Water usage per sqm and cleaning intervals

Hi everyone.

I’m working as a sustainability consultant and at the moment we are looking at the cleaning of facades/ windows and what implications this might have. The buildings we mainly work with are above 5 stories. Right now we are focusing on how much water, detergent and energy is used per cleaning session, under a 60 year life span this is assumed to add up to quite a bit.

Does anyone of you have an idea of how much water you use per cleaned sqm window? Do this include emptying your bucket at the end of a clean/day? Do you have experience with high risers and if the workflow differs, i.e. is more or less water/detergent used? In larger cities, how often do your clients want their windows cleaned above street level? Twice a year? Presumably it matters if it can be done by pole or if a building maintenance unit/ cherry picker is used? How often do you clean windows at street level on commercial buildings that you serve, every 2 weeks?

Kind Regards,

Bruce

All the questions basically boil down to where the building is situated. If it is close to a busy road and close to where seagulls frequent they will be needed to be cleaned a lot more regularly then somewhere with little close passing traffic and inland away from the flying ? Hawks.

As a general rule of thumb the higher you go the less cleaning is required. I would think one of the large National companies would have more relevant information / experience with these types of questions.

I would doubt many commercial jobs are done more then once a month unless they are fashion / restaurant type venues or on very busy polluted streets.

Your questions need to be a bit more straight to the point and less ambiguous. Window cleaning is a wide subject. The answer could be very different depending if your talking about annual cleaning with a wfp/ or abseiling and cleaning commercials traditionally, or domestic work done monthly, either wfp or trad could be hugely different.

How much water ? per sqr meter.

Are you talking using a water fed pole, or traditionally, and how often?

Since you mentioned 'bucket' I will try and answer that. I clean around 100 - 150 windows per day with 2  - 2.5 gallons of water ? traditionally.

A 250ml fairy bottle of soapy water can clean around 20 - 25 windows at a push assuming the applicator is fairy wet to start with. 3.5mqr per window. 25ml per window. I'll edge of the side of caution and say 10 -15ml per meters sqr for a maintenance clean. But obviously that would be more if it was less frequent than monthly.

Again facias would be different depending on the method using, IMO there is generally no need for chemicals. Water ? and scrubbing will do the job.

This is impossible to answer , cleaning methods ,speed, type of building ,frequency, type of dirt , and a 1,001 other factors will determine the answer. No two buildings will use the same amount of water neither will two People work at the same speed , I think this is a pointless question asked by someone who hasn’t got the slightest idear what’s involved , obviously a office based statistician no offence meant .    

Pjj said:

This is impossible to answer , cleaning methods ,speed, type of building ,frequency, type of dirt , and a 1,001 other factors will determine the answer. No two buildings will use the same amount of water neither will two People work at the same speed , I think this is a pointless question asked by someone who hasn’t got the slightest idear what’s involved , obviously a office based statistician no offence meant .    

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Fairly certain one of the big boys will have a formula based on size, difficulty, interval, environment. It is not an exact science but it will average out somewhere close. Not something we need to look at but if you've got 50+ vans on the road you really need something in place to calculate costs. 

Bruce said:

Hi everyone.

I’m working as a sustainability consultant and at the moment we are looking at the cleaning of facades/ windows and what implications this might have. The buildings we mainly work with are above 5 stories. Right now we are focusing on how much water, detergent and energy is used per cleaning session, under a 60 year life span this is assumed to add up to quite a bit.

Does anyone of you have an idea of how much water you use per cleaned sqm window? Do this include emptying your bucket at the end of a clean/day? Do you have experience with high risers and if the workflow differs, i.e. is more or less water/detergent used? In larger cities, how often do your clients want their windows cleaned above street level? Twice a year? Presumably it matters if it can be done by pole or if a building maintenance unit/ cherry picker is used? How often do you clean windows at street level on commercial buildings that you serve, every 2 weeks?

Kind Regards,

Bruce

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The basic answer is no, it's like asking how much 5hite does a seagull drop on glass

Well, with wfp we don't use any detergent so you can cross that out. 

Bruce said:

I’m working as a sustainability consultant and at the moment we are looking at the cleaning of facades/ windows and what implications this might have.

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I mean this as respectfully as possible but what a pointless task. The company you're working for needs to concentrate on their own impact not that of their suppliers. The suppliers can change their processes at a moments notice which would make this sort of research null and void.

I have a contract with one of the biggest green energy suppliers, they're a massive eco company who support extinction rebellion, supply electric charging points throughout the country for cars. They have never questioned my carbon footprint, that's my companies job. They only need to offset their own footprint.