The Baird Center shared a video clip last year, of one of their buildings getting sprayed down for a window wash by a drone, buzzing loudly as it blasted the building’s windows with a soapy chemical.
Drone window washing is a developing industry and the Baird Center’s cleaning was provided by the closest business that offers such a service, Elevated Drone Cleaning, a sister company to Superior SoftWash Systems, owned by Brandon Sersch of Wausau. Sersch has operated his business for ten years, adding the drone cleaning service five years ago. And although videos make piloting a drone look like flying a kite, Sersch says the new business faced a lot of logistical challenges.
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“Some of the struggles we’ve had to overcome with the drones themselves is one, the lack of supply of waterproof equipment, so they have a lot of issues related to water ingress or we get chemicals corroding the inner parts,” Sersch says, adding that in general, there’s “a lack of quality critical components” and, especially in the early days of the business, there was a headache trying to get the drones to connect properly to GPS.
Sersch says the ballpark cost of getting a drone is around fifty-thousand dollars, and that “it’s not uncommon to spend fifteen to eighteen thousand a year on batteries.” But that money is earned back in time saved.
“You won’t be disturbing an area for a week at a time; we can move much more efficiently,” Sersch explains. Safety is another key element. “What we’ve found all over the country, but especially here in the Midwest, is a lot of buildings don’t have certified anchor points for people to rappel from, so it’s much easier to come in with a drone.”
Sersch has found clients around the state and in Milwaukee; some of his clients have included the Baird Center, the Hyatt Regency and several businesses in the Third Ward, he says.
“You don’t get the same results as nose to glass cleaning, but with the progression we’ve made with the cleaning chemicals, you’re getting a pretty good result,” remarked Sersch. “It’s like a touchless car wash on your windows – it’s not going to get everything off, but it’ll get the majority.”
Moving forward, Sersch is always looking to improve the reliability of the drones themselves and the perfect, spot-free “biodegradable, eco-friendly chemicals, those are constantly evolving.”
