How commercial window cleaning is bought
Commercial window cleaning splits by height. Ground floor shopfronts are a round: a strip of shops, cafes and offices cleaned weekly or fortnightly, often agreed with the owner on the spot and paid per visit. Low rise offices, townhouse complexes and small unit blocks are usually cleaned a few times a year, and the work is bought by a strata or property manager. Taller buildings need rope access, a building maintenance unit or an elevating work platform, and are bought by facilities managers and strata managers through a written quote and a safety plan for that building.
There is also one-off work. Builders need new glass cleaned of paint, silicone and stickers before handover, and agents want glass sparkling before a listing or a new lease. Commercial cleaners can be a referral source too: where an office cleaning contract leaves the outside glass out, the cleaner is often the first person asked who does windows. The cleaners page shows the kinds of businesses they work for.
How the work is priced
- Per visit. The norm for shopfront rounds, and for small sites on a regular schedule.
- Per building, per clean or per year. For strata and offices, a price for each clean, sometimes billed as an annual figure across an agreed number of visits. A committee approves one yearly line more easily than a stream of invoices.
- Per job, with access priced in. For taller buildings, the access method drives the cost: rope access, hiring a lift, or the building's own equipment. Show the setup, the exclusion zone and any pedestrian control as their own lines, so the buyer can see why a taller building costs more.
Whichever you use, say whether the price covers inside, outside or both, whether it includes frames, tracks and sills, and what happens when weather cancels a visit.
Working at heights: what the rules say
Safe Work Australia describes working at heights as a leading cause of death and serious injury in Australia, and the managers who hire you know it. Its guidance sets out the order you work through, so far as is reasonably practicable. Do the work from the ground or a solid surface where you can. If you can't, use a fall prevention device such as a barrier, scaffold or elevating work platform. If that isn't possible, use a work positioning system such as industrial rope access. A fall arrest system comes after those. Construction work with a risk of a fall of more than 2 metres is high risk construction work and needs a safe work method statement (SWMS). Strata and facilities managers commonly ask for a SWMS for work at height, so have one ready for each kind of job you do.
Two more points come up when you quote. Operating a boom-type elevating work platform with a boom of 11 metres or more needs a high risk work licence, and the business using the operator must see that licence before the work starts. Rope access depends on the building's anchors. Safe Work Australia's guide to industrial rope access systems covers anchor selection, inspection and testing, and it is written for building owners, building managers and body corporates as well as rope access providers. Asking a manager for the building's anchor inspection records before you quote shows you know the job, and it protects you.
These are the national model rules. Each state and territory regulator enforces its own version, so check with yours.
How to win the work and keep it
Decide your ceiling first: the heights and access methods you are trained, licensed and insured for. Then go after buildings that fit. A shopfront round is built street by street, and a strata book is built manager by manager, so start where you already clean and grow outwards.
When you write to a strata or facilities manager, name the building and the access method you would use, and offer to inspect it and quote in writing. Strata quotes often go to a committee of owners, and the strata managers page explains how those decisions get made. Keep your certificate of currency, SWMS and licences ready to send the same day.
You keep the work by turning up on schedule, working cleanly around residents and staff, and telling the manager when something is wrong, such as a cracked pane, a failed seal or an anchor point that looks damaged. A short note with photos after each clean lets them answer the committee without a site visit. The facilities managers page covers the records they need from contractors.
Curlew writes to the shops, strata managers, facilities managers and builders near you on your behalf and passes on anyone who wants a quote, though it can't promise replies.