Commercial pressure washing: what property managers should ask for
If you manage retail, hospitality or industrial property, the cleaning is the easy part. The documentation and scheduling are what actually go wrong.
Documentation to ask for up front
Certificate of currency for public liability, minimum $20 million for most commercial sites. Check the expiry date, not just that it exists.
A SWMS specific to the work, not a generic template with the site name changed.
Working at heights documentation if any roof, awning or elevated work is involved.
Evidence of trade waste compliance — see below, because this is the one that catches people.
Trade waste is not optional
Wash water carrying oil, detergent or sediment cannot legally go into a stormwater drain. Stormwater in Melbourne discharges to creeks and the bay untreated.
Compliant work means capturing runoff and either disposing of it to sewer under a trade waste agreement or removing it from site.
Melbourne Water and the local council both enforce this, and the fine lands on the property owner, not the contractor. Worth confirming before the first visit rather than after.
Scheduling that does not cost you trade
Retail and hospitality frontages are best done overnight or pre-dawn. No pedestrian management, no wet surfaces during trading, no complaints.
Car parks are usually done in sections across consecutive nights so the site never fully closes.
Industrial and warehouse sites often prefer weekends, when forklift traffic stops.
Why a maintenance program beats one-off cleans
Scheduled cleaning at a fixed monthly or quarterly rate works out cheaper per visit than reactive one-offs, because the site never gets to the restoration-clean state.
It also means the site is consistently presentable rather than cycling between clean and embarrassing.
For strata and centre management, a fixed schedule is far easier to budget and to defend at a committee meeting.
Need commercial pressure washing in Melbourne?
Commercial pressure washing across Melbourne. Car parks, forecourts, shopping strips and warehouses. After-hours work, insured, invoiced.