Window cleaning
Drone Window Cleaning
We run a cleaning drone out of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, and on the right building it does something no other method can. It puts clean water on glass six, ten, fifteen stories up with no lift, no swing stage and no anchor points on the roof.
That makes it the answer for buildings that have been difficult to service for years. It is not the right method for every building, and we will tell you which one yours is before you commit to anything.
Where a drone is the right call for glass
These are the situations where we recommend it, and several where it is the only practical option on the table.
- No rappelling anchors. If a roof has no certified tieback or davit system, rope access is off the table until anchors are installed and certified. A drone can work today.
- Lift restrictions. Soft ground, underground parking below the slab, courtyards, water features, protected landscaping, or a plaza the property will not allow a boom to sit on.
- No safe ground position. Elevations facing a street, a rail line, a drive lane or a neighboring property line where staging a lift is not practical.
- Access that cannot be interrupted. Buildings where losing an entrance or a row of parking for several days costs more than the cleaning does.
- Tall, repetitive elevations. A drone covers a lot of identical glass quickly once it is up there.
- You want it. Some owners do, and that is a good enough reason. We will quote it.
Our drone working the upper elevations at Do It Best headquarters, Fort Wayne.
Where hand cleaning still wins
Being straight about this is part of the service. For everyday glass on most buildings, a technician at the window or a water-fed pole from the ground produces a better finish for less money. Four reasons why.
A technician can see the pane
Someone standing at arm’s length spots the streak, the missed corner and the web in the top track, and fixes it before moving on. An operator reading a screen from the ground cannot inspect glass the same way.
Frames, sills and tracks need hands
A lot of what makes glass look dirty is not the glass. It is the frame, the gasket, the sill and the track. Those get wiped by hand.
Detail work needs contact
Scuffs, tape residue, paint specks, sap and hard water spotting all need a scraper or a pad against the surface, with time to work.
A pole already reaches most buildings
Water-fed pole systems reach four to five stories from the ground with pure water, no ladders and no lift. For a large share of the buildings we quote, that is the fastest and cleanest answer there is.
Usually the answer is both
On most jobs the right approach is not one method, it is the right method per elevation. We run a pole crew on the lower floors, hand-detail the entrances and ground-level storefront where people actually look, and put the drone on the upper elevations a lift cannot reach. One crew, one visit, one invoice.
For washing the building itself, the drone leads
None of the above applies to facade work. For washing the building rather than the glass, a drone is outstanding. It covers large areas of brick, panel and cladding quickly, treats algae and organic staining at height without pressure, and never closes the plaza underneath.
That is a different service with its own page: drone building washing.
Next step
Tell us the building and we will tell you the method.
We will walk it, look at the anchors and the access, and recommend whatever gets your glass cleanest for the money.