Body Corporate Pressure Cleaning Schedules

Reactive cleaning is what costs schemes money

The pattern in most Cairns schemes is that nothing happens until a committee member raises it, someone slips on a walkway, or the building looks poor in the week before an inspection. By then the work is urgent, quotes are compared badly, and the growth has been building for years.

A scheme that cleans on a defined cycle spends less per visit, gets more consistent results across buildings, and can put a known figure in the budget instead of an unpleasant surprise mid year.

Timing it around the wet and the budget cycle

The best window for the annual clean in Far North Queensland is April to May. The monsoon has finished, the surfaces are carrying the full year of growth, and removing it then means the buildings look right through the dry season when the grounds and the pool are getting the most use. Cleaning in October has the opposite effect: it looks good for a few months and then the wet undoes it.

That timing only works if the decision was made earlier, which is where the budget cycle comes in. In Queensland schemes recurring maintenance is normally carried by the administrative fund while larger periodic items sit in the sinking fund, and your body corporate manager can confirm which applies to a given item. Either way, quotes need to be in hand before the AGM sets the levies, not after. For an autumn clean, that means asking in the second half of the previous year.

Working backwards from an April clean, the run of it looks like this:

• Second half of the previous year. Written scopes and quotes requested, so there is a real figure rather than an estimate to argue about
• Before the AGM. The cycle goes into the budget as a line the committee has seen, with roofs and painted surfaces separated out from the general pressure cleaning
• AGM. Levies set with the figure already in them
• December to March. The wet does what it does. Walkways and stairs may still need an interim visit during this window if the slip risk gets ahead of the schedule
• April to May. The annual clean, with the buildings carrying a full year of growth and the dry season ahead of them
• After the clean. A short note back to the committee on anything found, since the crew is on the walkways and roofs more often than anyone else is

Staging, access and notice

Doing a whole scheme in one hit is rarely the right call. Staging by building or by wing keeps disruption manageable, keeps at least some visitor parking usable, and lets a smaller crew work steadily rather than a large one working fast.

Residents need real notice, and vague notice is what generates the complaints. A notice that names the specific things works far better:

• Which buildings or wings are affected, and on which dates
• Windows and louvres closed on those dates
• Cars out of the open bays and off the affected section of the deck
• Nothing left on balconies, and clothes lines cleared
• Pets kept inside while the gear is out
• Who to contact on the day, and that access to bin areas may be interrupted for a period

Two rounds of it, one a week ahead and one the day before, prevents almost every complaint.

Access details are worth settling before the day. Bin areas, plant rooms, pool surrounds and locked gates all need a nominated contact, and tap points matter more than people expect, because a scheme with a single accessible outlet at one end of the property changes how the job runs.

What to include in the cycle

The obvious items are the common walkways, stairs, carpark decks, bin enclosures and the pool surround, and these are the ones with a genuine liability angle. Concrete walkways carrying algae become slick as soon as rain starts, and stairs are the worst of it, so those surfaces usually justify a shorter interval than the buildings themselves.

External walls, render, balustrades and roofs are typically common property and belong in the same plan, though roofs and painted render need soft washing rather than direct pressure and should be quoted as separate line items so the committee can see what is being done to what.

Set out as a scope, a scheme usually looks something like this. Not every area belongs on the same interval, and that is the point of writing it down rather than cleaning everything once a year because it is easier to budget.

The liability rows are the top four. If a committee can only fund part of a cycle in a given year, those are the ones to fund.

Commercial pressure washing covers how we handle multi-building sites. Call 07 4028 4268 to get a written scope your committee can actually vote on.