Commercial · Multi-story · High-access
Drone window cleaning and aerial building washing
Drone window cleaning exists because some elevations were never meant to be reached from the ground. Aerial cleaning gets to glass, cladding, soffits and roof surfaces without a lift under them, without scaffold around them, and without a rope crew hanging off the roof for a week.
Reach, by method
The bars compare what each method can physically reach, not what each one costs. Cost and the right choice for your building are covered further down this page.
High access work we have completed
The buildings we already work on
Multi-story commercial exteriors are what we do. These are Middle Tennessee buildings we have cleaned, and the elevations in them are exactly the ones drone window cleaning is built to reach.
Quick answers
Drone window cleaning, answered fast
The short version on drone window cleaning, before the detail, because most people arriving here are deciding whether this is even the right approach for their building.
What is drone window cleaning?
A cleaning solution is applied to glass and cladding from an unmanned aircraft flying alongside the building, then rinsed with purified water. Nothing touches the facade except water and detergent, and no one has to be suspended over the side to do it.
What does it cost?
Quoted after a site review, not from a page. Height, glass area, access, airspace and how much of the building genuinely needs aerial work all move the number. Anyone quoting a multi-story facade sight unseen is guessing.
Is it actually cheaper?
Against rope access or a swing stage on a tall building, usually yes, because the mobilization is a fraction of the cost. Against a two story house you can reach with a pole, no. We will tell you which side of that line your building sits on.
Who flies it?
A certificated operator, verified by us before they ever arrive on your property. That standard is covered in full further down, because for commercial work it is the part that matters most.
What can be cleaned this way?
Glass and curtain wall, metal and composite cladding, EIFS and stucco, precast and brick, soffits and parapets, atrium glazing, signage, and roof surfaces that should not be walked on.
Does the building have to close?
Usually not. There is no swing stage overhead and no pedestrian exclusion zone under a suspended platform, so most of the site keeps operating. We agree a flight area and a ground perimeter before we start.
The case for aerial
Why buildings get cleaned from the air
Drone window cleaning is not a gadget looking for a job. There are specific situations where every ground based method is either impossible or absurdly expensive, and those are the situations aerial cleaning exists for.
No ground access under the elevation
Facades over water, over a planted setback, over a lower roof, over a loading dock in constant use, or hard against a property line. A lift needs somewhere to stand. Some of the dirtiest elevations on a building have nowhere.
Mobilization is the real cost
On a tall building, most of a traditional quote is setup rather than cleaning. Rigging a swing stage, permits, engineering sign-off and a rope crew all get paid for before a single pane is touched. Aerial work skips most of that.
The building keeps working
No suspended platform means no exclusion zone below it for days. Tenants keep their entrances, retail keeps its frontage, and the parking under the elevation stays in use.
Nobody walks the roof
Foot traffic on a membrane or tile roof causes damage and some roof warranties restrict it outright. Cleaning a roof surface from above removes that problem completely.
Fewer people at height
Falls are the defining hazard of this trade. Every elevation cleaned from the air is an elevation nobody was suspended over. That matters to your safety record and to whoever underwrites it.
You get an aerial condition survey
The same flight that cleans can document. Sealant failure, cracked glazing gaskets, staining patterns, blocked scuppers and damaged flashing all show up in footage you would otherwise pay separately to obtain.
Pick the right method
Drone window cleaning against every other option
We run ground crews and we are aerial lift certified, so we have no reason to push you toward drone window cleaning when something else fits better. This is the comparison we would give you on site.
Ground crew
Aerial lift
Rope access or swing stage
Aerial drone
Notice that drone is not the answer in every row. On a two story building with heavy staining and clear ground access, a ground crew is faster, cheaper and does a better job. We say so rather than selling the aircraft.
Ask every bidder this
The certification question most people forget
Drone window cleaning has a compliance layer ordinary window cleaning does not. Flying a drone commercially and spraying liquid from one are two different things under federal rules, and plenty of outfits selling drone cleaning only hold the first. Before you let anyone fly over your building, this is what to ask for.
What we verify before an operator ever arrives
- ✓Remote pilot certification under Part 107 for every pilot who will fly on your property, current and in date.
- ✓Part 137 operating certification. Dispensing any liquid from an unmanned aircraft is an agricultural aircraft operation under federal rules. This is the one almost everybody misses.
- ✓Airframe authorization where the aircraft exceeds 55 lbs, which most units carrying enough solution to clean a building do.
- ✓Insurance that actually covers aircraft operations. A drone is aircraft, and a standard general liability policy commonly excludes it. A COI alone does not settle this and we read the exclusions.
- ✓Airspace authorization for your specific site if the building sits in controlled airspace, which much of the Nashville metro does.
Why this is your problem, not just ours
If an uncertificated operator damages your building, injures someone, or draws an FAA enforcement action, the property owner does not walk away clean. Your insurer will ask what due diligence was done before you allowed aircraft operations over your property.
Southern Solution is the contractor of record on the job. One company accountable for the result, one certificate of insurance, one invoice, one number to call. You are not sourcing a pilot, checking their paperwork and separately hiring a ground crew, then refereeing between them when something is missed.
Ask us for the operator documentation on your job and you will get it. If any bidder cannot produce Part 137 for a job that involves spraying, that tells you what you need to know about the rest of their operation.
Glass, at every level
Window cleaning, ground floor to roofline
Drone window cleaning handles the elevations nothing else can reach. Everything within reach still gets cleaned properly from the ground, by hand, the way it should be. Most buildings need both and get billed as one job.
Pure water, no spotting
Purified water carries no dissolved minerals, so it dries without leaving the spots and film that tap water leaves behind. It is also what lets glass be cleaned at height without anyone squeegeeing it by hand.
Hand detailing where it counts
Storefront, entrances and anything at eye level get cleaned by hand, including frames, sills and tracks. That is the glass your customers actually stand in front of, and it should not be treated the same as the tenth floor.
Hard water and construction debris
Irrigation overspray leaves mineral deposits that ordinary washing will not touch, and post construction glass often carries mortar splatter and adhesive. Both need specific treatment rather than more pressure.
Storefront and retail programs
Weekly, fortnightly or monthly, scheduled around your opening hours. Consistent glass is one of the cheapest ways a retail frontage looks maintained rather than tired.
Residential and estate glass
Including the tall foyer glazing and stairwell windows most homeowners have never had cleaned, because reaching them needs equipment nobody wants to bring into a house.
Screens, tracks and frames
Screens removed, washed and refitted. Tracks vacuumed and wiped. Clean glass in a dirty frame still reads as dirty, so we do not stop at the pane.
One thing we will not do
We will not scrape a coated or tempered pane to shift hard water etching. Some staining has already damaged the glass rather than sat on it, and aggressive removal turns a stained window into a scratched one. If that is what we find, we tell you the pane needs replacing rather than take your money to make it worse.
How a job runs
From first call to final walkthrough
Site review, at no charge
We look at the elevations, the ground conditions, the access, the glass area and the airspace. Some of what you assumed needs aerial work will turn out reachable from the ground, and that is cheaper for you. We would rather find that out before quoting than after.
Method and scope in writing
You get told which elevations are being cleaned by which method and why. If part of the building is better served by a ground crew or a lift, the quote says so instead of putting the whole job in the air because it sounds impressive.
Documentation and authorizations cleared
Operator certification verified, insurance checked including the aircraft exclusions, and any airspace authorization obtained for your specific site. This happens before scheduling, not on the morning of.
Site setup and notifications
Flight area and ground perimeter agreed. Building management and tenants notified. Landscaping and any adjacent parking protected. On an occupied site we sequence the work so entrances stay open.
Clean, from the air and the ground
High elevations from above, everything within reach by hand. Same standard on both, which is the point of one contractor doing all of it.
Walkthrough, footage and findings
We walk the site with you. You get the before and after documentation, plus anything the aerial footage turned up that you should know about, whether or not it is work we would do.
Straight talk
Where drone window cleaning is the wrong answer
Every company selling drone window cleaning will tell you what it does. Here is what it does not, because finding out on the day is worse for both of us.
Drone window cleaning is chemistry and rinse. It lifts organic growth, atmospheric film, pollen and general soiling very well. What it does not do is agitate. Deeply bonded staining, heavy mineral deposits and anything that needs a brush worked across it still needs contact, which means a lift, a rope crew, or accepting a partial result. We will tell you which of those you are looking at before you commit.
Wind and rain stop flights, and that is not negotiable. A ground crew can work through conditions an aircraft cannot. On a date-critical job we build float into the schedule and tell you the realistic window rather than promising a day we might not get. If your deadline is immovable, that may be a reason to use a different method, and we would say so.
Much of the Nashville metro sits inside controlled airspace, and some sites need authorization before anything flies. Most requests clear, some take time, and a few locations are impractical. We check this at the site review rather than discovering it after you have signed.
On a two story building with clear ground access, a ground crew with a pole is faster and costs less. Drone window cleaning earns its money on height, on elevations with nothing to stand under, and on buildings where the alternative is rigging a swing stage. If your building is not one of those, we will quote you the ground crew.
An aircraft flying alongside a residential building passes windows people live behind. On multi-family and mixed use we notify residents before the work rather than surprising them, and we agree what is and is not recorded. Camera footage is for condition documentation and nothing else.
Outside Middle Tennessee
We travel for commercial drone window cleaning
Very few contractors in this region can put a compliant drone window cleaning operation on a building, and the ones who can are not on every corner. If you have a commercial property outside our normal service area and nobody local can do the job properly, distance is a scheduling question rather than a reason to say no.
Middle Tennessee, standard service
Nashville, Franklin, Brentwood, Bellevue, Oak Hill, Mount Juliet, Hendersonville, Nolensville, Spring Hill, Columbia and Dickson, across our nine home counties. Normal scheduling, normal rates, residential and commercial alike.
Regional, commercial by arrangement
Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Clarksville, Murfreesboro, Jackson, Bowling Green and Huntsville. Commercial and multi-property work, quoted with travel included and scheduled as a block rather than a day trip.
Beyond that, ask
Portfolio work, multi-site contracts and buildings where nobody local offers drone window cleaning at all. If the scope justifies the trip we will tell you honestly, and if it does not we will say that too rather than pad a quote to make the drive worth it.
What makes travel worth it, for both of us
- ✓Multiple buildings in one trip. A portfolio, a campus, or several properties under one manager. Mobilizing once for six buildings is very different arithmetic to mobilizing once for one.
- ✓Scope that justifies the drive. A full facade on a mid or high rise, not a storefront. We will be straight with you about where that line sits before you spend time on it.
- ✓Nobody local can do it compliantly. This is the common one. Plenty of regions have window cleaners and nobody offering drone window cleaning with the certification to back it.
- ✓Flexible dates. Travel work schedules as a block with weather float built in, so a fixed single day is harder than a fixed week.
Travel is quoted transparently as a line on the estimate. You will see what it costs rather than finding it folded into a square foot rate.
No pricing games
Request a site review
We do not publish a drone window cleaning price, because height, access, glass area and airspace vary too much for a page number to mean anything. Tell us about the building and we will look at it properly, at no charge.
Building height
Property type
What needs doing
Where is the property
Ground access under the elevations
No charge and no obligation. If a ground crew is the better answer for your building, the review will say so.
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FAQ
Drone window cleaning questions
An unmanned aircraft carrying a cleaning solution flies alongside the building and applies it to the glass and cladding, then rinses with purified water. Purified water has no dissolved minerals in it, so it dries without spotting and does not need to be squeegeed by hand. Nothing touches the facade except water and detergent, and nobody has to be suspended over the side of the building.
It is quoted after a site review rather than from a page. Building height, total glass area, ground access, the condition of the facade and whether the site sits in controlled airspace all move the number substantially. We would rather look at your building and give you a real figure than publish a range that turns out to be wrong for your property. The review is free.
On a tall building, usually, because most of a traditional high rise quote is mobilization rather than cleaning. Rigging, permits, engineering sign-off and a specialised crew all get paid for before any cleaning happens. On a low building with clear ground access it is the other way round and a ground crew is cheaper. The comparison table on this page lays out which situation is which.
Ask for three things. A current Part 107 remote pilot certificate for every pilot who will fly. A Part 137 operating certificate, because dispensing liquid from an unmanned aircraft is an agricultural aircraft operation under federal rules and this is the one most people selling drone cleaning do not hold. And insurance that genuinely covers aircraft operations, since a drone is aircraft and many general liability policies exclude it. We verify all three on every operator before they set foot on your property, and we will show you the documentation for your job.
In most cases no. There is no suspended platform overhead, so there is no exclusion zone underneath it for days at a time. We agree a flight area and a ground perimeter before starting, notify building management and tenants, and sequence the work so entrances and parking stay usable. That is a large part of why occupied commercial buildings choose this approach.
Aerial application handles organic growth, atmospheric film, pollen and general soiling very well. What it cannot do is agitate a surface. Deeply bonded staining and heavy mineral deposits need something worked across them by hand, which means a lift or a rope crew for those areas. On most buildings the honest answer is a combination, and we scope it that way rather than promising the aircraft will do everything.
Wind and rain ground flights, so aerial work is more weather dependent than a ground crew. We build float into the schedule and give you a realistic window rather than a date we might not make. If you have a fixed deadline that cannot move, we will tell you honestly whether aerial is the right choice or whether another method fits better.
Yes, and for most buildings that is the bulk of the job. Storefront, entrances and anything at eye level get cleaned by hand including frames, sills and tracks. Screens are removed, washed and refitted. We run recurring storefront and retail programs weekly, fortnightly or monthly, scheduled around your opening hours.
Standard service covers Middle Tennessee: Nashville, Franklin, Brentwood, Bellevue, Oak Hill, Mount Juliet, Hendersonville, Nolensville, Spring Hill, Columbia and Dickson, across Williamson, Davidson, Dickson, Cheatham, Hickman, Maury, Montgomery, Humphreys and Houston counties. For commercial work we travel well beyond that, regularly quoting Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Clarksville, Murfreesboro, Jackson, Bowling Green and Huntsville. This sits alongside the rest of our exterior cleaning services.
Yes, and for drone window cleaning it comes up often. Very few contractors in the region can put a compliant aerial operation on a building, so a property manager in Chattanooga or Huntsville frequently has nobody local who can do the job properly. If the scope justifies the trip we will quote it, with travel shown as its own line on the estimate rather than buried in a square foot rate. What makes it work is a portfolio or campus where we mobilize once for several buildings, a scope large enough to warrant the drive, and dates with some flexibility so the work can be scheduled as a block with weather float. If the numbers do not work we will tell you that instead of padding a quote to make the drive worth it.
Send us the building
Height, address and what is bothering you about it. Whether drone window cleaning is right for it is our problem to work out, not yours. We will look at it properly and tell you which method actually fits, including when that method is not the one on this page.
Southern Solution LLC · Based in Middle Tennessee · office@southernsolutiontn.com · Insured, COI on request · Veteran owned