Solar Panel Cleaning in Austin — and a Health Check You Can Actually Read
Most solar systems in Central Texas are never looked at again after the day they are switched on. Panels get dusty, a breaker trips, a microinverter quietly stops reporting — and the first anyone hears about it is a higher electric bill months later.
This is the visit that catches that. We clean your panels, inspect the whole system, and pull the production data out of your own monitoring so you can actually read it. $349, and we take six of these a month.
What you get
- Your panels cleaned — up to 25 panels, washed with deionized water and soft brushes. No pressure washers, no detergents, nothing that voids a panel warranty.
- A full visual inspection — panels, mounts and flashing, wire management, conduit, disconnects, labeling, the inverter or microinverters, and the main panel connection. Photographed as we go.
- Your Solar Health Report — we pull the production history out of your Enphase, SolarEdge, Tesla or Sol-Ark monitoring and turn it into something readable: what your system has actually produced, month by month, against what it should, with the inspection findings and photos alongside it. You keep it.
That last part is the part nobody else does. Your monitoring app already holds years of data about your own system. Almost no homeowner can get a straight answer out of it. We read it for you and hand it back in plain English.
What cleaning does — and what it doesn’t
We would rather tell you this up front than sell you something that doesn’t help.
In Central Texas, rain does most of the washing. If your panels are lightly dusty, cleaning them will not transform your production, and anyone who promises otherwise is guessing. Cleaning genuinely earns its place when there is something on the glass that rain will not move: bird droppings, construction dust from a nearby build, heavy pollen, ash, hard-water spotting from a sprinkler that hits the array.
The reliable value of this visit is the other half — a licensed electrician on the roof, looking at the whole system, with the data in hand. That is what finds the tripped breaker, the corroded connector, the microinverter that stopped reporting in March, or the mount that has worked loose. Clean panels are the part you can see. The report is the part that saves you money.
What it costs
$349 flat for the visit, the cleaning, the inspection and the report. Cleaning alone lists at $299 and the health inspection at $299, so the pairing is priced as a bundle rather than the sum.
Arrays over 25 panels, second stories with difficult access, and ground mounts are quoted before we book — you will know the number before we come out, not after.
We take six of these a month. That is a real limit, not a sales tactic: most of our week is dispatch work for other contractors, and a proper health check takes half a day to do honestly. When the six are booked, we say so.
If the inspection turns up a fault, we will tell you what it is, what it costs to fix, and whether it is still under warranty — and you are free to take that report to anyone. Repairs are quoted separately from the price book. There is no maintenance contract, ever.
When this visit is worth booking
- You have never had the system looked at since it was installed.
- Your bill has crept up and you are not sure whether the system is the reason.
- The company that installed it is out of business — several large Texas installers have closed, and your equipment warranties usually survive them.
- There has been construction, a roof replacement, hail, or a big storm nearby.
- Birds have nested under the array, or you can see soiling from the ground.
- You are about to sell the house and want a clean, documented answer about the system.
Who does the work
Aether Energy is a licensed Texas electrical contractor, TECL #35881, based in San Marcos and working the I-35 corridor daily — Austin, Kyle, Buda, San Marcos, New Braunfels, San Antonio and the Hill Country.
We service any brand and any installer, including systems we did not install. We are certified on Enphase IQ8, FranklinWH, SPAN, Lumin and Generac equipment, and we work on SolarEdge and Sol-Ark systems daily. Solar work is electrical work, which is why it is done here by an electrician rather than a cleaning crew.
Questions homeowners ask
How long does it take?
About half a day for a typical residential array. We do not rush it, because the inspection is the point.
Do I need to be home?
Not for the cleaning and the roof work. We do need access to your monitoring — either you add us as a viewer, or you send screenshots from the app. It takes five minutes either way and we will walk you through it when you book.
Will this void my panel warranty?
No. We use deionized water and soft brushes, never pressure washers, abrasives or detergents, which is exactly what panel manufacturers specify.
What if you find something wrong?
You get the finding, a photograph of it, a price to fix it, and an honest answer about whether the manufacturer’s warranty should cover it. Equipment warranties commonly run 10 to 25 years and usually outlive the company that did the install. Nothing is repaired without your say-so.
How is this different from your $249 diagnostic?
The diagnostic is for when something is already wrong — you know there is a problem and you want the cause. Its fee is credited back against the repair. The health check is for a system with no obvious complaint: you want to know its condition and see your own numbers. Different starting point, different visit.
Do you do this outside Austin?
Yes — San Marcos, Kyle, Buda, New Braunfels and San Antonio are all in our core area. Hill Country and north-metro addresses carry a $150 out-of-zone trip charge, which we will tell you about before booking, not after.
Book a Solar Health Check
Tell us your address and what your system is, and we will confirm a slot and the exact price. If you would rather start without anyone coming out, send a recent bill and a screenshot from your monitoring app and we will read it at no charge — that is our free solar evaluation.
Request your Solar Health Check · (210) 394-3961 · Six slots a month, Austin to San Antonio.