How to Choose a Commercial Window Cleaning Company
Ten things to check before you sign, the wording on a quote that should stop you, and an explanation of why the cheapest number on height work is so often the most expensive decision.
- Ten checksall answerable in a day
- Scope firstthen compare the numbers
- Ask us toothe same questions apply
Working out how to choose a commercial window cleaning company is harder than it should be, because the three quotes on your desk are probably describing three different jobs. One covers four elevations, one covers the two you can see from the street, and the third includes frames while the others quietly do not.
So the first move is never to compare prices. It is to make the scopes match, and only then to look at the numbers, at which point the gap between contractors usually turns out to be far smaller than it first appeared. What remains after that is a judgement about competence, and the checks below are how you make it.
Everything else written for building managers, from what the work should cost to what the law asks of you, is indexed under commercial window cleaning guides.
What should you check before choosing a commercial window cleaning company?
Ten things, and a competent contractor can satisfy all of them within a day. Nothing on the list is unusual, which is exactly why hesitation on any of it is worth noticing.
| Check | What you are looking for |
|---|---|
| Certification for the method | Dated rope tickets, or the operator licence covering that machine |
| Public liability, current | A certificate of currency, not an assurance |
| WorkCover for employees | Evidence, if they employ anyone |
| A method statement sample | Written for a real building, with a real rescue plan |
| How they handle anchors | They check certification before quoting rope work |
| Similar buildings done | References on stock like yours, not just any commercial work |
| Reasoning for the method | Why this method for this building, in their own words |
| What you get afterwards | A report, photos, and a note of anything not completed |
| Response between visits | What happens when something comes up out of cycle |
| Contract terms | Lock-in, exit, and what triggers a price change |
The seventh is the one that separates contractors most reliably. Ask why they have chosen that method for your building and listen to whether the answer is about the building or about them. A contractor who only owns one kind of equipment will explain why your facade suits that equipment, and they may even be right, but you should hear the reasoning before deciding.
The sixth matters more than a general reference list. Experience on a shopping strip does not transfer to a thirty storey tower, and experience on towers does not mean anyone knows how to work quietly around consulting rooms. Ask for the closest match to your own building.
What should you actually read rather than file?
Two documents: the certificate of currency and the method statement. The first takes thirty seconds and the second five minutes, and between them they tell you most of what you need.
On the certificate, check three things: that the entity named matches the one on the quote, that the cover is public liability rather than something else, and that the expiry date has not passed. Mismatched entity names are more common than people expect, usually because the trading name and the insured company differ, and that is worth a question rather than an assumption.
On the method statement, read it as a description of your building. Does it name your address, describe your roof, mention the things you know are awkward about the site? A document written after somebody walked your building reads completely differently from one produced by changing a name in a template.
The rescue plan is the tell. A serious document names who performs the recovery, with what, and roughly how long it takes. A weak one says emergency services will be contacted, which is a plan for after the problem rather than for the problem. There is a fuller breakdown of both documents in window cleaning safety and compliance in Victoria.
- Entity name on the certificate matches the quote.
- Expiry date still ahead of your work dates.
- Your address written into the method statement.
- A rescue plan naming people, gear and a timeframe.
- An author and a date on the document, both recent.
What on a quote should stop you?
Vagueness about method, silence about elevations, an hourly rate instead of a price, cash terms, and any reluctance to produce documents. Each one hides a cost that arrives later.
A quote that does not name the access method is not a quote for your building, it is a number attached to a hope. The same goes for one that says windows cleaned without saying which ones: if all four elevations are not listed, assume the rear is not included, because that is usually the case.
Hourly rates on facade work put the risk of a slow day on you rather than the contractor, and remove any incentive to be efficient. Fixed pricing is standard in commercial glass for exactly that reason, and a contractor unwilling to commit to one on a building they have assessed is telling you they are unsure of their own assessment.
Cash pricing usually means no insurance, no WorkCover and no paper trail, and it is a serious problem on height work rather than a minor irregularity. If something happens on your building, the absence of all three lands with you.
The subtler sign is reluctance. Ask for a certificate and a method statement and see how long the reply takes. Contractors who work commercially have both ready to send, because every client asks. A week of chasing tells you how the job itself will run.
Why is cheap so expensive on height work?
Because the saving comes out of insurance, training, certified equipment and time, and none of those costs disappear. They move to you, or they show up as a job that has to be done again.
Start with what a compliant operation actually carries: current public liability, WorkCover, certification that has to be renewed, equipment with a service life and inspection records, and enough time on site to do the frames and sills as well as the glass. Strip any of it out and the price falls immediately.
The version you notice first is quality. Leave the frames, ignore the sills, pull a blade through the centre of every pane and the building reads as clean by lunchtime. Two weeks later it does not, because the first decent rain washes everything that was skipped straight down the glass.
The version you notice later is risk. An uninsured contractor working above a footpath is an exposure sitting on your building, and the difference between two quotes is trivial against it. That is not a scare tactic, it is arithmetic.
What gets skipped to make a price cheap is rarely visible on the dayNone of which means the dearest quote wins. It means price is only meaningful once the scopes match and the documents check out, and a contractor who fails those tests is not cheaper. How a legitimate figure is built up is set out on commercial window cleaning cost.
Will we pass our own checklist?
Put us through all ten and find out. The paperwork travels with the price instead of waiting to be asked for, and every elevation on your building has its method named.
How the business is run and what the crew is certified for is on about us. To start with a real building rather than a hypothetical one, use get a quote.
- Fixed price with the elevations and exclusions written out.
- Insurance and method statement attached, not promised.
- A reason for the method that is about your building.
- No lock-in, so the work has to keep earning the contract.