Window Cleaning Methods – Reach and Wash
The Reach & Wash system arrived on the scene in 1997, and has gradually made a name for itself. In the eyes of many it’s now number one ranked. It’s clear that in the commercial world there is a great need for it, reaching windows that were once in accessible, ensuring that the work force stay safely on terra firma and improving productivity which leads to cost saving. A real argument to say that traditional ladders are a non-starter, even on two or three storey buildings where they can be used. I mean heated water kills algae, no detergents safer for the environment, and throw in the frame washing and surely it’s a no brainer.
Well call me sentimental but I like the ladder approach, a clean window left dry and gleaming by a man with a smile while your sat at your desk. Not to mention staying dry when you leave the building some 30 minutes later, rather than the monsoon received from floor three as the water continues to cascade long after the telescopic pole man has left. An if you ever wonder why you don’t see the same guy twice with the reach & wash, is they go off sick with frozen shoulders or slipped disc. Holding a seventy foot pole in the air for 8 hours belongs in the circus.
On a serious note I know it’s here to stay and of course there are many advantages as mentioned, but the window cleaner is a trade like the milkman and the paper boy so please let’s keep it real and leave the reach & wash in the commercial world, where it can be master of all the sky scrapers, demolishing any window cleaner who dares to lift a ladder.
However to contemplate trying to impose the beast on the residential market, the very homes in which we live, is sacrilege.
Imagine the scene the window cleaner arrives, smiles at the lady through the window who trots of to flip the kettle on. She returns expecting to see the man with his little ladder and shiny bucket, and some little cloth that’s he hangs over the gate. What awaits her would make the milk curdle, a mile of pipes from the van hanging over wall trailing round the front and back of the house. A man with some sort of back pack, a large wand in one arm are disappearing into the clouds. She is unsure, was it the window cleaner, is the fire brigade at best, a ghost buster at worse. Then she notices a large waterfall running past her front windows now the front door, perhaps it’s the air force and her house is floating away. She shuts her eyes, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.
Thank God. Hi Burt, how’s the new bucket? Here’s your digestives and I’ll leave your money on the window sill.
