Rope access window cleaning has become a prefered option by many property owners and building managers for cleaning their multi-storey and high-rise windows. Traditional methods often required bulky apparatus and civil machinery to perform window cleaning on high-rise buildings, including:
- Scaffolding
- Cranes
- Scissor lifts
- Height access platforms
- Pulley-driven platforms and more
These high-rise window cleaning methods are cumbersome and disrupt normal daily building operations while presenting a potential safety risk.
Rope access window cleaning technicians require less space, equipment and time to perform the same job and often provide superior results.
What is rope access window cleaning?
Rope access window cleaners use the art of abseiling to descend and ascend buildings using an abseiling rope system. The general term for someone who provides an abseiling trade or service is a rope access technician.
Abseiling is the art of using ropes, harnesses and devices to scale a sheer face, like a cliff, tall structure, or in the case of a rope access window cleaner, the front of a high-rise building.
Rope access work via two ropes; the main line and a fall arrest safety line attached to a harness. The rope access technician controls their ascent and descent using a range of friction and locking devices like figure eight attachments and carabiners.
How do rope access window cleaners work?
A rope access window cleaner starts at the top of a structure, like a high-rise office complex or a multi-story residential building, and works their way down to ground level.
They fasten their dual rope system to an anchor point. There are various types of anchor points, many of which are pre-installed on a structure during construction. If no anchor points are available, a trained and qualified rope access technician will create one on a reliable structure using a sling or portable apparatus.
Once anchor points are established, the rope access window cleaner secures all tools and solutions to their harness and begins to descend the face of the building, working down and across to each windowpane until all windows are cleaned.
The benefits of rope access window cleaning
A rope access window cleaner provides many benefits over traditional window cleaning methods, including efficiency, safety and overall service costs.
Rope access: the safer way to clean windows
Although requiring minimal tools and solutions, a traditional height work window cleaner would need to operate cumbersome height access platforms or civil machinery for every windowpane in the building.
Not only is this time-consuming, but it is also dangerous and hard to pull up or take down quickly and safely if weather conditions change, like heavy rain, hail, or sudden high winds, which are becoming less predictable due to climate change.
Suppose a window cleaner is using a suspended platform in sudden heavy winds. In that case, there are also heightened risks of damage to the building or dangerous items falling to the ground below, creating a hazard for bystanders.
A rope access technician is much more dynamic in their ability to move around the sheer face of a structure, are more aerodynamic than a solid, suspended structure, and can quickly and efficiently move back to the top of a building or quickly descend the building face to safety.
The tools, cleaning solutions and other items used by a rope access window cleaner are tethered to the harness, meaning the risk of overhead hazards for bystanders is nullified.
While rope access work may seem extreme and dangerous to the uninitiated, rope access window cleaners have a significantly better safety record than other height risk window cleaning systems.
More efficient and more cost-effective
In most cleaning and maintenance services, time is money; the longer a job takes, the more the client pays.
Not only do civil machinery and apparatus used by traditional window cleaners cost an arm and a leg in hire prices, but they also take a long time to set up and pack down, every second of which makes its way to the invoice total.
Scaffolding, for example, is sometimes used for large-scale window cleaning, reconditioning, and maintenance. Depending on the height of the building, it can take up to a week to set up before work even starts, followed by an equally long pack-down period post operations.
Height work access platforms must be transported to the rooftop, assembled and secured before work can begin, which could take a day. These apparatus must also be moved across each building section to complete work, with pack-down taking equally as long.
Civil machinery, like scissor lifts and cherry pickers, must have space cleared for access, safety signage, and barricades applied. This potentially requires hired security or staff to direct foot traffic around operations; This disrupts business operations or resident access and is also costly and time-consuming.
All these methods require the equipment to be left in place for the duration of operations, creating other disruptions and hazards, which could be in place for days or weeks.
In comparison, a rope access technician can carry all ropes and equipment on their person in one trip. They can be set up in an hour or less and then packed down after a day’s work in the same time frame.
This efficiency and reduction of overheads translate directly to the invoice total, making rope access window cleaners significantly cheaper than other window cleaning solutions while also providing a safer and more thorough service.
How much does rope access window cleaning cost?
Many factors can influence the cost of rope access window cleaning, including:
- Building height
- The number of windows requiring service
- The size of the windows
- The intensity of the cleaning required
- Accessibility and anchor points
- Apparatus used if there are no anchor points
- The shape and structure of a building
- The amount of obstacles on the building face
- The number of technicians required and more
These varying factors can mean rope access window cleaning could cost anywhere from $75 per hour to $1200 or more a day, making estimates unique to each building and the challenges they present.
Still, in almost all circumstances, rope access window cleaning is significantly more cost-effective and at lower risk than all other high-rise window cleaning methods and services.
Industry-leading rope access window cleaning Sydney-wide
If you are looking for elite rope access window cleaning services in Sydney with a proven track record for safety, efficiency, exemplary customer series and great results, then contact us here at Abseilers United today.
To arrange a free, no-obligation quote, call 02 9976 6768, or fill in our online quick quote form to receive a prompt estimate.
