CALCULATION OF A

BUILDINGS’ CLEANING CYCLE

360 m
(1181 ft)

What is a cleaning cycle?

At XSPlatforms we advise our clients to think of a fitting
cleaning cycle for their building before they choose a facade
access solutions. In other words: how often and long does it
take to get an entire building’s facade cleaned?

A pre-calculated cleaning cycle (which is based in

assumptions) shows us exact that.

What do we
need to know?
• Building height:
360 m (1181 ft)

• Total surface of glass:

approx. 40 500 m2 (435 938 ft2)

Technical aspects
of the roof car and gondola

74 17
Total time
Hoisting speed: No. of drops AVG. time per drop 7992 minutes
12 m/min necessary to reach 54 minutes (= 133,2 hours/16,7
(39 ft/min) entire building: 74 (incl. 16 restraint levels) working days)

Cleaning rate
of the workers
inside the gondola
50 m2 (538 ft2) per hour*
Cleaning rate per person

100 m2 (1076 ft2) per hour

Cleaning rate per
gondola (2 persons)

405 hours (50,6 working days)**

The net time to clean the entire
glass surface of this building

* Assuming regular (wind free) weather conditions.

** This is calculated without the time that is necessary
to make the required amount of drops.

Final calculation

16,7 working days

for drops with restraint

50,6 working days

for cleaning the facade

3 working days
for deploying and parking
the roofcar each day
FACADE
Cleaning service

71 working days
total time of cleaning
for complete building

71 working days is equal with

approximately 14 weeks of cleaning.*

* Based on a 5-day work week.

How can a cleaning cycle be reduced?

Option 1:
by adding an (identical) second roof car which can operate
simultaneously with the other one.

Pro: will reduce the total

cleaning time by approx. 50%.

Con: doubles the purchase costs of

the facade access system + double
the amount of costs for maintenance
personnel (2 gondolas, each operated
by 2 workers).

Option 2:
equip the roof car with a larger type of gondola

Pro: covers a larger surface of

facade per drop = reduces the total
number of necessary drops.
Add larger cleaning surface
Con: higher purchase costs of the
facade access system and (possibly)
adjustments to the design of the
restraint system.

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