How To Clean High Rise Buildings Windows

Everything You Need to Know About High-Rise Window Cleaning

Skyscrapers form a majestic and essential part of many urban skylines. As the urban population of the world continues to grow, skyscrapers will be necessary to maximize vertical space.

In 1985, two billion people worldwide lived in cities. Today, that number has reached four billion, and projections suggest that by 2050 six billion people will have become urban residents. Unsurprisingly, projections also indicate that by 2050, the number of skyscrapers in the world will increase by a tremendous 41,000 buildings.

With their walls of sparkling glass windows, skyscrapers give the skyline an elegant look — but those windows don't stay sparkling on their own. Rain, snow, smog, salt spray, dust, debris, bird droppings and more conspire to obscure a skyscraper's windows. Fortunately, window cleaners are on the job to get them pristine and shiny once more.

High-Rise Window-Cleaning FAQs

Here are the answers to a few frequently asked questions about high-rise window cleaning:

How Often Do Commercial Windows Need to Be Cleaned?

The answer to this question depends on a few different factors. The type of business in the building, the environment around the building, how much foot traffic the building receives and whether people are allowed to smoke inside the building all contribute to the condition of a skyscraper's windows.

If a building is a clean, nonsmoking office environment and stands on a clean side street, it likely needs its windows cleaned less frequently. If the building is home to industrial work or a medical facility, sees a lot of foot traffic, is located on a busy street or near a substantial body of water, or must contend with smog or frequent avian visitors, the windows will need attention more often.

Is High-Rise Window Cleaning Dangerous?

Dangling hundreds of feet in the air is definitely not for the faint of heart, but for any reputable high-rise window-cleaning company, safety is the primary concern. High-rise window cleaning is generally safe if workers use the right equipment and take proper precautions to protect themselves.

Fatalities in high-rise window cleaning are exceedingly rare. High-rise window cleaners as a class see 1.5 million exposures — times when they are working on the side of a building — every year. Yet only one occupational fatality has occurred in the past four years.

How Much Do Skyscraper Window Cleaners Make?

How much do skyscraper window cleaners make? According to one estimate, a skyscraper window cleaner's salary generally ranges between $15 and $25 an hour, depending on the person's level of skill and years in the profession. These figures can vary, though. In a large, expensive city like New York, a skyscraper window cleaner can command a higher wage — dedicated cleaners there can earn $29 to $35 an hour. However, the people making these figures have generally spent years, even decades, honing their craft.

How Long Does It Take to Clean Skyscraper Windows?

The answer to this question, too, depends on a few different variables. How big the skyscraper is, how many windows it has and how dirty they are — all these factors can make a difference.

According to a veteran window cleaner interviewed in the New York Times, a standard 50-floor skyscraper would take 30 to 40 days to clean in its entirety. The Empire State Building, by contrast, with its 102 floors, takes six men about four months to clean — and once they're done, the window cleaners have to start all over again.

High-Rise Window-Cleaning Equipment

High-rise window cleaning requires a number of different pieces of equipment — some for cleaning and some for climbing and safety.

Cleaning and Climbing Tools

Skyscraper window cleaners typically use the following cleaning tools in their work:

Bucket: The bucket of a skyscraper window cleaner usually contains water mixed with dish soap or hand soap. Sometimes the window cleaner adds ammonia for heavy-duty jobs.
Glass scraper: The glass scraper is useful for removing caked-on dirt and grime from the windows.
Sponge or T-bar wand: Window cleaners use these tools for wetting the window with soapy water.
Squeegee: Window cleaners use squeegees to wipe the dirty water away and leave behind a clean, streak-free window.
Rags or towels: Rags and towels are useful for doing a quick final polish.
Spare blades: The metal and rubber blades of the scraper and squeegee wear down over time, so it's helpful to have some spares on hand.
Tool belt: A tool belt lets window cleaners have all the necessary tools within reach while keeping their hands free.

Climbing Tools

Skyscraper window cleaners also use tools to navigate the exterior of the building, like:

Movable platform: Much like the fixed scaffolds used for shorter buildings, a high rise window cleaning platform gives the window cleaner a stable place to stand while cleaning high-rise windows. But with a movable platform, when it's time to move down to the next floor, a pulley of ropes lowers the platform.
Bosun's chair: If window cleaners are not standing on a movable platform, they typically use a bosun's chair. The bosun's chair takes its name from seafaring. On a ship, the bosun, or boatswain, is the officer in charge of the crew and equipment, and a bosun's chair is a harness-like rope contraption that can suspend the bosun aloft to work on the ship's masts or rigging. In window cleaning, a bosun's chair is a small platform attached to a pulley that can lower it when the cleaner needs to descend to the next floor. Window cleaners can often suspend their buckets from hooks on the bottom of the bosun's chair, as well.

Safety Tools

Since window cleaners' safety is paramount, skyscraper window cleaners use different safety tools as well, including:

Safety belt or harness: A window cleaner safety belt or harness is critical for window cleaners who are working on a platform. If the platform falls, the safety harness, which hooks to the building, ensures the window cleaner remains securely suspended in the air.
Protective gloves: Window cleaning is a messy business, and rain and snow make it messier. Protective gloves are must-have items, especially in the winter when wet hands can quickly freeze. Cold hands can lead to frostbite, and they also make the window climber less nimble and safe.

Skyscraper Window-Cleaning Facts and Statistics

Here are some high-rise window-cleaning statistics and fun facts:

Statistically speaking, high-rise window cleaning is safer than driving a cab.
Window cleaning can be silent work. According to one report, when window cleaners are above about the fortieth floor, the usual city sounds of voices and traffic disappear entirely.
Wind makes window cleaners' jobs much more difficult. For safety reasons, window cleaners have to get off their scaffolding or platforms if the wind speed exceeds 25 miles per hour. Even winds of 15 miles per hour can cause serious difficulties.
Window cleaners use cool or lukewarm water — in the winter, hot water could break the glass.
If the windows of a skyscraper open, they will probably require more frequent cleaning because people on higher floors may dump out food products that stain the windows below. According to one report, this frequently happens at the Empire State Building, where occupants of higher floors have been known to dump out everything from coffee to gallons of strawberry preserves — the latter of which covered ten stories of windows and froze solid.

Contact PSI for High-Rise Window Cleaning

The appearance of your building and windows reflects directly on the quality of your business. To keep your high-rise windows sparkling like new, contact PSI. Our high standards of safety, excellence and care make us one of the top high-rise specialists in the entire mid-Atlantic.

Our high-rise window-cleaning services will get your windows shiny and streak-free, and our teams of long-time, expert window washers have the tools to get the job done safely, efficiently and cost-effectively.