Solar Panel Pigeon Protection in West Sussex - 10 Year Guarantee
The south coast of England is at an advantage when it comes to solar panel efficiency, compared to the north of England. Although the cells in the panels still convert the sun’s radiation into electricity when it’s cloudy, they are much more efficient in bright sunshine.
Studies estimate that the south receives about 100 more hours of sunshine than the north in your average year. As a result solar panels in West Sussex areas like Chichester, Worthing, Haywards Heath and Crawley will pay for themselves in about 8.4 years, assuming they are ‘on message’ and working efficiently. Up north it takes on average 9.7 years.
Unfortunately there are some things that can very much get in the way of solar power efficiency, and one of those is pigeons. Pigeons, and female pigeons in particular, just love solar panels. They will brood about three or four times a year, and when nesting are on the look-out for somewhere that’s safe, sheltered, warm and high up. If you have pigeons under solar panels, it’s the females and they will be nesting. The males will be hanging around nearby, usually on your roof, guttering, Sky TV dish or TV aerial. They also like to be high up, and on the look-out.
The noise they create is by a long way not the only problem. Your average adult pigeon will be creating about 25lb of pigeon guano in a year. That’s the weight of your average two year old, or 567 rolled up Sushis! And because of its uric acid it’s very corrosive stuff. Under the panels it can, over time, damage the fittings, clips and bars. On the panels any amount of pigeon guano is going to adversely affect the performance of the panels, and can damage them too.
Plus it’s nasty. Pigeon guano is a carrier for all manner of horrible bacteria and disease, some of which can be easily passed on to us humans and cause serious illness.
The good news is that here at British Bird Control we can help through our West Sussex solar panel pigeon proofing service. We know just how stop the pigeons getting underneath solar panels, so that they will move on, long term. And we offer a gilt-edged TEN-YEAR GUARANTEE with all our solar panel pigeon protection work in West Sussex.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does solar panel pigeon protection cost? solar panels?
At British Bird Control we like to keep things nice and simple when it comes to the cost of solar panel pigeon protection, and we are very competitive indeed on price. Our cost structure is largely based on whether or not our operatives will require scaffolding to carry out the work safely.
We can usually work this out from a telephone consultation and a quick look at your property on Google Earth, and can often provide you with a quotation over the phone. We require a 25% deposit to book in. Call us on 0800 327 7293.
Pigeons are creating a mess on my solar panels and roof tiles. Can you clean this?
Providing you can provide an in-reach external tap, the work includes free-of-charge removal of mess and fouling from inside the gutters beneath the installation where we can get ladders to the gutters and where it’s safe to do so, and also a rinse down (not a full clean) of the panel surfaces.
This should shift any light build-up of fouling and dirt, but if you have a heavy build-up of fouling, algae and/or lichens on the panel surfaces a specialist chemical clean would be needed and this is not something we can offer as a pest control company.
We do not clean roof tiles which again is a specialist service and take no responsibility for blocked downpipes which can become clogged up with a build-up of fouling and are not able to help with this as freeing it requires specialist equipment. We treat where nesting has been going on regardless of whether we can safely get all the nests out with biocide.
Are pigeons affecting the performance of my solar panels?
If you have birds getting under solar panels and believe this could be adversely affecting the performance of the panels and the very reason you got them in the first place, please let us know during the telephone consultation.
We have teams that can evaluate and fix solar panel performance on the spot, but if this is the case we may need to make a separate visit before the solar panel proofing takes place to check whether there is a short circuit, broken solar panel inverter, or other electrical issue which would make it dangerous to be on the roof until fixed. Please also let us know if you think there are dead adult pigeons under solar panels when we talk on the phone – they may have been electrocuted!
