Snow removal

[itnetpro]

I live near Philadelphia and we received a lot of snow this year. Sometimes my panels are covered for up to 5 days with minimal power production. Thinking of a way to get that snow off my roof. Came across these guys http://roofrake.com/Productpages/snowpro2.asp looking at the 30' extension pole the the rubber device they claim made for solar panels. $150 seems like a hefty cost. Anyone here have this model and if so is it effective in removing snow from your panels?

John

[Volusiano]

I paid $175 for a 30ft fiber glass extension water-fed-pole with a water-fed cleaning brush head and tube from SimPole.com. You can probably use that same pole for snow removal purposes as well. At lease you'll have double use for it, as a snow removal pole in the winter and a cleaning pole in the summer. If the cleaning brush is not effective for snow removal, then order the snow removal head from that website you're showing for $23. It looks like just the standard screw-on type that should work on all poles anyway.

As for using the pole for cleaning in the summer, you can buy a charcoal/DI 2-filter-10" cartridge set up for use with your water-fed-pole for around $125 and you can get pure water to do your panels cleaning and let them dry to a spot free clean surface. You can also use it for your windows cleaning or car wash as well.

[peakbagger]

I uses one of these directly with no resilient cover. http://www.amazon.com/Ames-True-Temp...5&sr=1-1Panels are a lot tougher than you think

Some things to consider.

Once the rake gets past 3 poles, its get real flexible and moving it around gets difficult. Anything more than four poles is downright scary. I set up my extension ladder rather then doing 4 pole sections. Some firms sell specialized bends for the poles to access shallow panels, this makes thing even more unwieldy

What ever you do take that flexibility into account when cleaning a roof near power lines that run to the house. It isnt worth electrocution for a couple of kW

Even though the panels look flat, many racking systems have top mounted clips that catch on the roof rake. This is a PITA unless you are pulling snow directly up and down and stay away from the seams where the clips are. I would expect the foam covers some folk use will get caught and get damaged.

I remove soft snow only, once the panels go through a daily freeze thaw cycle and crust up, its requires some beating on the snow and that could damage a panel. Thus if you are committed to cleaning your panels it needs to get it done immediately after the storm

The rakes are not ice scrapers, you are better off exposing what you can and hope the sun will melt the frozen areas. Generally as long as a portion of the panel is exposed the sun is pretty effective at melting off snow.

If the panels are on a high roof, plan on getting covered with snow and be real careful for ice chunks as you are directly in the line of fire.

I cover the lower pole sections with hockey tape to improve the friction, trying to grip the smooth aluminum to pull down the snow gets difficult real quick and the reduced blood flow to your hands makes them cold quick.

I have two adjustable arrays that I set up at steep angle in the winter and then one array on my roof that it shallow and prone to snow build up. I just live with the lost production from the roof array and mostly use the rake on my other arrays which are both back mount so I dont have to deal with panel clips and multiple extension poles.

[inetdog]

Has anyone tried a drainback (normally dry) water spray system for clearing snow and/or ice from the panels?
Clearly if the temp gets too low you could end up with a snow making machine instead.

[snic]

My installer cautioned me against a snow rake, saying it could damage the panels.

Someone online proposed throwing a nerf football onto the panels a few times to knock fresh snow off. Inspired by this idea, I daydreamed about attaching 10 nerf balls to string about 2 feet in length, then tying all these to the end of a rope. Then, hold the rope with a 6 foot pole with a release mechanism, so you can use it to hurl the balls, string and rope up onto the panels. Then pull them all back with the rope and repeat until you've exposed some of each panel to sunlight.

If nothing else, my neighbors would get a kick out of seeing me whip my panels with a cat-o-nine-tails every time it snows!

[peakbagger]

Having done it for over 10 years with my plastic rake I don't see how the rake can damage panels as long as too many extensions are not used . Where the impact damage can occur is when the poles get "whippy" In that case moving the rake around entails letting it whip around 3 or 4 feet in either direction and then landing it on the panel. That definitely could crack a panel. On the 4 brands of panels of various vintages I own there is no surface coating I can detect. Its just plain old tempered glass and unless the panels are struck quite hard by and impact no damage. Out of general caution I would not use a metallic rake which are sold but my plastic one is not going to scrape a piece of glass.

With my true temper rake, 2 poles are fine, the third introduces some flexibility and 4 poles are almost unmanageable.

[snic]

It's the "too many poles" I'm worried about. I have a 2 story house and the pole would need to be something like 30 or 35 feet long. Not only would a contraption that long be unwieldy, but if it really whips around, the metal pole could crack glass even if the soft rake doesn't.

[Volusiano]

It's the "too many poles" I'm worried about. I have a 2 story house and the pole would need to be something like 30 or 35 feet long. Not only would a contraption that long be unwieldy, but if it really whips around, the metal pole could crack glass even if the soft rake doesn't.

If you have a 2 story house, I doubt that a 30 or 35 foot long pole would even reach the roof top from the ground. It may reach your second story windows but that's about it. Snow removal from the roof of a 2 story house is probably not doable safely from the ground anyway.

[peakbagger]

I have a two story house and I agree fully with the prior poster. I have four sections and from the ground I can just reach the lower 1' of the roof and the pole was quite wiggly to the point where I would not have wanted to try to land on a panel. I have used an extension ladder up to the edge of the roof and two poles, unfortunately unless I move the ladder multiple times, I end up pulling snow diagonally across the panels and encountering the slightly raised panel clips.

I did post on another site some musings about installing a deflector upstream of the prevailing wind side of my roof panels to encourage wind to scour off the panels but haven't gone any farther. I live in a high wind area and my panels were cleaned off that way two days ago.

[itnetpro]

I decided to go a head and pick up the 30 ft snow removal pole with attachment. We do have a two story home. The poll will have no problem clearing the panels on the garage. As long as I can clear the first panels on lower part of home roof I will be happy. The garage alone has 12 Panels at 250w each (Clip at 225). If I clear the bottom 6 on home roof thats 18 working out of 40. Much better then I have now.

If this works like I hope it does, the $150 investment will be worth it in the long run.

I will report back after next snow storm coming next week and give a review of the 30ft snow pro setup.

John

[inetdog]

I decided to go a head and pick up the 30 ft snow removal pole with attachment. We do have a two story home. The poll will have no problem clearing the panels on the garage. As long as I can clear the first panels on lower part of home roof I will be happy. The garage alone has 12 Panels at 250w each (Clip at 225). If I clear the bottom 6 on home roof thats 18 working out of 40. Much better then I have now.

You need to know exactly how the panels on your home roof are wired up. If a given string into the inverter is made up of equal numbers of first row and second row panels, you may not be able to get the full benefit from the lower panels.
In fact, if the house roof and garage roof panels go into the the same MPPT inverter input, you may not get any benefit at all from the partial array on the house.

[peakbagger]

I find that if I can get the lower portion of my panels cleaned off, that when the sun come out the rest of the array melts fairly quickly. What seems to slow things down is when the snow is built up at the base of the panels as the snow tends to slide down in sheets and get stuck. If I clean off out front and on the lower panels, the sheets tend to accelerate and keep going.

[itnetpro]

Thats easy, I get partial shading issues during the winter so my setup uses 215w Enphase Micro inverters so this should not be an issue.

Thanks for looking out.

John

You need to know exactly how the panels on your home roof are wired up. If a given string into the inverter is made up of equal numbers of first row and second row panels, you may not be able to get the full benefit from the lower panels.
In fact, if the house roof and garage roof panels go into the the same MPPT inverter input, you may not get any benefit at all from the partial array on the house.

[Pensacola 10K]

Never thought I'd have an issue with snow on my panels BUT

2nd week my system is on line and my panels are covered with snow in Pensacola FL, never thought it would ever be a problem!!

[WillBkool]

I'm an hour east of Pensacola and my panels were covered with snow/ice from late Tuesday until about 10 am today. I never thought that it would happen in Florida. Could I use room temperature water to remove the snow/ice from my panels like I had to do with my car? Even the doors were iced shut!