better or worse than the (potential) buyer initially comes to understand.

We have huge industries based on selling "risk, but with a huge potential upside" to people willing to pay for access to the potential upside. Many of those customers are not interested in low risk in that context.

So "more risk, pay less" is not a hard and fast rule, but depends on what is being purchased, the circumstances of the buyer, and more.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#167

Post by SoftTalker »

WalterBright wrote: post #155
SoftTalker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly wasn't the case for any of the houses I've bought. All were compromises in various ways; none were houses we loved on first sight.

Have you ever driven by a prospective purchase and never bothered to get out of the car? > All were compromises in various ways That's true of just about everything.

No, if we took the time to go to the place, we at least looked at it. I don't remember ever driving up to any property and just turning around.

Did we rule looking at something based on photos/descriptions? Yes, certainly.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#168

Post by asdff »

deepsun wrote: post #154
tpoindex wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SolarWorld, 175 watt, polycrystalline. I don't recall any model number (paper work is filed away somewhere.) ISTR mine were made in Germany. I think at the time my system was installed, there where some 225 watt panels available, but the 175 ones were a better price point per watt. [edit - added technology]

The SolarWorld company is no more :( Which means your experience is irreplicable, other companies' solar panels may be crap.

Prices per watt of solar have fallen by so much over 20 years its absurd. You can probably buy the best and/or most costly residential panel on the market and still come well under whatever the median was 20 years ago. Probably well under a few standard deviations below the old median I'm guessing.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#169

Post by KaiserPro »

bebe8393jrir wrote: post #5

> If I increase the power output of the system then the additional capacity will not be eligible for the feed-in tariff and will revert to present-day prevailing tariff which is about 4x worse before you even consider that I currently get to use electricity and still get paid for generating it. > This is the yin and yang of market-distorting incentives. Today's incentive to install solar becomes tomorrow's disincenti…

> I am not sure what author is trying to hint. But solar does not need artificial subsidies, and can pay for itself!

At grid scale, yes.

For the house, not so much.

The feed in tariff was at one point 41 pence per kwhr which is probably £10 a day in summer.

but at 12p a kwhr it drops to £3.6

However, 10kwp of panels is ~£1800, but the micro inverters needed to drive them are >£3k (as its outside you can probably use two larger inverters.) Then mounting system is probably a good 800 quid too.

Re: Should you wash your solar panels?

#170

Post by lelanthran »

rcxdude wrote: post #28

Re: the slightly strange shape of the curve. The drop at the beginning could be due to the matching between the panels getting worse. Solar panels in a bank don't like being in different conditions. As a rule of thumb they will all perform at about the same level as the worst in the bank but at the finer levels you could get less straightforward interactions. The drop off after cleaning could well be because some of…

> The drop off after cleaning could well be because some of the initial boost could come from the water cooling off the panels: solar panels become less efficient at higher temperatures so the drop of after they're all cleaned could be them warming up again after the water has evaporated.

This was almost certainly the case. AIUI, that cooling still makes a large difference.

Makes me wonder if it is worth it having a small esp32 or similar control a sprinkler system for the panels. Keep them cool during high ambient temps by spraying a litre of water on each panel every 30m.

An idea I had a while back (when I was considering panels) was running my mains water through the back of each panel (before the mains got to the hose) in a sort of radiator pattern.

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