Solar Panel Cleaning Cost UK 2026: Per Panel and Per House Prices

MyJobQuote, MyBuilder and Which? all put solar panel cleaning at around £4 to £15 a panel (MyBuilder £4 to £10), and MyJobQuote publishes £80 to £150 for a two or three bed terraced or semi-detached house. Checkatrade quotes a higher £10 to £20 a panel. Height and access move the price more than anything else. Those are national market ranges published by other people, not our prices.

That is the short answer. Below is what each guide prints per panel and per house, where Checkatrade's own figures contradict each other, what moves the number on your roof, and what a quote should include.

How much does solar panel cleaning cost per panel?

All four national price guides publish a per-panel figure. These are their numbers, as published, read on 28 September 2026.

• Checkatrade: £10 to £20 per panel, with an average of £15, in a table marked last updated August 2026.
• MyJobQuote: between £4 and £15 per panel, in a guide dated 27 August 2026. It adds that a per-panel fee sometimes comes with a minimum charge, so it can lead to higher costs for smaller jobs.
• MyBuilder: £4 to £10 per panel per session, on its solar panel maintenance cost guide.
• Which?: around £4 to £15 per panel, depending on how easy the panels are to access and how dirty they are, in its solar panel myths article dated 9 June 2026.

Three of the four overlap between £4 and £10. Checkatrade sits higher: its lowest per-panel figure, £10, is MyBuilder's highest. We are not going to average them, because an average of four ranges is a figure nobody published. None of the four states whether its figures include VAT, so ask before you compare two quotes.

How much does it cost to clean the solar panels on a whole house?

MyJobQuote is the only guide that prices the job by house type, with a typical panel count for each. It gives an average of around £150, and says most homeowners pay around £100 to £150.

• Bungalow or ground-mounted system, 6 to 10 panels: £50 to £90.
• Two to three bed terraced or semi-detached, 8 to 14 panels: £80 to £150.
• Four bed detached, 12 to 16 panels: £120 to £180.
• Five or more bed or large detached, 16 to 25 panels: £150 to £250.

Checkatrade prices a bank of 40 panels instead. It publishes £60 to £100, average £80, to clean 40 panels on the ground floor, and £150 to £300, average £225, to clean 40 panels above one storey.

Those two Checkatrade tables do not reconcile, and it is worth knowing before you hold a quote up against them. Forty panels at Checkatrade's own £10 to £20 per panel would come to £400 to £800, which is arithmetic on this page and not a figure any source publishes. Yet the same table prices 40 ground-floor panels at £60 to £100. Checkatrade does not explain the gap and we will not pick one for it. Its own advice covers it: when getting quotes, ask for a cost per panel and a full price list, which makes it much easier to compare fairly.

MyBuilder publishes no per-house figure, but it prices the parts. It puts labour for maintenance tasks such as cleaning, inspections and repairs at £20 to £60 per hour, with transport adding £15 to £50 depending on location.

Why does panel height change the price so much?

Because height is where the time, the kit and the risk are. Checkatrade names panel height as the biggest pricing factor, and its own table shows it: the same 40 panels average £80 on the ground floor and £225 above one storey, close to three times as much. It says the difference covers the equipment and training needed to clean panels above the ground safely, and that a simple water-fed pole costs less than scaffold or cherry-picker access. MyJobQuote says cleaning panels on a roof is usually more time-consuming and expensive than cleaning ground-level panels.

What that height means for anybody tempted to do it themselves is covered in our guide to whether solar panels need cleaning at all, which goes through the working at height guidance properly.

What else changes the price?

• Number of panels: named by Checkatrade and MyJobQuote. More panels usually mean a higher total.
• Condition: Checkatrade says the dirtier the panels are, the more time the job takes, and MyJobQuote says the same about dirt and debris.
• Where the panels are mounted: MyJobQuote says ground-mounted panels may be cheaper to clean than panels on a roof.
• Minimum charge: MyJobQuote says a per-panel fee sometimes comes with one, which lifts the cost of a small job.
• Where you live: MyJobQuote says solar panel cleaning in Edinburgh will generally cost less than in London, and Checkatrade lists property location as a factor. None of the four publishes a Surrey figure, and we will not invent one.
• Booking regularly: MyJobQuote says many companies offer a lower per-visit rate for an annual or twice-yearly slot than for a one-off visit, and that it is worth asking about.

What should a solar panel cleaning price include?

Checkatrade says the price includes labour, materials and transport to your property, and describes the visit: the cleaner inspects the panels, shuts the system down before work begins, gets safe access, cleans with water-fed brushes and non-abrasive products, then restarts the system and checks it is working. MyJobQuote describes the same shape of visit: an inspection, set-up usually from the ground using extendable water-fed poles, gentle cleaning with purified water and soft brushes, and a final rinse and check.

Neither describes a pressure washer, and the reason is set out in our guide to whether you can power wash solar panels. If a quote is suspiciously cheap, ask what it will be cleaned with.

Three things are not cleaning, and it helps to know them so they do not get muddled into the price. MyJobQuote says a cleaner will not carry out repairs, and that if a clean does not restore performance you may need an electrician to inspect the system. MyBuilder prices an annual system check-up separately, at around £50 to £100 a year. And bird proofing is its own job: MyJobQuote says fitting mesh or spikes around the array is a bigger one-off cost than a clean but tackles the cause, and publishes no price for it.

How often will you pay for it?

The price of one clean matters less than how many you buy, and here the four guides do not agree at all. Checkatrade says to aim to clean your panels every six months. MyBuilder says twice a year. MyJobQuote says most UK panels only need cleaning around once a year. Which? says a heavy rain storm should usually be enough to wash off most dirt, and that panels might need cleaning if there is a big build-up, especially on one panel. Between them, that runs from twice a year to only when the dirt builds up.

On whether a clean pays for itself, the two that address it are careful. MyJobQuote says that on an average home a clean might only recover a small amount of lost output, so it can take a couple of years to pay for itself, but that heavier soiling such as bird droppings can lose up to 10% of output. Checkatrade says panels left dirty can lose several percent of their efficiency over a UK summer. Whether your own array needs doing is the question in our guide to whether solar panels need cleaning, and it is often no.

How to compare solar panel cleaning quotes

• Ask for the cost per panel and the total, as Checkatrade advises, and check both against the ranges above.
• Ask whether there is a minimum charge, which MyJobQuote says can make a small job dearer than the per-panel rate suggests.
• Ask what is included: MyJobQuote suggests checking whether the quote covers travel, water use and full roof access.
• Ask what the panels will be cleaned with. MyJobQuote says a decent kit uses soft brushes, purified water and no harsh detergents.
• Ask whether the figure includes VAT, since none of the four guides says either way.
• Ask about insurance. MyJobQuote's hiring checklist puts it as a straight question: are they insured? We hold £1m public liability insurance with Admiral Business.

For a figure on your own roof rather than a national range, somebody has to see how many panels there are, how high they sit and what is on them. We clean solar panels from Horley across Surrey, and our solar panel cleaning page covers how. Tell us roughly how many panels you have and whether they are on the ground floor or higher when you ask for a free quote.