How to clean this balcony with restrictions

adam mayhead

Cleantalk Member
This one is trumping us. We need to clean this balcony from builders dust and paint and scale that's built up.

We need to clean this all from the balcony, so both sides of the external glass need to be cleaned by leaning over.

We have very limited access to water, and only 110v can be plugged in on site.

At the moment we have been cleaning all the glass first with an applicator followed d by a squeegee.

Then we go over to remove paint specs, then use a limescale remover. We do this order as the glass is so thick with dust you can't see anything but dust until this is removed.

Then we go over all the seals with cream cleaner.

Then we used a brush to get in all the edges, the seals etc as these are full of dust.

Then it's wiping down the frames with a microfibre cloth a couple times as the first it to remove the thick dust, then final to remove the smearing.

Finally we go over the glass again with an applicator /mop and squeegee.

With the issue on the glass being the external side of the balcony as you are reaching over the top, you're cleaning from the bottom up with the squeegee and unable to get real pressure on the glass where it might be needed.

This takes ages. And I mean ages. 4 guys all day to just do 4 of these.

I need a solution to do this quicker. The biggest way we could save time is the first layer of thick dust but how I'm hoping for ideas.

Water access is an issue. The only working tap is not close by any means and the buckets we use need rinsing a lot due to the amount of dust.

We also can't use too much water as we are cleaning from ground floor up so if we clean day the 4th floor with too much water, it'll drop down to the already cleaned 3rd floor.

I had thought some sort of purified water system where we use a strong brush with water coming out to just fully rinse everything and then leave it to dry, and then come back again later to do this again but hopefully now with less dust this time it'll dry nice. The a final check over for paint, limescale etc. However how we'd purify the water I don't know.

Help me out. What's your ideas? Open to anything. Attached a load of photos


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Peter McDougall

Cleantalk Member
I'm no window cleaner but I do follow some of the industry stuff. Are you a window cleaning company or a general cleaning company who does windows as part of the service?

What equipment / space do you have in your van?

I've seen some excellent water fed pole setups where they have the tank in the van, on the fly heater and plenty of hose to get up high. My understanding with this type of system is that there's no need to squeegee to achieve the quality finish.

I'm also wondering about why you'd start from the bottom and work up instead of top down.
 

Jamie Biles

Cleantalk Member
How many have you got left to do. Are you willing to invest to save time/increase profits or after quick fix for remaining few.
 

Jamie Biles

Cleantalk Member
Have you looked at Dragonfly system or stingray. Both seem to have scrub pads and stable pad holder to enable enough pressure to be applied to surface. Assume you have harness or dead man's cable ?? Xr hand pads are also good if get good body alignment but side ones look like your main issue. There is an xr hand mop squeege on World of Clean.
 

Phil Bennett

Cleantalk Member
Designed by someone who has never cleaned windows. Sorry as I’ve probably not read the OP clearly. But when I did windows, if I had the block then reach and wash solves it. Wouldn’t consider it otherwise. If its a one off/one balcony I’d turn it down.
 

Jamie Biles

Cleantalk Member
If I read between the lines correctly you have decided to do from the ground up so that you can do next floor up from one below on externals? :thinking:
 

adam mayhead

Cleantalk Member
If I read between the lines correctly you have decided to do from the ground up so that you can do next floor up from one below on externals? :thinking:
Sorry I wasn't clear. We are doing the balcony in floor 1 while being in floor 1. Then balcony on floor 2 while being on floor 2. The issue is if too much water is used, when we do floor 2, the dusty water drips down to the clean balcony on floor 1. There's no way around this.
 

adam mayhead

Cleantalk Member
How many have you got left to do. Are you willing to invest to save time/increase profits or after quick fix for remaining few.
We have 50 plus floors to do. 1 floor a week is ready. Starting from ground up hence why we have to clean this way. No van can be used. Has to be on site, with no hose, no close water, limited power only 110v
 

adam mayhead

Cleantalk Member
It’s great to have these jobs, but do you really need the stress?
It's part of a major relationship that will lead to a good future with this company. We have other work with them that's much better, but this in particular is a problem. If we solve this then we are lucky with all that will come from working with them
 
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