At Wash On Wheels, we’ve cleaned and pressure washed many trash chutes.  It’s amazing how much gunk gets stuck inside them over the years. Eventually the whole building starts to smell.

What made the trash chute for Barclay Towers in downtown Denver such a challenge is the size – it’s over 32 stories, about 380 feet!  Most trash chutes we’ve cleaned are 8-15 stories.  We had to do a great deal of planning before pressure washing this one.

Our first consideration was the weight of the pressure wash hose full of water we had to pass down the trash chute.  There were only two access points large enough for us to work with – the rooftop and trash room.  We had to come up with a way to control the hose as we lowered it and pulled it back up the trash chute multiple times as we applied soap and rinsed it off. One application of soap and pressure washing isn’t enough to remove years of buildup inside these trash chutes.

Our second consideration was the loss of pressure if the pressure washer had to push the water up 380 feet. So we used a machine we could get to the rooftop via elevator and a two-story staircase.  And we needed hot water.

We were barely able to squeeze the scaffolding for the heavy hose pulley in the elevator and up to the roof.  We special ordered a 500ft one-piece pressure wash hose so we wouldn’t have fittings coming apart during the wash.  We were able to use a pressure washer that heated with a small propane bottle. But the little burner couldn’t handle this large a job so we tapped into the building’s boiler system.

This job took five men nearly 10 hours to complete and half that time was spent on set-up and take down.  Because we planned for potential problems, we got the job done in one day to minimize the inconvenience to the residents and the building manager.

Len Edgerly, the president of the Barclay Towers HOA, made a great video of the process.

 

Sometimes we quote prices to potential customers who look horror stricken at the number.  But since we’ve done this many times before, we make sure we cover all bases so the customer can be sure the price we quote is the price they will pay regardless of any hiccups along the way.  We plan for potential problems and sometimes, especially on bigger projects, the planning is as time-consuming as the actual work.

Because we guarantee our work and put this extra effort into the first stages of potential projects, our prices are sometimes a little higher than our competition.  But the peace of mind our planning and preparation gives us – and our customers – more than makes up for the loss of time and frequently more expensive cost of dealing with a cheaper but more ‘oops’ prone alternative.

And you don’t want any ‘oops’ when you’re pressure washing a 32-story trash chute in a luxury residential building.

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