As renewable energy sources become more prevalent in our society, it is important to understand the importance of taking proper care and cleaning of solar panels. Solar panels are very effective at harnessing the sun’s energy and converting it into electricity. However, it is important to remember that the effectiveness of solar panels can be significantly decreased if they are not regularly cleaned and maintained.

The biggest issue with not cleaning solar panels is that dirt and debris can accumulate on the surface of the panels, blocking their ability to absorb the sun’s energy. This can lead to a decrease in the amount of energy that the panels are able to produce. This decrease can be quite substantial if the panels are not regularly cleaned. Not only is the energy output reduced, but the panels can also become less efficient at generating energy, which can lead to an increase in energy bills.

In addition to the decrease in energy output, solar panels can also suffer from other issues if they are not regularly cleaned. Dirt and debris can act as insulation and trap heat in the panels, leading to a decrease in their efficiency and an increase in their operating temperature. This can lead to a decrease in the lifespan of the panels, as well as potential damage to the panels or even fires.

The good news is that cleaning solar panels is a relatively simple process. Typically, all that is needed is a soft cloth and some mild soap and water. It is important to make sure that the panels are completely dry before they are put back in the sun, as even small amounts of water can cause damage to the panels.
Overall, it is important to keep in mind that regular cleaning of solar panels is essential for optimal performance and efficiency. With proper maintenance, solar panels can be a great way to generate clean, renewable energy for many years to come.

Like our experienced solar panel cleaners to take care of it safely for you? Get a quote today.

Whether you’re renovating your office building or moving operations to a new property, you must include bird-proofing in your plans.

From their nests to their droppings, birds are never good news for commercial properties.

Don’t think it’s an issue worth investing in?

Here are some reasons that’ll convince you to bird-proof your office building.

To Prevent Damage to Property

From blocking your gutters and clogging your ventilation systems to damaging the exterior, birds can cause significant damage to your commercial property. 

Bird droppings contain uric acid, which can result in earlier deterioration of your office building. They can also clog your ventilation systems and gutters, leading to poor air quality and drainage problems.

There is also a risk of fire damage if the birds start building nests near electrical systems.

The increasing number of bird visits in spring and summer may also render outdoor seating areas of your office building unusable. 

To Reduce Maintenance and Cleaning Costs

Fixing structural damage and other issues too often can get quite expensive. And in the meanwhile, your office building’s appearance suffers.

Bird proofing the building will reduce the maintenance and repairs involved and help save costs.

To Reduce Health Risk

Pest birds can increase the risk of health-related problems for inhabitants of the building.

Bird droppings can cause diseases such as histoplasmosis, psittacosis, cryptococcosis, and even food poisoning. The inhabitants of your office buildings can catch these infections by inhaling the dust that rises when cleaning the droppings.

Birds also carry fleas, mites, bed bugs, and other parasites and insects that make your office’s surroundings less habitable. Moreover, aggressive birds also make it unsafe for your employees to access the building’s rooftops or balconies.

To Prevent Contamination

Businesses with goods on commercial property can suffer greater losses due to bird droppings, feathers, and parasites. 

If a health official discovers contamination in the building, it poses a significant risk of business operations getting temporarily shut down.

To Reduce Noise Pollution and Odours

Birds make lots of noise, which can hamper your meetings, calls, and operations.

Their droppings also produce an unpleasant odour that can make your property unattractive to employees or visitors.

To Protect the Birds

There have been numerous instances of birds flying into glass buildings and injuring themselves. Not only does this harm the birds but also the glass.

Bird proofing your office building helps prevent the birds from barrelling into your building and hurting themselves.

Modern bird-proofing solutions are humane and do not cause harm to the birds that are nesting.

To Protect the Ecosystem

It’s important that birds build their habitat around trees and in natural surroundings. This is because buildings are not ideal spaces that can support their ecosystem.

Why Hire Gutter-Vac?

Want to get your office building bird proofed quickly without damaging your building or stalling business operations?

It’s time you get in touch with Gutter-Vac’s professional team.

Our experts can help guide you through the best bird-proofing solutions for your office building to save you expenses and optimize results.

Bird droppings, debris, dust, dead animals, and twigs from nearby trees can easily make their way into your rainwater tank.

And if you do not clean your rainwater tank regularly, this debris can spread the growth of some very harmful bacteria and parasites. Using such contaminated water can often increase the risk of health diseases.

Still not convinced about scheduling regular tank cleaning?

Here are some diseases that contaminated water from unclean tanks can cause and their effects to make you reconsider.

Salmonellosis

Salmonella infections are a type of bacterial disease of the intestinal tract. Symptoms of an infection may include nausea, diarrhea, fever, abdominal cramps, vomiting, and headache.

Salmonellosis has an incubation period of between 12 and 72 hours.

Gastroenteritis

Gastroenteritis is one of the most common gastrointestinal illnesses caused due to contaminated water. This condition causes inflammation of the stomach and intestines.

Symptoms of gastroenteritis include fever, muscle aches, headaches, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. It has an incubation period of between 24 and 48 hours.

Cholera

Cholera is a common waterborne illness, with strains in many rivers along Australia’s east coast. It causes an infection with symptoms like dehydration, nausea, vomiting, and watery diarrhea.

Cholera has an incubation period of between a few hours and 5 days.

Typhoid Fever

A bacterial infection, typhoid fever can affect the whole body and spread to multiple organs.

Symptoms of typhoid fever include high temperature, headache, aches and pains, cough, constipation, and fatigue. It is highly contagious and has an incubation period of 6 to 30 days.

Dysentery

Dysentery is an intestinal infection that results in inflammation of the intestines. It has an incubation period of between 1 and 7 days.

Dysentery causes bloody diarrhea, painful stomach cramps, a high fever, and vomiting. The condition can spread through person-to-person contact and can be fatal for people over 50 and young children.

Legionnaires’ Disease

Legionella is a common water bacterium found in tropical parts of Australia. It is known to cause a lung infection called Legionnaires’ disease.

Its symptoms include coughing, loss of appetite, muscle aches, fatigue, headache, high fever, pneumonia, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Legionnaires’ disease has an incubation period of 2 to 14 days.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea can occur as a separate condition or one of the symptoms of a campylobacteriosis infection.

It is one of the most common forms of waterborne disease and typically occurs with symptoms like fever, cramping, abdominal pain, and nausea.

Diarrhea can turn life-threatening in patients with weak immune systems.

When Should You Call Gutter-Vac?

You should carry out regular tank cleaning once every three months to keep diseases from contamination at bay.

And when you hire Gutter-Vac’s expert team to clean your rainwater tank, you can get it done in the shortest span of time. Our specialised vacuum system can clean your tank even when it’s full of water. So you don’t need to empty the tank before cleaning.

If you prefer it the traditional way, our professionals can handle it just the same.

A ceiling cavity is often neglected unless a need arises. However, it must not be so; you must clean a ceiling cavity every 8 to 10 years, as it affects the air quality of your home and poses a health hazard. 

If you are unaware of what objects may be residing in your ceiling, here is a quick rundown of usual and unusual findings during the cleaning of a ceiling cavity.

Objects That Are Commonly Found During Ceiling Cavity Cleaning 

If you do not know what a ceiling cavity is, it is the space between your house ceiling and roof. It is a hidden part of your home that is hardly visited and is often used to store materials that are not likely to see the light of day. 

Some things stored in a cavity ceiling are:

• Old household items and clothes 
• Remaining building materials and waste from previous construction
• Debris from construction
• Dangerous chemicals like chlorine, fuel, and oil 

These materials can cause sagging of the ceiling due to their additional weight, and many of the objects even pose a fire hazard. There is a lot of dirt and dust from airborne particles due to coal burning, vehicle emissions, and industrial activities. 

The stored objects and the dirt provide an excellent breeding ground for mildew, mould, insects, rodents, and other animals.  

Some pests commonly found during cleaning are:

• Rats and mice
• Insects
• Silverfish flies
• Bees and wasps 
• Spiders 
• Flies 
• Birds 

These pests make the cavity their home, and their infestation can lead to great damage to the property as well as health. A cavity infested by pests will have animal droppings, fungal spores, decomposed insects, animal nests, and carcasses. 

All these objects can decompose into fine dirt that will find its way into your home through appliances attached to the ceiling like fans, lights, roof access points, and air conditioners, or any other gaps that have formed in your ceiling from damage due to the heavy load in the ceiling cavity. 

Odd Things Found In The Ceiling Cavity

The above-mentioned items are not the only things residing in your ceiling cavity. As you know, the occupants of your ceiling cavity are not just the items you store but also the uninvited guests that take up permanent residence.

So, who resides in your home cavity will depend on where you stay, the local fauna, and environmental conditions. If you have a lot of trees or a forest nearby, some unexpected guests that can be found in your ceiling are:

1. Possums 

Possums are one of the most adaptable and versatile marsupials found in Australia. They usually stay away from humans and do not cause them any harm. But a possum, particularly the brushtail possum, may often take residence in your ceiling cavity. 

They may build a nest but will happily do without one as well. To protect your home from being inhabited by possums, close off any opening that a possum head can go through. 

2. Pest Birds

Ceiling cavities provide excellent homes for pest birds. Some of these species nest in large numbers, creating serious problems for properties that they infest. 

3. Snakes 

Old snakeskin can often be found during a ceiling cavity clean-up. A snake can find its way to the cavity in search of rats and mice; however, sometimes, it can make it a permanent residence. In one case, 10 snakes were found residing in the ceiling cavity of a home. 

Apart from animals, many other surprising things can be found in a ceiling cavity. During one of their ceiling cleaning jobs, Gutter-Vac came across an interesting case. The previous homeowner had used papers and magazines to create a wet and dry mix to serve as insulation. Such fixes end up providing rodents with an even cosier space to build a home.

In a piece of bizarre news, a Queensland resident found an intruder living in her ceiling cavity!

 

Conclusion 

Cleaning your ceiling cavity is a very important process that you must not overlook. If not cleaned on a regular basis, it can pollute the air in your home, causing serious health problems and even serving as a breeding ground for a variety of dangerous pests.

Where you live and the surroundings of your house generally determine how many times a year you may need to get your gutters cleaned. However, most households need the gutters cleaned at least twice a year—at the beginning of winter and the beginning of summer. 

This is because these seasons fall after the heavy shedding seasons, spring and autumn, when a lot of debris and leaves settle on the gutters. 

However, cleaning your gutters in the winter is not the same as cleaning them in the summer. To know the difference, keep reading.

Challenges Of Cleaning Gutters In Winter Vs. Summer 

Winter 

Autumn brings a lot of leaves falling to the ground. They scatter around and get settled in the gutters, clogging them. The best trick is to let all the leaves fall in the autumn and clean all the debris from your gutter just before winter starts. If you don’t clean them at this time, the snow and ice (depending on where you live) will build up, which can even cause damage to the gutter. 

Ice buildup in cold locations: Ice does not build up in clean gutters because the water can freely flow from them. Free-flowing water requires a greater drop in temperature for the water to freeze. When it is clean, the rainwater flows freely, and there is no freezing of water with the drop in temperature. However, a clogged gutter will have stored water that will freeze as the temperature decreases. 

Ice dams in cold locations: If your downspouts are clogged, water will not get properly drained and will freeze. When this happens, the top of your gutters will have an ice dam, which is a frozen mixture of snow, ice, and debris. 

Summer 

A summer cleanup will clear off debris from spring and also prepare the gutter for autumn. In addition, there is a lot of leaf buildup in the spring, which can be a fire hazard, especially in bushfire-prone areas. 

Summer storms: Summers have their fair share of rainstorms in Australia, and if your gutter is blocked, it will not allow free passage of water, which can damage your property. 

Bird nests: Gutters offer a perfect environment for pests and birds to take refuge. Often during late spring and early summer, birds try to build their nests in gutters. A gutter clogged with leaves and twigs is much more appealing to birds than a clean one. Eliminating the debris greatly reduces the chances of nesting for birds as well as for stinging insects.

Fire hazard: The leaves and twigs in the gutters can easily catch a spark and lead to a big fire. 

Hazards Of Not Getting Your Gutters Cleaned: Winter Vs. Summer

Winter 

• As water expands on freezing, ice dams can push into the seams of the gutters, leading to sagging and even gutter collapse. 
• If you do not get your gutter cleaned at the start of winter, you may have to do it in the middle of winter when your gutter is blocked by ice dams. The conditions are very slippery, icy, and slick and pose a fall hazard.  

Summer 

• If you don’t clear the leaves, a single spark from a bushfire will be enough to set your house on fire. 
• If the gutters are not cleaned before summer, when the temperature is moderate, a need may arise to clean them during mid-summer, which can get very hot.

Conclusion 

Keeping your gutters clean is crucial for the maintenance of your property. By getting your gutters cleaned before winter, you reduce the hazards associated with ice dams and ice buildup. Cleaning your gutters before summer will protect your house from fire.

Rainwater is a precious resource in a country with a climate like Australia’s. And storing it safely is a must. Regular rainwater tank cleaning is an important task to keep your family safe and ensure your tank and plumbing systems stay in good condition.

But what dangers lurk in an unclean tank, and what harm can they cause?

Here are a few of the most common kinds of bacteria that can grow in a dirty tank.

Escherichia coli (E. coli)

E. coli are the most common type of bacteria that grow in dirty water. They are a sign of faecal contamination and can cause diarrhoea, stomach cramps, and even fever.

Salmonella

About 2,500 strains of Salmonella exist and can infect the body by consumption of contaminated water or food. Symptoms of an infection include fever, diarrhoea, headache, abdominal pain, nausea, or vomiting.

Animal or bird droppings are most likely to infect the rainwater that enters your tank and cause the growth of salmonella.

Legionella

Legionella includes some of the more harmful types of bacteria. These can cause a type of lung infection called Legionnaires’ disease, Pontiac fever, and more.

They are common in water high in mineral or organic content and grow in sludge and slime.

Giardia

Like salmonella, giardia also enters the water from animal droppings. It causes diarrhoea, gas, vomiting, nausea, pain, foul-smelling stools, dehydration, and more.

Campylobacter

Campylobacter is more harmful to young children, the elderly, and immunosuppressed individuals. Campylobacter is typically found in untreated water contaminated with animal faeces.

How Often Should Tanks Be Cleaned?

Water tanks should be inspected and serviced every 6 months. They should also be inspected for sediments and undergo desludging once every 2 to 3 years.

Along with the tanks, you must also get your gutters, catchments, and downpipes cleaned regularly. This not only affects the cleanliness of your tank water but also ensures maximum water gets into the tank.

We recommend you use a professional service team that can provide complete cleaning and inspection. Cleaning the tank and other water catchment systems by yourself can put your health at risk and might not eliminate the risk of contamination.

A professional can also give you tips to keep your tank in optimum condition between cleaning sessions.

Clean Your Tank Today!

Gutter-Vac’s quick and advanced tank cleaning solutions can help you reduce downtime during a tank cleaning!

We use a specialized vacuum system, so we can clean your tank even when it’s filled with water. This method saves your time while also ensuring little water is wasted. It is also safe as the professional doesn’t have to enter the tank.

Plus, you do not have to wait until the summer or rains to clean the tank; you can get it done anytime!

You can also choose to remove the water before getting your tanks’ walls and floors vacuumed, as that’s what we recommend.

Get in touch to request a quote or book a tank cleaning appointment.

The gutters on your roof keep your office roof and building structure safe and sound by ensuring rainwater gets directed away.

Their water drainage capabilities make them a crucial installation for your office building.

But did you know that gutters are prone to damage if they’re not cleaned regularly? And once the gutters are damaged, the entire building is at risk of water damage.

That’s why knowing when to clean your office gutters is important.

How Often Do Gutters Need To Be Cleaned?

Gutters typically need to be cleaned twice a year—at the beginning of summer and the beginning of winter.

Cleaning the gutters at the beginning of summer reduces the chances of dry leaves and other debris catching fire. Winter cleaning ensures the autumnal leaves don’t freeze and damage the gutters.

You may also want to schedule a check-up in spring, just in case an extreme weather event caused more debris than anticipated.

If your office is located in a locality with many trees, you might need to clean the gutters twice as often.

If you want to be extra cautious, you can regularly check the gutters to ensure they are not clogged.

Why Is Gutter Cleaning Important?

Unclean gutters get clogged with dirt, dust, leaves, and sludge. They also stop directing water away from the roof. This leads to water overflowing onto the walls, roof, or property, which further causes:

• Damp or leaking walls (resulting in mould)
• Rotting of the fascia boards
• Structural damage
• Paint damage
• Internal flooding
• Blockages in downpipes
• Landscape deterioration
• Staining on internal or external wall panels

Heavy debris could accumulate enough weight to cause your gutters to break from their frame and fall. This poses a safety risk and is also an added repair expense for your office.

Sometimes, the water gets clogged and becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes, attracting pests. Not only does this pose a health risk, but it can also attract a fine by the local council under the Public Health Act.

Not to mention, getting busy with such repairs and accidents can take too much of your work time.

Gutter cleaning is also important as it helps keep your gutters in optimum condition, making them last longer. This ends up saving you more money in the long run.

How To Clean Your Office Gutters

Cleaning the gutters on your office’s roof is a risky job that needs a professional solution. It is also a time-consuming job, depending on the size and structure of the building.

Gutter-Vac is the one-stop solution to all your commercial gutter cleaning needs!

We have a professional team that takes care of your gutters and ensures there is no damage to your office building, landscaping, or property.

We also provide you with a customised commercial gutter cleaning and maintenance plan that helps you stay ahead of gutter damage.