Can your solar panels be accessed safely?
Solar panels can be a great addition to your building. Taking up a lot of roof space, they can also be a hazardous piece of equipment to access. Especially if your panels were installed without taking into consideration what access (and height safety system) would be required for routine and ad-hoc maintenance.
Whether for cleaning or service, your solar panels need to be easy to access – without your team or contractor putting themselves at risk by walking around them or close to your roof’s edge. Without a clear path of travel, you could also be putting your roof’s integrity at risk.
Before your solar panels turn from a great investment to a costly mistake, we can help you identify potential hazards and provide expert advice to reduce solar panel access risk. We’ll even provide practical recommendations to help you better manage risk over the long-term.
Sometimes risk starts with a bad design
We’ve unfortunately seen it too many times. A customer installs new solar panels only to find the layout creates high-risk hazards or cannot be easily accessed, making maintenance or cleaning impossible. All because their solar panel layout didn’t take into consideration access or height safety system requirements.
We can assess your solar panel installation plan and provide expert advice on potential hazards and considerations for height safety system design. Part of our risk assessment service, these recommendations can then be taken to your solar panel provider as part of the planning process.
What height safety systems are best for solar panel cleaning?
The height safety system you use for solar panel cleaning depends on multiple factors, including what existing building access you have and your chosen solar panel layout. Your solar panel’s roof position – as well as how much roof space it takes up – also plays a part in solar panel access risk.
We can assess your current roof access points and height safety systems, providing recommendations to reduce risk and improve your level of safety. Our risk assessments also include action plans and recommendation estimates, making internal discussions and business cases easy.
Our risk assessment approach
Applying our 45 years’ height safety experience, we’ve developed a comprehensive four-step risk assessment and audit process. Designed to help you better identify, manage and mitigate risks, our risk assessments have been developed in line with the latest Australian standards and industry regulations. To provide clear risk mitigation guidance, we include recommendations for each height-related task. We also provide budget estimates, a scope of work and layout plans to help you best implement our recommendations and support internal project discussions.
We assess each access point required for solar panel cleaning or maintenance, measuring risk levels against your internal risk matrix and the hierarchy of controls. For the most cost-effective service, we recommend booking a full-site risk assessment and audit. This provides you with a full picture of potential hazards and risks for your site as well as simplifies preventative maintenance by aligning risk assessment schedules.
Identify areas and tasks
Identify hazards and risks
Verify compliance
Reporting & Recommendations
Our 4-step approach
All our risk assessments and audits use the same certified, four-step process developed by our risk specialists. Whether a risk assessment for accessing your facade or gutter access, you can be confident your risk assessment will be provided to the highest standard by independent risk experts.
1. Identify areas and tasks
We start by identifying each task, stepping how, when and where your contracts (or workers) need to access your solar panels. This helps us identify the area the task is performed, what height safety systems or equipment may be required, as well as what associated documentation or training you may need.
2. Identify hazards and risks
We review each area, height safety system and piece of safety equipment for hazards, assessing the level of risk associated with each. This could be potential hazards related to your current access or physical hazards that are causing immediate danger. We’ll also assess the level of risk according to your risk matrix and against the hierarchy of controls.
3. Verify compliance
To ensure your access is compliant, we assess your height safety systems and equipment against Australian standards and industry regulations. Our expert team is not only training in the latest compliance requirements but are also NATA accredited. This means they can do on-site testing of systems and equipment as required.
4. Reporting & Recommendations
Collating all our risk assessment findings, our risk experts will develop recommendations to decrease your level of risk and better manage risks associated with solar panel related tasks. These recommendations can be physical changes to decrease your level of risk, to ensure compliance, or related to height safety and fall prevention.
These recommendations are provided along with action plans in a comprehensive risk assessment report for your site. We also include cost outlines, a scope of work and layout plans to best implement our recommendations. These can then be added into a business case, funding proposal or provided to construction groups as part of a tender process.
Risk assessment services by maintenance task
Access to the roof
From ladders to walkways, we’ll assess all ways your workers access your roof.
Access to serviceable plant and equipment
Ensuring safe access to plant equipment and HVAC.
Access to gutter
Reviewing how safe your gutters can be cleaned and accessed for maintenance.
Access to Facade
Assessing all the ways your facade is used for building tasks and maintenance.
Cooling Tower Maintenance
Are you providing easy and safe access to your cooling towers?
Fragile and Brittle surfaces
How your workers safely interact with surfaces such as skylights or laserlite.
Other areas
Need another area assessed? Our team can provide expert recommendations.
Do you know your current level of risk?
Working at heights can be risky business, not only to workers and contractors but also your business. Take our online height safety tool to assess potential risk to your business.
Use Our Risk Meter
Workplace Access and Safety:
Your height safety and fall prevention experts
Independent height safety experts
- Independent height safety experts
- 45 years’ industry experience
- National certified specialists, inspectors and engineers
- Height safety advice, risk assessments and consulting
Combining years of practical experience and industry expertise, you can be confident in the compliance and safety of your system.
From site assessments and system design to testing, inspections and certifications, we’re here to provide expert advice to keep your business protected and workplace safe.
Decrease your level of risk
Expert tips, tricks and advice from our height safety experts, straight to you.
