SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Billing & Payments

Re-Cleans After a Storm: Deciding When to Bill a Second Solar Cleaning Visit

You clean a customer's array on Monday. On Thursday a dust storm rolls through, or a pollen dump turns every surface yellow, or ash drifts in from a fire two counties over. On Friday the customer calls: “You just cleaned these and they look worse than before.” Now you have a billing decision to make, and how you make it says a lot about your business.

A Policy Question, Not a Software Question

Commercial agreements, covered in Invoicing Commercial Solar Array Cleanings: Quarterly Visits, Site Labels and Clean Paperwork, are where re-clean terms are most often written down. But residential customers ask about re-cleans too. To be clear up front: how you price a storm re-clean is your operating practice. The software's job is to make it easy to apply the same practice to every customer.

Whose Problem Is the Storm?

Start with the honest answer: weather is not your fault. You cleaned the panels, and the photos with the job show they were clean when you left. A storm that dirties them three days later is no different from rain on a freshly washed car.

That said, the customer paid for clean panels and does not have them. They may not care whose fault it is. How you respond decides whether they stay on their twice-a-year plan or start looking around.

Three Common Approaches

Operators tend to land on one of these:

• Full price, scheduled normally. A re-clean is a new cleaning. Simple and fair, but it can feel harsh a few days after a visit.
• Reduced re-clean within a window. If a storm hits within a set number of days of a cleaning, a re-clean is offered at a reduced flat price. This is the most common middle ground.
• Included in the agreement. Some commercial agreements include one storm re-clean per year or per season, priced into the regular visits.

Any of these works. What does not work is deciding fresh every time based on who called and how upset they sounded.

Put It on the Service List

Whatever you choose, make it a line item on your service list, such as “Storm re-clean (within 14 days of service)” at your reduced price. That way:

• The office quotes it the same way to every customer.
• It shows on the invoice as its own, clearly named line, so the customer sees they got the reduced rate.
• It does not change the regular cleaning price for the next visit.

Publish the policy where customers can find it, like your website or sign-up confirmation. A customer who knew about the reduced re-clean before the storm is much happier than one who has to ask for a favor.

Scheduling the Re-Clean

After a big storm, many customers call at once. A re-clean should be created as its own one-time job at the address, so it lands on the board without disturbing the customer's recurring plan. The panel details and access notes are already on the address, so the crew gets the same card as their regular visit.

Use the Scheduled List to group re-cleans by area and let auto-route order them Closest First or Furthest First from the shop. A day of storm re-cleans routed tightly is far more profitable than the same jobs scattered across the week.

Photos Protect Both Sides

The before-and-after photos from the original cleaning are your best friend here. When a customer says the panels were never cleaned, the after photos show they were. When they say the panels look terrible now, a quick look at the storm confirms it. Ask the crew to take before photos on the re-clean too, so the record is complete. More on photos in Before-and-After Photos: The Proof Behind Every Solar Cleaning Invoice.

Talking to the Customer

Two-way texting from the office makes this conversation easy and keeps a record. A response might be: “Sorry about the dust storm. Your cleaning on Monday was before it hit, and the photos are in your app. Since it's within two weeks, we can come back at our storm re-clean rate. Want us to add you to Wednesday's route?” Friendly, factual, clear on price and easy to say yes to.

Be careful about promising results. Panels exposed to the open sky get dirty again; that is why plans exist. Do not suggest a cleaning will last a set amount of time.

When Not to Charge

There are times to waive the charge. If the crew missed a section, if the after photos show streaks, or if there is any doubt that the original job was done properly, return and fix it at no charge. That is a callback, not a re-clean. Keep the two clearly separate in your records, so your reports show how often callbacks happen versus storm re-cleans.

For how re-cleans fit into invoicing and payments overall, visit the solar cleaning billing software page.