Specialist Access for High-Level Cleaning
Getting to the work safely. Powered access, towers, water-fed poles and traffic management for anything above ground level — bridges, gable ends, high-level tags and multi-storey elevations.
A surprising amount of graffiti removal is not really a cleaning problem. The tag on the third-floor gable, the piece painted along a railway bridge parapet, the tag sprayed on cladding above a shop canopy — the chemistry for those is straightforward. Getting a person and a lance safely in front of them is the actual job, and it's the part that determines the cost and the programme.
Access is also where corners get cut in this industry, and it's the one area where cutting corners is genuinely dangerous. Working at height remains one of the biggest causes of serious injury on UK sites. We plan access properly, we use trained operatives, and where a job can't be done safely we say so rather than improvising.
Choosing the right access method
The hierarchy is simple: reach it from the ground if you can, use a platform if you can't, and only build something if there's no alternative. Each step up adds cost, time and risk, so there's every incentive to stay as low down the list as possible.
- Water-fed telescopic poles — clean up to roughly three storeys from the ground with no platform at all. Fast, cheap, no permits, ideal for glass, cladding and render
- Mobile towers — good for sustained work in one position on firm, level ground, erected by PASMA-trained operatives
- MEWPs and cherry pickers — the workhorse for high-level graffiti and facade work, giving precise positioning and a stable working platform
- Rope access — occasionally the only option on tall or complex structures, brought in through specialist partners
The most common reason a high-level job stalls isn't the height — it's the ground. A MEWP needs firm, level standing with known load capacity, which rules out a lot of podium decks, basement car park roofs and pavements over cellars. We check that at survey, not on the morning.
Bridges, roads and traffic management
Railway and highway structures attract graffiti precisely because they're hard to clean — the taggers know the access problem as well as we do. That means a large share of high-level work sits over a live carriageway, a footway or a watercourse.
These jobs need traffic management planned and permitted well before anybody turns up: lane closures, footway diversions, signage, sometimes a full temporary closure with a notice period. Where the structure belongs to a third party — Network Rail, National Highways, a canal navigation authority, a local highway authority — there's a permit and a competency requirement on top.
We'd rather be upfront that this is what drives the lead time on bridge and overpass work. The cleaning might take two hours; the permissions can take weeks. If you have a structure that needs doing, the earlier you tell us the better the programme looks.
Got something high up that needs cleaning?
Send us a photo taken from the ground and tell us the address. We'll work out what access it needs and what that means for cost and timescale.
Competency and paperwork
Everybody who operates a platform for us is IPAF trained and carries their card; tower erection is done by PASMA-trained operatives. Every high-level job gets a specific risk assessment and method statement rather than a generic one, because the hazards change completely between a car park deck and a bridge over a canal.
Rescue planning is part of that. If an operative is incapacitated at height, there has to be a documented way of getting them down that doesn't rely on the fire service arriving — for a MEWP that means ground controls and a trained person on the ground, and it's written into the method statement rather than assumed.
For principal contractors and FM providers we'll supply RAMS, insurance, IPAF and PASMA evidence and operative details in advance of the visit, in whatever format your permit system needs.
Doing several jobs in one visit
Mobilising powered access is the expensive part of a high-level job, and the hire is usually charged by the day whether you use two hours of it or seven. That has an obvious implication: if you have more than one thing that needs doing up there, do it all at once.
When we're quoting a high-level clean we'll always ask what else is on the elevation. Gutters and hoppers that need clearing, signage that needs washing, a moss-covered string course, a cracked hopper head worth photographing for your own records — all of it is much cheaper attached to an access visit that's already happening than it is as its own mobilisation later in the year.
The same thinking makes a planned maintenance programme disproportionately good value on multi-storey buildings. One visit a year that covers everything above ground level almost always costs less than two reactive call-outs.
When We Use It
Best suited to
- High-level graffiti on gable ends, bridges and multi-storey elevations
- Facade and cladding cleaning above the reach of a pole
- Structures over roads, footways or awkward ground conditions
- Confined and restricted areas where a standard set-up won't fit
Where we'd use something else
No method suits everything. These are the jobs we'd steer away from it.
- Work that a pole or ladder-free ground-level method could reach just as well
- Sites where the ground can't take a MEWP and no alternative exists
- Jobs where the required road closure isn't achievable in the timescale
Equipment we use
- MEWPs and cherry pickers, operated by IPAF-trained staff
- Mobile towers erected by PASMA-trained operatives
- Water-fed telescopic poles reaching around three storeys from the ground
- Traffic management, footway closures and permits where the set-up needs them
Contaminants It Removes
Services That Use This Method
Frequently Asked Questions
How high can you reach?
Water-fed poles handle roughly three storeys from ground level with no platform. Above that we use a MEWP sized to the job, which covers the great majority of buildings we're asked about. For genuinely tall or structurally awkward buildings we bring in rope access specialists as part of the package.
Do you need a road closure?
Sometimes — it depends on where the platform has to stand and what's below the work. A tag on a gable over a private car park usually needs nothing beyond cones. A bridge parapet over a live carriageway will need permitted traffic management, and that's the item that sets the lead time. We'll tell you which situation you're in at survey.
Are your operatives trained for work at height?
Yes — IPAF for powered access and PASMA for tower erection, with cards available on request. Every high-level job carries its own risk assessment, method statement and rescue plan rather than a generic document, and we'll send the whole pack in advance if your site induction or permit system needs it.
Can you clean high-level graffiti quickly, or does access delay it?
On a straightforward building with somewhere to stand, we can usually get to it as fast as any ground-level job. Delays come from permissions, not from the cleaning — bridges, structures over highways and third-party assets need permits arranged in advance. If it's offensive graffiti we'll always prioritise it and look for the fastest compliant route.
Need graffiti gone — fast?
Call 0161 399 5247 or request a free quote. We respond within one working hour.