Window Cleaning, Snow, Ears, Burgers & Borrowing 10 Billion

Tony Evans of "A New View window cleaning" braves the snow & gives us another episode in the new third "weather or not" winter edition. Whilst Chris Dawber decides not to bother going to work!

A former window cleaner prone to attacking strangers was jailed indefinitely for chomping on a man’s ears while trying to rob him. Mark Rawlings, 24, who has been in and out of prison since his teens, was described as “unstable” by Judge Stephen John as he was sentenced to a minimum of two years for attempted robbery on December 18. The court heard how Rawlings, of Hazel Crescent, Whitley, attacked his victim after leaving a pub on August 8, at 11.30pm, the day after being released on licence from a previous offence. He said he did it because someone had stolen a pair of trainers given to him by his mum.
Sentencing, Judge John said: “The victim had left the pub when you came up behind him and put your arms around his throat, bit his ears and demanded he take you to a cashpoint saying you wanted at least a grand. “He managed to fight himself free and ran back to the pub where the door was locked behind him but you broke that lock and assaulted the publican. “This was a very frightening incident.”
Rawlings had been released on the same day from a two-year sentence imposed in June 2008 for one offence of actual bodily harm and two offences of common assault. He had been shouting abusively down a mobile phone at Reading train station when he was asked to quieten down and leave. Instead he punched a member of staff in the face, another two employees in the head and threatened to throw one of them on the railway track before striking a member of the public, the court heard.
In another offence in 2004, Rawlings, a window cleaner at the time, sank his teeth into a pensioner’s neck and another man’s ear. He also picked a fight with two men as they left a shop in Overdown Road in Tilehurst, biting one of them on the ear and finger and then punching the other. He was jailed for 13 months. Rawlings has been diagnosed with two personality disorders, describing him as emotionally unstable and socially incapable.
He claimed he carried out the offence in August because someone had stolen a pair of trainers from him that his mum had bought. Judge John added: “These are impulsive acts of violence against strangers, there is a worrying and unstable nature to your behaviour. “I have significant concerns that you were not able to cope on your return to the community. You have a marked tendency to act impulsively with no thought or consequence.” Rawlings was given an indeterminate sentence for the protection of the public and was warned if he did not deal with his behaviour he would never be released. As he was taken away, Rawlings shouted across to his father in the public gallery: “That’s alright, two years, it’s good.”

Dreaming to bridge surface science and materials science: An interview with Prof. Kai Wu of Peking University - What are the short-term and long-term research plans?
Kai: They are quite simple. In the short term, I would like to finish the projects that I’m working on. Surface science is a money-eating machine. I have to find extra funding to build the new machines we need to use in our research. In the long term, I would concentrate on the good science, in my eyes. I would definitely try to bridge surface science and nanomaterials. In conventional surface science, all crystals in the periodic table have been studied. One has to find a new field. I believe nanocrystals can open a new window for surface scientists because people can now prepare tons of novel nanocrystals.

Dubai's Khalifa Tower, World's Tallest Building, Opens with Fanfare: Building is so tall that it is ten degrees Celsius cooler at the top than at the base. The tallest building in the world has opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. But the 828-meter tower formerly known as the Burj Dubai has been renamed the Burj Khalifa, to honor the leader of neighboring Abu Dhabi, who gave Dubai $10 billion last month to help repay its debts. Dramatic music, fireworks and men parachuting from the sky helped Dubai introduce the world to its new tallest building. Its inauguration comes during a deep financial crisis in Dubai. Lead architect George Efstathiou says the building symbolizes the emirate's perseverance.

Brave window cleaners take on the challenge of the world's tallest skyscraper, Dubai's Burj Khalifa: Cleaning the windows of skyscrapers can be a daunting process. But never more so than for the company who landed the epic task of cleaning the windows of the world's tallest skyscraper in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa. Towering at 2,717ft and with 1,292,500 sq ft of glass, the £1billion Burj is an imposing building, and one designers were determined would be sparkling clean in time for yesterday's extravagant opening ceremony. Dale Harding, the general manager of cleaning company Cox Gomyl, said the firm installed £5 million of hi-tech equipment, including unique window-cleaning carousels which they designed, to ensure the Burj was constantly clean. Twelve machines weighing 13 tons carry up to 36 cleaners, who use ordinary soapy water to wash down the Burj's 24,830 reflective windows in a process that takes three months from top to bottom.

The cleaners stand on the specially designed machines, which emerge from cavities in the skyscraper and track along rails skirting its curved towers. Mr Harding said the company, based in Melbourne, Australia, had been working overtime to get the Burj gleaming for Monday's extravagant opening ceremony. He said: 'It's an enormous challenge. The architects had some fairly high expectations. 'It's an iconic building with high exposure. They wanted it as clean as possible, particularly for the opening. There have been some fairly tight deadlines over the past few months. 'It's an incredible construction. People are focusing on the height of the building but the sheer size of it, the footprint, is huge. It's really 10-15 conventional buildings.' Click pictures to enlarge.

And in a spectacular blunder just months before the opening ceremony, which was attended by over 6,000 people, Samsung Besix Arabtec Joint Venture, which built the Burj, were forced to rush in Mick Flaherty after they realised they had forgotten to fit lights to the tip. The 35-year-old, originally from Tyne and Wear, and his company Total Solutions Middle East, worked on the pre-fabricated spire of the building for more than a month before it was officially unveiled to the world. His daily commute to work involved him taking five lifts to the 160th floor, climbing through a further seven tiers on vertical ladders, then squeezing into the 6ft wide spire and out of a hatch. Mr Flaherty said: 'I felt like I could see the whole world. It was absolutely breathtaking.

Window cleaning chemical injected into fast food hamburger meat: If you're in the beef business, what do you do with all the extra cow parts and trimmings that have traditionally been sold off for use in pet food? You scrape them together into a pink mass, inject them with a chemical to kill the e.coli, and sell them to fast food restaurants to make into hamburgers. That's what's been happening all across the USA with beef sold to McDonald's, Burger King, school lunches and other fast food restaurants, according to a New York Times article. The beef is injected with ammonia, a chemical commonly used in glass cleaning and window cleaning products.
This is all fine with the USDA, which endorses the procedure as a way to make the hamburger beef "safe" enough to eat. Ammonia kills e.coli, you see, and the USDA doesn't seem to be concerned with the fact that people are eating ammonia in their hamburgers. This ammonia-injected beef comes from a company called Beef Products, Inc. As NYT reports, the federal school lunch program used a whopping 5.5 million pounds of ammonia-injected beef trimmings from this company in 2008. This company reportedly developed the idea of using ammonia to sterilize beef before selling it for human consumption.
Fascinating. So you can inject a beef product with a chemical found in glass cleaning products and simply call it a "processing agent" -- with the full permission and approval of the USDA, no less! Does anyone doubt any longer how deeply embedded the USDA is with the beef industry? Apparently, this practice of injecting fast food beef with ammonia has been a well-kept secret for years. I never knew this was going on, and this news appears to be new information to virtually everyone. The real shocker is that "a majority" of fast food restaurants use this ammonia-injected cow-derived product in their hamburger meat. It sort of makes you wonder: What else is in there that we don't know about? "School lunch officials and other customers complained about the taste and smell of the beef," says the NYT. No wonder. It's been pumped full of chemicals. It's almost enough to make you want to puke. If you do so, please aim it at your windows, because ammonia cuts through grease like nothing else, leaving your windows squeaky clean!

Scaffold affects business: The company behind rapper-turned-fashion guru Sean "Diddy" Combs is suing the landlord of its flagship New York shop over a scaffold that has been hanging over its window for more than three years. It wants at least $2.5 million in damages and freedom from its more than 660,000 dollars-a-year lease. It claims the scaffold is affecting business and is not good for the company's image.

24,000 Windows - Clean by Tonight!

Reach for the sky, how to clean all that glass: It is the world's tallest skyscraper but who is going to clean its 24,000 windows? The answer - an Australian company that has designed and built an $8 million window-washing system to burnish the reflective glass of the Burj Dubai tower that rises almost a kilometre above the Arabian desert. The rulers of Dubai last night tried to convince the world that their financial troubles had been overstated by holding a lavish launch of the 818-metre ''superscraper''. It dwarfs the world's previous tallest buildings, the 508-metre tower 101 in Taipei, and the 629-metre KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota. Among the 6000 guests were representatives from Melbourne company Cox Gomyl, which designed and built the machinery to take window cleaners, harnessed to metal cages, to the 160 storeys. Unmanned machines will clean the 27 extra tiers and the spire.



The general manager, Dale Harding, said the company had also tendered to provide the 36 cleaners needed to battle the hot desert sun, high winds and routine sand storms. ''It takes about three months to clean the entire building so the machines will be operating in cycles the vast majority of the year,'' he said. The machines cover about 40 storeys each and travel along tracks fixed to the facade. When not in use, they are hidden at various heights behind glass panels. While the technology is cutting edge, the window washers - most likely migrant workers - will use the traditional squeegee and soapy water. ''It's a challenging environment to work in. You're out on your own, the wind is howling by, the heat is bouncing off the glass and on the lower levels there is sand as well,'' Mr Harding said. The cleaners will carry electrolyte packs and wear specialised clothing resembling moon suits, while working only on parts of the building that are in shade.
Cox Gomyl is one of several Australian connections to the Burj Dubai. Melbourne and Sydney experts from Hyder Consulting reviewed and approved the tower's design on behalf of the Government of Dubai. The company also supervised construction. ''We are in fact responsible for the building,'' said property director Jim Forbes. ''To be involved with the tallest building in the world was a real thrill.'' Mr Forbes said Dubai's wind and frequent sand blasts presented a design challenge combated by changing the tower's shape as it ascended to ''confuse the wind and resist any vibrations.'' Setting aside fears that the emirate is on the brink of defaulting on its debt, last night Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, was expected to make a triumphal ascent of the $1 billion tower which has swimming pools on floors 43 and 76 and plans for the world's highest mosque on the 158th floor.

Burj Dubai set to open as world's tallest building: Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum expected to ascend the 800m Burj Dubai during lavish opening party. Crews of cleaners today rushed to finalise preparations for the grand inauguration of the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world. With batteries of fireworks and an invited crowd of 6,000 guests, the rulers of the Gulf emirate will tonight attempt to convince the world that their financial troubles have been overstated with a lavish celebration of a glass and steel building that tapers almost a kilometre into the sky. Dubai's ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum (pictured), is expected to make a triumphal ascent of the spire-shaped tower which rises over 800m from the Arabian desert. He will announce the exact height this evening in a move intended to draw a line under the country's financial crisis, which has left a trail of outstanding creditors. "Crises come and go, and cities move on," said Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties, the state-owned developer of the building. "You have to move on. Because if you stop taking decisions, you stop growing."

With swimming pools on floors 43 and 76 and plans for the world's highest mosque on the 158th floor, the $1bn "superscraper" dwarfs both the world's previous tallest building, the 508m tall tower 101 in Taipei, and the 629m KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, the tallest man-made structure. It is so high, the temperature is said to be 10C cooler at the zenith than at the base. But with many investors in the building's 1,044 apartments already facing losses after property prices in Dubai slumped, the Burj's owners are struggling to present their architectural achievement as anything but a pyrrhic victory. The offices and most of the flats are still an estimated two months from completion and the emirate's neighbours in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, which provided Dubai with a £15bn bailout last year, are also understood to be unimpressed at the ostentation of the building.

The fountain outside cost a reported £133m and the 160 room hotel was designed by fashion designer Georgio Armani and boasts a nightclub, two restaurants and a spa. Meanwhile, labourers on the project, including many immigrants from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, earned low wages. Skilled carpenters took home just £4.34 a day and labourers, £2.84. Security is expected to be tight. Local newspapers quoted Major General Mohammed Eid al-Mansouri, head of the protective security and emergency unit for Dubai police, saying more than 1,000 security personnel, including plainclothes police and sharpshooters, will be deployed to secure the site for the opening.

But even by the standards of an emirate which has created miles more beach front by building vast islands from millions of tonnes of sand in the shapes of palms, the tower stands out as Dubai's most remarkable achievement. Around 12,000 people are expected to live and work in the tower which is part of a 500-acre development known as "downtown" Burj Dubai. Alabbar said Burj Dubai was "another demonstration of Dubai's ability to achieve what few people thought possible". "The tower is a global icon," he said. "It represents the determination and optimism of Dubai as a truly world city. It is a powerful symbol for the entire Arab world."

Burj Dubai is the ultimate vantage point: After all the hype, we find out what it’s actually like to see the city from the ultimate vantage point. “They could have at least washed the windows!” moaned one journalist stood on the 124th-storey observation deck of the Burj Dubai. Apparently it can get dusty when you’re half a kilometre in the air. Only very slightly though – and you’d have to be an epic grinch to let this taint your experience of the world’s tallest building.
Ignoring this glass-half-empty simpleton, the rest of us took advantage of today’s press preview to get a sterling view of –and from – the Dhs 5.5 billion ($1.5 billion) superstructure. Even at 8.30 on a murky Monday morning, floor 124 offers a cornucopia of sights. The circular gallery offers a 360-degree panoramic view of the city, allowing visitors to take in landmarks such as the Burj Al Arab, Wafi and The World archipelago in under a minute if they so desire.
Tours depart from Dubai Mall at 30-minute intervals. Guests enter a ground floor lobby situated between More Café and a Burj souvenir store (so if you want to buy T-shirts, photo frames or a Dhs299 commemorative crystal bottle of water afterwards, you know where to go). “Get ready to enter the record books,” pronounces a sign at the entrance. The lobby itself contains a softly-lit replica of the tower, along with “a story in numbers” (12,000 people worked on the Burj at one time or another, and it’s visible from up to 95 kilometres away apparently).
The tour itself nudges into sci-fi territory at times, especially with the elevators (TV screens and the nightclub-esque décor aside).
The lifts are a speedy proposition indeed – racing up and down the tower at an astonishing 10 metres per second, although you may not even realise you’re moving until your ears begin to pop. Now if only I could get some installed in my Al Barsha tower block… For those of you wishing to be educated as well as wowed, moving diagrams and interactive displays explain the story of how the Burj was built, before you enter the iconic edifice itself. Upon reaching the viewing deck, visitors are free to wander around the floor, which comes equipped with high-tech digital telescopes. There is even an outside platform, which was unfortunately shut yesterday for the fireworks display but will be open to the public as of today. Going back to the view, I found the sheer scale of the Burj forced home by its monstrous shadow – slicing through Dubai and almost touching the coast.

Burj Dubai & Window Cleaning Videos

A tall order to keep the tower clean: As the towering Burj Dubai glistens in the winter sunshine, spare a thought for the team of fearless men whose unenviable task it has been to clean the massive glass facade ahead of the tower’s grand opening tomorrow. Teetering on platforms suspended by ropes and pulleys, the men have spent the past three months scrubbing, polishing and wiping the windows of the world’s tallest building to remove every trace of dust and grime.
It has been no mean feat. Burj Dubai’s surface is made up of 28,261 cladding panels, enough glass to cover 14 football pitches. And at 818 metres tall, this is no task for anyone who suffers from vertigo.

James Bunn, an operations manager at Gecko, the company contracted to give Burj Dubai its first “build clean”, said the job had not been without challenges. The first task was to remove stubborn stains left by building materials and which had become ingrained on the window panes.
“The build clean is what you call a building’s first clean, so there are different sediments left on the windows, like plaster. When that is done, it is then a window clean, which is a lot easier,” Mr Bunn said.

Burj Dubai which will officially open on the anniversary of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE, becoming Ruler of Dubai boasts 160 storeys. Yet no part of the tower has a straight 818-metre drop; the longest is 390 metres. This dizzying thought does not concern Mr Bunn, although he acknowledged that strong winds almost a kilometre above the ground can be a problem. “It is daunting when you are looking down 390 metres, but you get used to it. I have to look down to make sure the rest of the team are OK and doing their job,” he said. “The height doesn’t bother me: it is the same being 20 metres up or 800 metres. “One day we were setting up to clean one side and then a wind picked up, which was too strong. So we had to take everything back up and as a result wasted an entire morning setting up the gear.”

The workers regularly found themselves above the clouds. “It is like a big blanket of snow below when you’re up there,” Mr Bunn said. Working from the top to the bottom, it took the company three months to give Burj Dubai the sheen it enjoys today. Teams of 12 men would suspend themselves every day from one of the 11 platforms on each of the tower’s three sides. On the ground, more than 10 men would operate machinery while another team would supervise the ropes above them from the platforms. Mr Bunn would keep track of the team’s progress on a diagram of the building, colouring in parts of the tower that had been cleaned. The drawing now hangs in his office with all sides coloured in. “As you can see, the different shades of yellow showed the different times it was complete and you can see how we moved around the tower,” he said.

Soon, the building will be a hive of activity with office workers at their desks and guests of the luxury Armani Hotel milling around inside. Mr Bunn assured future occupants they do not have to worry about window cleaners peering in at them. “You can’t see in unless you try very hard. Also, I have tried to get the attention of guys inside by banging on the windows and they didn’t know I was there,” he said. Gecko is no stranger to working at altitude: it recently replaced an aviation light in The Address hotel in downtown Burj Dubai and is contracted to clean the exterior of the Rose Rayhaan by Rotana, which bills itself as the tallest hotel in Dubai.

Needless to say, working at such perilous heights makes safety paramount. Hairline fractures in any of the buckles or abrasions to the ropes can develop and easily worsen if weight is added. “We inspect everything. If there is any damage to any of the gear, we just throw it out,” Mr Bunn said. Now that the “build clean” is complete, Burj Dubai will not require such an intense scrubbing in the future. But someone will be responsible for maintaining the lustre the tower now enjoys. Slide show here. Click top picture for the video.


Window washer Tony "Slam" Jones visits Harnden Engineering and plays one of Billy's electric guitars.

Matt of Perry Window Cleaning, has a secret formula!


This video by Carlsbad Clearchoice will make you seasick..

Jessica Page performs in Round 2 in St. Louis's 2009 December Poetry Slam at Ursa's Stageside, talking about all the window cleaners who are doing nothing with their lives!

Window Cleaning News + Gutter Cleaning Fall

Leave it to the Gutter Cleaning Professionals! A Rexburg man was cleaning out his gutters this afternoon, when he fell off his ladder, and hit his head on a window seal. The man's wife called for help after she heard a loud crash outside. He received some gashes and was transported to the hospital. First on the scene, Officer Lyndon Barron asked, "Do you remember anything?" "Yeah. I guess, I don't know," the man responded. "What happened?" Asked Officer Barron. "I don't know," replied the man. "Did you just fall right here off the ladder?" Asked Officer Barron. Law enforcement says you should always call for paramedics, especially when there's a head injury.

St George's Church, Middlesbrough, UK: This was the Gaumont cinema which once stood opposite St George's church, this building has also disappeared from our landscape. You can even see the sweet shop on the corner advertising Fry's Chocolate, which must have been convenient for patrons of the cinema. Also there is a barrow parked on the pavement with a very long ladder, probably belonging to a window cleaner. Click picture to enlarge.

Years ago, Sherman’s Sports in downtown Hendersonville employed a young man to wash the store’s front windows. While he was washing the windows, the man asked Louis Sherman, the store’s owner, if he might be excused from work for a spell. Sherman agreed and the window washer headed for the Henderson County Courthouse. “He and his girlfriend went across the street and got married,” says Francee Sherman. “And when they were done, he came right back to washing windows.” It’s one of Francee Sherman’s favorite stories from the decades she has spent helping run the store that her late husband Kalman’s father founded more than 85 years ago on Main Street.

Deaths at construction sites in Bahrain have doubled in four years, according to the latest Labour Ministry figures. Thirty-five workers have already lost their lives in accidents this year, compared to 36 during the whole of last year, 29 in 2007, 21 in 2006 and 18 in 2005. Of those killed, most fell from buildings under construction, we-re hit by falling construction materials or became trapped in workplace machines, said occupational health and safety head Abbas Salman Matooq. He warned the number of worksite fatalities will rise by the end of the year unless companies stopped flouting safety rules and regulations. "They hire cheap labour and purchase cheap equipment to cut costs," Mr Matooq told the GDN. "Construction accident inspectors work hard to enforce construction safety laws by distributing safety brochures that are printed in several languages for the workers' safety. "But we have noticed that no one follows these rules and that's the reason so many accidents happen." Mr Matooq said a risk assessment test should be carried out at any site before construction work began. "Training for labourers is a must and all the contracting and construction companies are asked to hire safety officers," he said.
Labour regulations state companies that employ 100 workers must hire a safety officer, while those with 50 or less should train a supervisor or foreman to monitor safety issues. "We don't advise anyone to leave the labourer alone at the worksite, without supervision," said Mr Matooq.
"But on inspection, we noticed that many supervisors come in the morning for sometime, explain work to the labourers and leave, which shouldn't be allowed. "The foreman or supervisor must stay at the site until the work is complete. Mr Matooq revealed 1,000 construction sites and labour camps had already been inspected this year. But he said part of the problem was that Bahrain was short of occupational safety engineers with only four carrying out daily inspections.
"We are facing trouble, as there is a shortage of inspection officers," said Mr Matooq. "There are only four inspectors and we have to visit many construction sites in a day and write a report about them. "The job also includes conducting investigations (after an accident or fatality) and giving safety lectures to workers. "At least 40 safety inspectors are required to inspect of all the worksites in Bahrain." Mr Matooq said most of the workers killed this year were from India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan.
"Two Bahraini workers also died this year, including one, who fell from top of a water tank in Electricity Ministry in Umm Al Hassam," he said. "The other drowned when he was trying to cross a wooden bridge between two ships and fell into the sea. "It took place at the Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Port and the man was the captain of one of the ships." The GDN reported on Saturday that a Labour Ministry probe had been launched into two worksite accidents that killed one worker and left another seriously injured. Indian Pokkillatha Ali Sulaiman, 51, fell to his death from the second floor of a building in Isa Town on Friday. It happened at 10am when he was cleaning a window at the Traffic Directorate. Mr Sulaiman leav-es behind his wife and two children. Hours earlier Bangladeshi Farooq Imam Kabeer suffered serious injuries after a jack fell on him from a building under construction in Shakhoora. It happened at around 8am as the 25-year-old was fixing the jack to make stairs.

Cleanliness May Foster Morality: A simple spritz of a fresh-smelling window cleaner made people more fair and generous in a new study. The researchers figure cleanliness fosters morality. They conducted fairness tests, with subjects completing tasks in a room that was either unscented or one that was sprayed with a common citrus-scented window cleaner. Follow-up questions found the participants didn't notice the scent in the room. "Researchers have known for years that scents play an active role in reviving positive or negative experiences," Galinsky said. "Now, our research can offer more insight into the links between people's charitable actions and their surroundings." The study, led by Katie Liljenquist at Brigham Young University, will be detailed in the journal Psychological Science. Liljenquist and Chen-Bo Zhong at the University of Toronto had previously shown that people who have committed sins feel urged to clean themselves physically. A separate study last year at the University of Plymouth in England found that a vigorous hand wash or shower could cause a person to be less judgmental.

Eric Duran laughs when he's reminded that he does windows in both Spanish and English, so to speak. The proprietor of Duran Window Cleaning is also coordinator of Club de Lenguas, a Spanish conversation club. "I have loved learning about languages since I was about 10 years old growing up in Indianapolis," said Duran, 50, who has lived in Bellingham since 1996. "Now I give private Spanish lessons, and I once taught languages in Mexico. I love helping people learn the beauty of the Spanish language and Latin culture." Duran seeks out speakers with an interest in Latin heritage to attend club meetings, and does his best to accommodate all levels of Spanish speakers, especially enthusiastic beginners.

Burj Dubai: The final height of the tower will be revealed when Burj Dubai opens later this year. The last cladding panel numbered 24,348, weighing 750kg, was placed at a height of more than 662 metres. Panels of more than 18 strength specifications and 200 sizes have been used, all of them double-glazed and factory-sealed. Certain panels are yet to be installed. The total curtain wall area stands at 132,190 square metres. The developer had also said that keeping the tower façade clean will be the next engineering challenge. "To guarantee that every corner of Burj Dubai sparkles, 18 window-washing units are built into the tower, including nine track-mounted telescopic cradles, each with an extendable jib arm for cleaning, which reaches more than 20 metres," said the statement. In September, Emaar sent this newspaper a statement saying the last of the cranes atop Burj Dubai would be taken down in a few weeks. The cranes were originally supposed to come down by end-August. Currently standing at more than 800 metres, Burj Dubai is at the centre of Downtown Burj Dubai, a 500-acre mega project described as the new heart of the city of Dubai. The final height of the tower will be revealed when Burj Dubai opens later this year. The development value of Burj Dubai is more than $1 billion (Dh3.67bn). The design inspiration for the mixed-use development has been drawn from the desert flower. Jan 2007. Level 110 (tallest structure in the Middle East and Europe)
March 2007. Level 141 (world's tallest building): July 2007
Level 150 (world's tallest free-standing structure): Sept 2007
Level 160 (world's tallest man-made structure): April 2008

Echtinaw, 50, and single, was born and raised in Rochester, served in the Navy, attended Oakland University and worked as a newspaper reporter until he moved to Alma in 2001. He has two business here, "Rod Cannon Photography" and a window washing business called, "I Feel Your Pane." From his point of view, the biggest issue facing the city is "how to maintain city services or cut them wisely during a time when revenue is dwindling," he said. "My core beliefs for government are fiscal responsibility to the point of frugality, getting government out of the way of economic activity, and common sense." He said he believes the city is well run and that infrastructure spending - sewers, water mains and roads- is important. He also wants to improve the business climate by getting the government out of the way as much as possible. When asked what areas would he look at if the city had to make cuts, Echtinaw couldn't say. "I'm not comfortable answering that," he said. "Nothing jumps out at me. It would be painful for somebody."

Window Cleaning on Worlds Tallest Building Set to Start

A tall order - Burj Dubai all set to come clean: Cleaning of Burj Dubai exterior will begin soon to prepare for the expected September soft opening of the tallest building in the world, XPRESS has learnt. An Emaar spokesperson said on Sunday that “Burj Dubai will open this year as scheduled” but declined to confirm if the schedule still includes September or a later date. Cleaning an 818-plus metre tall icicle-shaped shard that seemingly reaches into the heavens is easier said than done, said Mick Atkins, Project Director of Cox Gomyl in Dubai.

The Australian design and fabrication company was subcontracted by cladding firm Arabian Aluminium to build on behalf of Emaar owners a custom cradle for window washers. The first of 18 tailor-made Cox Gomyl buckets is now being tested on the south side of the Burj Dubai at Level 40, Atkins said. “Normally you would drive around a track on the roof,” Atkins said.
However, with the Burj’s tri-floral petal exterior shape, he said that they have to drive “around the outside of the building”.

To wash most of the 160 floors of habitable space of the structure, a horizontal track has been installed on the exterior of Burj Dubai at three levels - 40, 73 and 109. Each track holds a 1,500 tonne bucket machine which moves horizontally and then vertically using heavy cables, he said. “The cradle drops vertically and cleans that strip,” Atkins said. The very top of the spire, however, is reserved for specialist human window cleaners who brave super heights and high winds dangling by ropes to clean the top panels.



Daniel Hicks, Business Development Manager of Megarme Rope Access, is bidding for the contract to clean the spire using rope access technicians who abseil or rappel along the facade.
Despite 15 years of expert experience in Dubai hanging from some of the tallest buildings in the Gulf, Hicks said maintaining the top 111 metres of the Burj Dubai will be a first. Unlike climbing Mount Everest, for example, where there is secure landscape nearby for a climber to maintain his bearings at a super high altitude – on top of the Burj Dubai, there’s mostly air. “There’s no natural feature that you could relate this to,” Hicks said. “This is like a chopstick jutting out of the ground compared to a mountain.” Also see previous news.

The Burj Dubai, Worlds Tallest Building

Due to be completed in June 2009, the Burj Dubai overtook the highest building record last year on July 24th, 2007. Burj Dubai will become the world's tallest building, along with the world's tallest man-made structure when it is completed. Some more figures:
The triple-lobed footprint of the building is based on an abstracted desert flower native to the region. The highest residential floor will be level 109. An observation deck will occupy the 124th floor. The building was rotated 120 degrees to allow for less stress from the prevailing winds.
The building sits on a concrete and steel podium with 192 piles descending to a depth of more than 50 metres (164 feet). A total of 45,000 cubic metres of concrete are used in the foundations with a weight in excess of 110,000 tonnes. The exterior cladding is of reflective glazing with aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins of stainless steel. The cladding system is designed to withstand Dubai's extreme summer temperatures. This is the first world's tallest building since prehistoric times to include residential space. The official height has not been released, and remains secret. The total height of 808 meters (2, 650 feet) is subject to change.

And now for the important bit: The towers primary window washing & facade and maintenance system consists of three permanently installed, track mounted, telescopic building maintenance machines located in internal garage postions on uppermost levels. The manned cleaning cradle for each machine is capable of serving the entire facade from its garage level downward to level seven. Each machines jib arm when extended will have a reach of over 36 meters with an overal length of 45 meters. Under normal conditions, with all three units in operation it will take 3 to 4 months to clean the entire building once. There is a seperate system for the tower spire including a mobile elevated work platform.

............take your sun-screen.