Abseiling off a giant glass building may not be everyone's idea of a good time, but it is all in a day's work for Dunedin window cleaner Nick Beadle.
Mr Beadle, a high-rise window cleaner, has spent many hours over the past six weeks dangling off the side of his biggest job yet - the 13-storey Otago House building on the corner of Moray Pl and Princes St in Dunedin.
The qualified abseiling window cleaner said this was the first time he had cleaned the black glass building as, before the recent addition of three extra storeys, a crane was used to clean its windows.
It is a new job for his company, See Through Windows, and a big one.
He started the job at the start of January, but the inclement weather and high winds that month made it difficult to carry out the work.
Mr Beadle spoke to the Otago Daily Times via his hands-free telephone from the eighth floor of the building.
For the job, he wears a full body harness and sits in a bosun's chair (a plank) suspended from a guide rope, with his bucket full of water with dishwashing liquid in it - "It doesn't matter what's in your bucket, it's the squeegee that does all work." - suspended beside him on the safety rope.
It took him about one and a-half hours to clean a block, four windows across, from the top storey to the ground, he said.
"I'm quite the attraction at the moment. There's been quite a few people looking up, and quite a few taking photos."
He took up abseiling after he started working for the window-cleaning company about 11 years ago.
Seven years ago, he took over the company, which cleans the windows of many of Dunedin's taller buildings, including Forsyth Barr House and Frances Hodgkins Retirement Village.
debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz
Source:http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/147199/window-cleaner-having-high-old-time
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