9 Stories - Potential Problems?

We were contacted today to quote a 120 foot aggregate office building on a busy intersection. Seems most companies in the city will not do high rises.
Anyways, we've gone as high as 100 feet before but it was a stand alone on it's own property. We did not have to worry about other cars or buildings neaby.
Can anyone think of any potential problems that we could run into in a location such as this? It is only for the end wall. It's supposed to be a pretty straight forward wash, no staining.
Also, do any of you up your prices for heights such as this?

Thanks for any feedback

I'd like to add that there are no windows on this side, just straight wall.
I saw in another post by John Orr that he had washed top down on something like this before. Does anyone have any info on how this could be done?

Potential issues I would look into:

1. Insurance. You need a special policy to go that high especially in high traffic areas.
2. Chemical fallout. I don't know the formula but at that height it will travel hundreds of feet.
3. Traffic control. Are you able to block intersections and route traffic. I know around here you have to be certified and licensed to do that.
4. Attack. Dison's chairs? Lift access? Repelling?
5. Licensing. Check with multiple sources.

Pricing I dunno. If it were accessible by lift and I didn't have to use chemicals, I might start at $.50 s/f.

Do you have hot water rigs?

Thanks Ken!

Carlos and yourself are always so helpful. This was exactly what I was looking for and yes we do have hot water up to 270 degrees.

I had not even considered being able to block off a section of the street, or realized that my insurance may not cover this. Funnily enough, this work is for an insurance company that will not even consider underwriting for pressure washing companies in general

The pricing that you mentioned, this is before the lifts are factored in?

Thanks again, I find that my membership costs are paying off just being able to ask these silly questions!

You Rock!

Sunshine said:

Thanks Ken!

Carlos and yourself are always so helpful. This was exactly what I was looking for and yes we do have hot water up to 270 degrees.

I had not even considered being able to block off a section of the street, or realized that my insurance may not cover this. Funnily enough, this work is for an insurance company that will not even consider underwriting for pressure washing companies in general

The pricing that you mentioned, this is before the lifts are factored in?

Thanks again, I find that my membership costs are paying off just being able to ask these silly questions!

You Rock!

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Soleil - good speaking with you today and hope the information/suggestions I passed onto you helps. Let us know how it works out! Go Canada - Go UAMCC - Go Industry!!

Soleil, you are very welcome. I am not an expert on anything like this but those are the things that stand out to me. If you were in the US I would also mention water reclaim.

A project such as what you listed would be way out of my league. That's not to say you/I couldn't do it but it seems like a helluva learning curve with many hoops to jump through. If this were me I would bring a company that is experienced and be there to take notes and ask questions.

Funny you should mention it...I got a call the other day asking me to clean the Dryvit towers on the same 9 story hotel. I downstream from the top with no lance on the gun. Almost no drift. As for insurance, I am actually a sub on this job and the primary has the proper insurances and adds me as needed.

Highrises can be a major PITA, but the work has to be done it has to be done. Its just a matter of the building owner if they want to pay the price. we have done some high rises

I would see about closing sidewalks, factoring in washing some cars and or you may have to stage it and have it tarped in extreme cases

Doing the work, there are 120 foot lifts or some kind of swing staging, bosom chair. I would hope since its one side you could use a lift. There are rigging scaffolding companies, Sunbelt Rentals around here has scaffolding division

Insurance, My Insurance company allow us to add on coverage per job, not all insurance companies do that. I have to estimate how much payroll and they will charge me extra for that job thats over the 4 story limit. Its not much additional, like for 5K in payroll I pay between $150-$200, no big deal

Make sure you do a test spot to make sue it will clean up nice, hate to think its easy and then it isn't

I attached some pics we did, the rigging is a counterweight swing staging system

The contract you really have to cover your a** but high rise work isnt for everybody and if you don't know how to do it, find someone that can help you, rigging scaffolding companies can be your best friend

Good luck

Nice photo's Jeff

I appreciate the advice. Was it less time consuming moving your rigging versus using some sort of lift?

Any chance you have a generic butt covering contract for this type of work?:worshippy:

We've only had one other larger project this year, we did it in early spring and it was cold, wet and windy!

The terrain that they were working on was uneven and mud based, not the best for the genie boom! My husband said that on the windy days when he was at the top those darn warning alarms would start going off and drove him nuts.

It was a PITA job, 2-3 inches of baked on Canola Oil on 2 sides, the rest was just gummy and gooey. We couldn't use any caustic as the winds just wouldn'd die down. Here's a few pics...