high rise window cleaning santiago, chile - image #1:

during the last 3 weeks i took a cruise around south america, from rio de janeiro, brazil, down to cape horn and up the pacific to santiago, chile.

as in all of my travels, i'm always looking at local architecture and try to imagine how to access difficult areas of the buildings for window cleaning. and if i'm lucky, i'll run into professional windows cleaners and get a real time view of how they work their job sites.

perhaps the most progressive and well trained window cleaners came from the new glass skyline area in santiago.

you'll notice in the picture above, there is a permanent installation on every three floors of the two end caps on the high rise. these installations are designed to allow the window cleaner access to difficult areas of this building. the installations are wheel and track based which allows the window cleaner to move left and right across the body of the glass. it's similar to a closet in your home that uses a track and wheels to slide the doors laterally.

... quite ingenious, i believe.

the system includes the necessary independent primary line and independent secondary safety line which are required by the i-14 window cleaning safety standard.

the window cleaner appears to be taking additional safety measures by tying off his water bucket and suction cup as well as wearing a hard hat.

high rise window cleaning santiago, chile - image #2:

wow, what a cool high rise window cleaning job site!

these two chilean window cleaners had great window cleaning technique and were obviously proud of the quality of work they performed. you'll notice the window cleaner on the left using the '2 handed swirl' technique. this allowed him to not only wet the glass and squeegee it before it dried, but to also eliminate to possibility of water dripping on clean glass below.

well done gentlemen!

take a look at the crane on the top of the building. one of the two guys cleaning windows from the stage calls, via radio, the crane operator when movement up/down or left/right is needed.

the complete crane and stage system is a permanent installation which allows the window cleaners to access the glass area in the buildings outcropping (above), without having to re-rig the system, (as would be in the case of a transportable swing stage system).

in all, i am very impressed that exterior building maintenance considerations were planned for and executed during the building of these modern skyscrapers in santiago, chile.

if you are at a stage in your window cleaning business that you're ready to start reaping the benefits of acquiring high rise window cleaning accounts, take a look at this article i've prepared for you: high rise window cleaning instruction.