Body Corporate Window Cleaning — High Street, Malvern

Height is the obvious reason glass becomes hard to reach, and on this building it is not the main one. The main one is that parts of the elevation have nothing underneath them to stand on. A water-fed pole works from the ground, and it needs ground: level, close enough to the wall, and clear of whatever else is in the way. On an apartment block that runs out quickly. There is glazing over a podium, glass set back behind balconies, walls sitting hard against a boundary, and faces looking into a light court that no pole is getting into. So the building divides into two halves that have nothing in common except the owners corporation paying for both.

The half with ground under it was cleaned with telescopic water-fed poles and purified water, from below. That is the quicker and cheaper half, and nothing touches the building while it happens. Everything else came from above, on rope. Anchors were checked on each elevation before anyone went over the edge, and the descents ran top-down so that finished glass stayed finished. The part that gets underestimated on a residential building is that everybody is home. A hotel has an entrance to keep clear and a quiet hour to work in. A block of apartments has residents walking to their cars all day, balconies in use, and windows people open. The exclusion zone moves with the drop line, and residents are told where the work is before it is above their heads rather than afterwards. Two technicians, eight hours. The same split repeats on every cycle, because once the line between pole work and rope work has been worked out for a building, it does not need working out again.

• All external glazing cleaned across every elevation
• Telescopic water-fed poles used wherever there was ground to work from
• Rope access for glazing over the podium, behind balconies and against boundaries
• Anchors checked on each elevation before any descent
• Descents run top-down so finished glass was not re-soiled
• Exclusion zone moved with the drop line while residents came and went

• Two technicians, eight hours
• Every elevation reached, including the faces with no ground beneath them
• The method split is now set and repeats each cycle for the body corporate