SolarCleaningBossPro Blog — Quotes & Estimates

Counting Panels Before You Quote: Satellite View, Photos and the Install Paperwork

If you price by the panel, the panel count is the quote. Get it wrong by six and the estimate is wrong, the customer is surprised on cleaning day or you do work for free. Even with flat-rate tiers, a bad count can drop a roof into the wrong tier. Counting carefully up front saves an awkward conversation in the driveway later.

Why the Count Comes First

Per-Panel or Flat Rate: Choosing a Pricing Model for Solar Panel Cleaning explains how the core price works. Whichever model you picked, it rests on knowing how many panels are on the roof. There are three good sources, and the best quotes use at least two of them.

Source One: Satellite View

Pull the address up on a map's satellite view. Most residential arrays are laid out in neat rows, so counting is a matter of rows times columns, then adding any odd panels on the edges.

Tips that help:

• Zoom in until you can see the gaps between panels. Counting a dark rectangle as one block is how counts go wrong.
• Check every roof face. Arrays are often split across the front, back and sides of the house, and one face can be hidden by the angle of the image.
• Watch for trees and shadows. An overhanging tree can hide a whole row.
• Remember images can be old. The system may have been added to since the picture was taken, or the image may predate the install.
• Look around the yard. Ground mounts and carport arrays show up on satellite too, and customers sometimes forget to mention them.

Satellite view is fast and you can do it while the customer is still on the phone. Treat it as a first count, not the final word.

Source Two: Customer Photos

Ask the customer to send a photo or two of the roof from the street or the yard. A phone photo from the ground will not show every panel on a low-pitch roof, but it shows things satellite view cannot:

• How tall the house really is.
• How steep the roof looks from the side.
• How dirty the panels are, and whether there are droppings or nests.
• Whether there are panels on a face the satellite image missed.

More on what to ask for is in Quoting From Customer Photos: What to Ask For Before You Price a Solar Cleaning.

Source Three: The Install Paperwork

The most reliable number is often sitting in a drawer. When a system is installed, the homeowner usually gets a contract, permit copy, system summary or warranty packet. Many of these list the number of modules or panels installed.

Ask the customer: “Do you have the paperwork from your solar installer handy? It usually says how many panels you have.” Plenty of homeowners can find it in a minute, and some can read the number off a monitoring app or a sticker on the inverter. Take that number seriously, but confirm it against your satellite count, because systems sometimes get added to or partly removed during a reroof.

When the Counts Disagree

If satellite says 22 and the paperwork says 24, do not just split the difference. A few practical options:

• Look again. Zoom in on the edges and on any roof face you skimmed.
• Ask for one more photo of the side you are unsure about.
• Quote the higher number and tell the customer the tech will confirm on site, with the invoice matching the real count.
• Put a note on the estimate, such as “Priced for 24 panels per install paperwork. Final count confirmed on site.”

Being upfront about it is far better than a surprise. Customers rarely mind a correction they were told to expect.

Also decide ahead of time what a “panel” means for your pricing. Most residential modules are a similar size, but older systems and some commercial installs use larger or smaller ones. If you run into a roof with unusually large modules, it is fair to price it a little differently, as long as the estimate says so in plain words.

Keeping the Count Once You Have It

Once the estimate is approved, it becomes the scheduled job. That is when the office enters the panel count on the job, along with the mount, stories, pitch, extras and access notes. Those details show under the address on the lists and on the tech's phone, like “24 panels · Roof · 2-story · Low pitch,” and they stay on every visit after. You count once, and every future cleaning starts with the right number.

If the tech finds a different count on site, they note it on the job so the office can fix the details for next time. To see how counting, estimates and scheduling connect, visit the solar cleaning estimate software page.