(Newswire.net — March 5, 2013) London, UK — Travel and tourism websites, programmes and brochures continually bring us pictures of tall skyscrapers in some far-off land, man-made mountains of glittering glass and steel. But pause to think about what has to go on to keep the windows of these skyscrapers, such as the Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) sparkling and clean.
Usually, window cleaners working with exterior windows above the ground have several options. “We encourage our window cleaners to use high-reach window washers that can be operated from the ground for health and safety reasons,” said a spokesperson from the London-based cleaning company Anyclean, which offers window cleaning alongside a range of other cleaning services. “Ladders are OK if used correctly for two-storey houses and skylights on bungalows. The Reach & Wash machines can reach up 75 feet, which takes care of most domestic and office window cleaning situations, but for anything higher than this, you need cradles, harnesses and cherry pickers.”
So what did the company responsible for keeping the windows of the Burj Khalifa clean do? The Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest building at 2717 feet tall with a total of 24,830 windows, which make up 1,292,500 square feet of glass to clean. The Australian company CoxGomyl, which is responsible for getting the windows clean for the opening ceremony (held back in 2010), took three months to complete the process of cleaning the windows.
This window cleaning team specialises in making equipment known as Building Maintenance Units (BMUs) as well as other high-rise high-tech window cleaning equipment. A number of these BMUs are permanently in place on the Burj Khalifa and the machines use a system of tracks and cradles to reach every single window. The tracks are built into the exterior façade of the building, and window cleaners are carried in these cradles (which are housed in special cavities inside the building when not in use) to where they can work at washing the windows. To clean the windows, they use ordinary soap and water. “You can imagine how expensive it would be if they used chemical window cleaning products,” said the representative from Anyclean. “But water does work well at cleaning just about everything.”
The window cleaners who operate in the highest BMU on the Burj Khalifa hold the current record for world’s highest window cleaners. “Good for them,” said the Anyclean representative. “But I think I like keeping my feet on the ground!”
To contact Anyclean about their window cleaning services, visit: http://www.anyclean.co.uk/window_cleaning_london.html.