Waters Edge Riverfront is two towers, Drift and Reach, on Duncan Street with the river behind them. Abseil Pro has cleaned the facade and certified the anchors since 2021.
What makes this one different is everything that is not the tower. Shade roofs over two barbecue areas, the porte cocheres on both Duncan Street entries, pergolas built into balconies, a podium lawn and a pool. All of it needs cleaning and none of it is a straight drop down a wall.
At a glance
Location
West End, Brisbane
Services
Window and facade cleaning, structure cleaning, height safety, facade inspection
Access
Rope access and pole work, rigged from the roof
Frequency
Facade clean annually, anchors certified each year
Photos
On site
The clean
The towers and everything around them
The annual visit is written to cover the built structures as well as the towers, because on this scheme the parts residents actually sit under are the parts that get dirtiest and the parts nobody else can reach.
What the clean covers
Exterior shell glass and frames on both towers, and the outside of every balcony balustrade
Painted render, slab edges, ledges and balcony soffits up to the drip edge
The shade roofs over the Summer House and Lagoon barbecue areas, cleaned top side, underneath, structure and downpipe
The porte cochere roofs at both Duncan Street entries, done the same way
Pergolas built into the balconies on levels 5 and 6 of both towers, offered to residents to book directly
How it is run
Facade drops run from the roof of each tower, top to bottom. The shade structures and the lobby glazing are done on poles from below, which keeps the crew off the residents' furniture and the footpath open.
Glass wants doing every six months and the facade elements every twelve, so the annual visit covers the whole envelope and the structures come with it rather than being forgotten until somebody looks up.
Height safety
The anchors get certified before anyone uses them
Both towers are worked on rope, so the anchor system has to be in certification before a drop is rigged. We inspect and certify it every year.
What the inspection covers
Every anchor and component on both roofs, inspected against the manufacturer documentation and the Standards
Post installed anchors load tested to 7.5 kN under AS/NZS 1891.4 and AS/NZS 4488.2
An information tag fitted to every component with the date it was checked
An inspection report listing every asset and a certificate valid for twelve months
Booked ahead of the clean
The inspection is scheduled before the clean rather than after it, so the crew is never rigging off a system whose certificate has quietly run out.
Anything that fails is tagged out on the spot so nobody can use it, and rectification is quoted separately rather than folded into the inspection.
How we get to it
Rigged from the roof, over an occupied podium
Everything on the towers is rigged from the roof. Underneath is a podium with a pool, a lawn, barbecue areas and two driveways, all in use while the crew works.
Working around residents
Drops are planned around what is below them. Exclusion zones go in under live drops with a spotter on the ground, and the towers are worked one elevation at a time so nothing is closed off for longer than it takes.
The barbecue areas, the pool deck and both driveways stay usable, which means the structures over them get cleaned on poles at times that suit the building rather than being fenced off for a day.
How we leave it
Tools tethered on every drop, and nothing dropped from height
Exclusion zones and signage set up before a drop starts and packed away after it
The pool, the lawn and both entries kept open, with the work sequenced around them
Keys and access codes handed back to management before anyone leaves
Every photo tagged with the tower, level and elevation
Photos uploaded the same day, so the record exists whether or not anyone asks for it
Outcome
What the building gets
Both towers cleaned to the same scope in one visit, and the shade roofs, porte cocheres and balcony pergolas cleaned with them rather than sitting on a list nobody gets to.
The rest follows from one contractor covering the whole scheme. The anchors are certified by the crew who use them, an inspection day can be booked and run without a fresh mobilisation, and every visit leaves dated photographs of parts of the buildings nobody can see from the podium.
