Solar panel maintenance on housing association house

mr_boony

Hello

I moved into a housing association house via mutual exchange and the property already had solar panels installed by the landlord.

The panels are near trees and are green and filthy so not going to be as effective as they should be and have not had a service.

I have spoken to one person at their office who said that the panels get “serviced” at the same time as the heating (I had the heating serviced last summer but the solar panels were not done) so I have asked for them to be booked in for a service. Landlords are now saying they are in talks with their engineers to decide what level of maintenance is needed on them as they are now not going to service them.

My question is has anyone had any experience with this as surely the panels are classed as electrical and therefore legally their responsibility? Also the cleaning they are saying is my responsibility. I spoke to shelter who have said that unless otherwise stated in my contract (it is not) it is something that goes beyond acting in a tenant like manor and should be their responsibility but otherwose they can’t give me an answer to the situation except to go to the ombudsman.

Any advice appreciated

Thank you.

AnotherJoe

Would you clean your roof? If not, I suggest you only clean the panels if you can make use of the generated electric. Won't be cheap people will have to get upon a scaffold platform (probably ladders not allowed these days?) and scrub or wash.

AdrianC

A lot of window cleaners do solar panels these days. It's not rocket science - a big long extending pole with a soft brush on the end, pretty much the same as they use for upstairs windows.

I presume you're talking about solar PV, rather than solar hot water?

AnotherJoe

Good to know thanks Adrian.

mr_boony

Yes the solar is electric only there’s no hot water system attached to it.

My argument is they had them installed free of charge, which included maintenance of them. They are making money on the electricity that goes back to the grid and when I had a letter through about the installer coming out to do a 5 yearly check I was told to ignore it as they do their own servicing at the same time the heating is checked. But they were not serviced only the heating system was and now they are saying they won’t service them at all. They are legally responsible for maintaining the electrical system surely this falls under the same category?

sevenhills

AdrianC wrote: »

A lot of window cleaners do solar panels these days. It's not rocket science - a big long extending pole with a soft brush on the end, pretty much the same as they use for upstairs windows.
I presume you're talking about solar PV, rather than solar hot water?

My solar panels have pigeon poo on one of them, because the aerial is fastened to the chimney which overlooks the panels. I have read that some grime hardly affects the panels.