The challenge of cleaning the windows of Burj Khalifa

The task of cleaning windows is a tricky task and if it is the world's tallest building, the job is even more difficult. Burj Khalifa in Dubai, rising 2717 ft into the sky and having almost 1,292,500 sq ft of the glass poses a real challenge for the window cleaning companies. Mr Dale Harding, the general manager of Cox Gomyl, a window cleaning company told that their company's hi tech equipments are worth £5million that includes window-cleaning carousels which his firm has designed to give the best look to Burj Khalifa.

There were twelve machines that weighed 13 tons having the capacity to hold about 36 window cleaners. Washing the 24,830 reflective windows of Burj Khalifa is an extensive process in which ordinary soapy water is used taking almost three months to complete the job. There are equipments specifically designed to clean the windows of this structure. The cleaners stand on these equipments that come out from a number of cavities in the building tracking along rails covering its curved towers.

Mr Harding informed that the company that is based in Melbourne has been working very hard to make Burj sparkling for the extravagant opening ceremony going to take place on Monday. He told that the cleaning task of the iconic structure was a great challenge and the architects expected a lot. Commenting about the tight targets the builders had to face a few months prior to the completion of skyscraper's construction, he said it was certainly a superb construction standing too high, probably equivalent to 10 to 15 conventional buildings.

It was an extremely fine construction, but there was a spectacular blunder just a few months before its opening ceremony, which about 6000 people attended. Samsung Besix Arabtec Joint Venture, the builder of Burj Khalifa had to take the help of brave Mick Flaherty, when they realized that they had totally forgotten to fit lights at the tip of the burj. It took the 35-year old Mick Flaherty and the company he worked in, Total Solutions Middle East almost a month to work on the building's pre-fabricated spire before it was officially inaugurated. Mike's daily job involved reaching the 160th floor by first taking five lifts and then further going up seven tiers on straight ladders before finally squeezing into the spire that was barely 6 ft in width.   

It was indeed a tough and extremely brave effort on the part of Mick, yet it was a breathtaking moment watching the building from so high up in the sky. As he said later, it felt like he could view the whole world from there once he reached up the ladders and opened its door seeing only vast blue sly around him and even feeling closer to the sun. He rated this experience as the highest point of his career, twitching with fear even after doing similar jobs in his profession for about 9 years. 

The correction of this spectacular blunder took almost a month from beginning of last August. The work was so dangerous and tiring that the team of workers involved in it, nicknamed themselves as the 'Men of Steel'.  The job was extremely tiring because the workers had to climb up and down the ladders the entire day. There was a platform where they ate their lunch, but the nearest toilet or water supply was too far off from where they worked. It was a stupendous job that is set to get into the Guinness book of records as the highest ever rope access work finished.