West End's apartment stock splits into two kinds of building, and they need different handling. Along the river on Duncan Street and around Riverside Drive are the 8 to 20 storey towers built from the mid 2000s on: glass balustrades, wide balconies, rendered columns and a lot of frameless glazing that shows every mark. Back towards Boundary Street and Vulture Street the buildings are lower, three to eight storeys, often with painted render, timber screens and planter boxes that face the street.

Access is the thing that decides the price here. The riverfront towers mostly have certified roof anchors and clear parapets, so we rig from the roof and drop each elevation. The river side of these buildings usually has no ground access at all, which is exactly where a swing stage or boom lift struggles and ropes do not. The smaller buildings off Boundary Street often have no anchors, tight side setbacks and neighbours' roofs a metre away. For those we either install anchors first or, on anything under five storeys, run pure water fed poles from the ground and skip the ropes entirely. Salt is not the issue it is in the CBD; river grime, jacaranda litter and bat droppings are.

West End at a glance

Building types

Riverfront towers 8 to 20 storeys, mid rise walk ups 3 to 8 storeys

Typical access

Roof anchors on the towers; poles or new anchors on the smaller buildings

Usual frequency

Twice a year for glass, annual for anchors

What we watch for

River grime, jacaranda litter and bat droppings rather than salt

Photos

On site in West End

Abseil Pro technician on ropes cleaning balcony glass balustrades on a West End apartment building above the surrounding rooftops — Balcony glass and balustrades, cleaned on rope from the roof anchors. One drop per elevation.

Abseil Pro technician on ropes washing a dark rendered apartment facade in West End with a water fed pole — Rendered facade wash on rope. Top to bottom, no scaffold and no road closure.

Abseil Pro technician cleaning a low rise West End apartment balcony from the ground with a water fed pole — Under five storeys, pure water fed poles from the ground. No ropes, no anchors needed.

Local work

On the ropes around West End

We run a rolling program through West End rather than one off visits. Riverfront towers where the glass is the facade and everything above the podium needs rope access, and the older mid rise blocks back towards Boundary Street where a pole from the ground still does most of the work.

Because several of the buildings here sit within a few streets of each other, we schedule them in sequence. One mobilisation, one traffic plan, one crew. If your building is near one we already visit, the setup cost comes down and the dates are easier to move.

Buildings we have worked on in West End

Along the West End riverfront, some of our buildings have been with us for six years. A typical year is the facade and window clean and the roof anchor certification, and at SOKO and the Gardens Riverside towers we installed or rectified the height safety system first. When apartments report water at places like Bohemia and Waters Edge, the leak makesafe runs off the same ropes.