Water Fed Pole News Story

PRESCOTT - Matthew Files looks skyward Wednesday morning while cleaning Summit Plaza's third floor windows with a 45-foot water-fed pole. The sunrise view from the third floor is getting brighter by the minute. "As you can see, this thing flexes a lot," Files said while maneuvering the jiggling pole from one window to the next. "It's kind of like washing windows with a 45-foot fly-cast pole. "Files is a window supervisor for All Clean Services located in Chino Valley. "It's not clean until it's All Clean" reads the company logo. "This pole is made of aircraft aluminum and it weighs about 15 pounds," he said. "That doesn't sound like much until you've been pushing it up and down for a couple of hours. Then it feels like you're lifting weights in a gym. "Before the wash water reaches the plaza's third floor windows, it flows from one of the building's hose spigots through a garden hose into a deionization tank. "The deionization tank is filled with a mixed resin bed," Files explains. "The minerals in the water attach to the resin and the water comes out pure. "That's why I can wash one windowpane and move to the next without having to dry the glass. The water dries without leaving any spots." From the deionization tank water flows up the 45-foot pole and out through a scrub brush attached to the end of the pole. "Sometimes we use a lift or ladder to reach second or third floors," Files said. "But I figured I could get these just as easy with the pole. The poles are great for houses built on the side of a hill where we can't get a lift or a ladder. "For street-level windows, Files uses a hand-held window mop and 3-foot squeegee. "People think that you should not wash windows in the rain or that rainwater leaves spots and messes up windows," he said. "But that is not true. Rainwater is pure. It's not the rainwater that leaves spots - it's the dust and dirt on the windows that leaves the spots. "Windows are Files' specialty.Among his tri-city clientele are automobile showrooms, the Prescott Valley Civic Center and the control tower at Prescott Airport. "Some places are cleaned monthly or quarterly or just when they need it," he said. "But the airport is done every Friday. "As the sun rises and begins to warm the plaza windows, Files slowly continues around the building cleaning one windowpane to the next. "I started about 5:30 this morning and hope to be finished by noon before too many people start coming in," he said. "Hey, you missed a spot," yells a newspaper deliverer as he drives away. "I hear that joke all the time," Files said. "But they never show me where the spot is."