How Do They Clean The Burj Dubai?

The Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai had its official opening ceremony on Monday although it was hardly a grand unveiling as you cant hide a 828 meter tall building behind a curtain. The Burj Khalifa (also known as the Burj Dubai) is the tallest man made structure ever built and has the world’s fastest elevators which travel at 40 mph. The building is so high that those visiting the top of it’s needle like tower are treated to the kind of views you would only otherwise see on a flight to Dubai.

One thing which always fascinates me about large buildings is the amount of effort required to maintain them. Very often large structures, in particular bridges, require constant cleaning so once those doing the work get to the end they start from the beginning again. Most skyscrapers require a lot of window cleaning as they tend to have floor to ceiling windows. The window cleaners who work on the Burj Dubai have to be fearless and fast as this video shows:

The building has 24,830 windows which total 120,000 square meters of glass. The cleaners use normal soapy water according to Dale Harding of Cox Gomyl

“It’s the same as an average shop front cleaner would use — there’s nothing complex about it at all,”

The top floors of the building require a more complex system than men dangling by ropes with a sponge in their hands. An Australian firm called Cox Gomyl were tasked with working out a way to keep the views from the top clear. They went through a series of ideas before designing a series of machines which emerge from the building a run on tracks along its outer edge. The 12 machines carry up to 36 windows cleaners who do their thing in the traditional manner.

The equipment required cost around $7.3 million and each machine weighs in at 13 tonnes. As well as the 12 moving platforms there are six smaller machines which clean the exterior of floors 21 and up. You can see these in action on Cox Comyl’s info page here.

To service the facades of the 828 m high structure, 3 permanent parapet mounted BMUs were installed at each of Levels 40, 73 and 109. These track-mounted and telescoping systems are operate on a horizontal track which has been installed on Burj’s exterior façade. The machines are very flexible in their operation and are able to luff, telescopic, hoist, slew and travel. The average outreach of these machines is 10 m, retracting to 5 m for the parking configuration.

Burj Dubai Burj Khalifa and records

The Burj Dubai (Burj Khalifa) tower officially opened its doors on January 4, 2010, six years after the commencement of construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The tower previously known as Burj Dubai was renamed Burj Khalifa in honor of the current President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa.

Some of the records made by the $4.1 billion, half-mile-high skyscraper are:

• Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 509.2 m (1,671 ft))
• Tallest structure ever built: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m (2,121 ft))
• Tallest extant structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m (2,063 ft))
• Tallest freestanding structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previous record: CN Tower – 553.3 m (1,815 ft))
• Building with most floors: 160 (previous record: both 1 and 2 World Trade Center – 110)
• World’s highest elevator installation
• World’s fastest elevators at speed of 64 km/h (40 mph) or 18 m/s (59 ft/s) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 16.83 m/s)
• Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previous record: Taipei 101 – 449.2 m (1,474 ft))
• Highest vertical concrete pumping (for any construction): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previous record: Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant – 532 m (1,745 ft))
• The first world’s tallest structure in history to include residential space
• Highest outdoor observation deck in the world
• World’s highest mosque (located on the 158th floor)
• Elevator with the longest travel distance in the world
• Tallest service elevator in the world
• World’s highest installation of an aluminum and glass façade, at a height of 512 m (1,680 ft)

Burj Dubai Khalifa numbers and records

Burj Dubai (Khalifa) was built in 5 years, and now it is tallest building on Earth. In this article I’ll try to present most interesting numbers and records for this amazing building.

1. Burj Dubai Khalifa has 828 meters or 2,716.5ft (it was estimated to have 10 meters less before construction);
2. Burj Dubai Khalifa is 320 meters taller than Taipei 101 (building which held this world record since 2004 with 508 meters).
3. Burj Khalifa employs a record-breaking 330,000 cubic meters of concrete, 39,000 metric tonnes of steel rebar and 142,000 square meters of glass; and it took 22 million man hours to build.
4. Burj Khalifa held also word record for highest occupied floor in the world with 550
5. Other world record: tallest service elevator (it travels to a height of 504 meters)
6. Other World record: the highest outdoor observation deck in the world – At the Top on Level 124
7. Burj Khalifa has 160 floors.
8. It is 2,17x taller then Empire State Building (which is 381m taller).
9. The construction of Burj Dubai is estimated at 1,5 billion dollars.
10. The building can be seen from 95 kilometers (if the sky is bright).
11. Burj Khalifa has 57 elevators
12. 28,261- the number of glass cladding panels making up the exterior of tower and
    its two annexes
13. 15,000 – the amount of water in litres collected from the tower’s cooling equipment that will be used for landscaping irrigation
14. 160 – the number of luxury hotel rooms and suite, 1,044 – the total number of residential apartments inside Burj Dubai and 3,000 – the number of underground parking spaces
15. Financial crisis affected Burj Khalifa too which value decreased with 50% in the past year.

Burj Dubai Tall promises unfulfilled

With the opening today of the Burj Dubai, at 160 stories the world's tallest tower, we are reminded of regional promises unfulfilled.

The crown jewel of the United Arab Emirates, a high-rise that surpasses all high-rises in the world, opens with many vacancies among the 1,000-plus luxury apartments, Armani hotel and 37 floors of office and retail space in the spire designed by a Chicago-based firm. It's a symbol of the credit crunch that stalled the world's economy even as developers in exuberant Dubai were erecting the $1.1-billion tower.

It's also a reminder that just two years ago, the former American president started a hopeful tour of the Middle East in these environs - calling on Arab leaders throughout the region to rebuke Iran for its nuclear ambitions, and also calling on them to support a renewed peace initiative in Israel.

Former President George W. Bush, who passed through Dubai in January 2008 and deliivered a challenge to the region in Abu Dhabi, hoped to see Israeli and Palestinian leaders sign the framework of a peace agreement by the year's end.

The Burj Dubai is 26 percent vacant. With its residential quarters featuring fitness facilities, a residents' library, a cigar club, valet parking and a gourmet market, it was to provide "an unparalleled lifestyle.''

The "two-state solution'' is even emptier.

Designed by Adrian Smith of Chicago-based Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the Burj Dubai has overtaken Taipei 101 as the world's tallest. It includes 37 floors of office and retail space, 1,044 apartments and 160 hotel rooms designed by Giorgio Armani. It also holds the world's highest mosque and swimming pools on the 158th and 76th floors.(The tower is pictured here with laser beams lighting it Sunday, on the eve of its opening, in a Tribune photo by Kuni Takahashi.)

The ground where it stands serves as a reminder too of a still elusive promise of peace in the Middle East, which Bush outlined in an address at the Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi in January 2008 as he was beginning his tour of the Middle East. That also is the world's most expensive hotel - it cost $3 billion to build. In Dubai, And Bush had lunch with leaders atop another symbol of U.A.E. excess, a high-rise built in the shape of a sailboat. (This is a nation with an indoor ski slope.)

"A great new era is unfolding before us,'' Bush said in his address in Abu Dhabi. "This new era is founded on the equality of all people before God. This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed -- and deliver equal justice under the law. And this new era offers hope for the millions across the Middle East who yearn for a future of peace and progress and opportunity. ...

"For most of the world,'' Bush said then, "there's no greater symbol of America than the Statue of Liberty. It was designed by a man who traveled widely in this part of the world -- and who had originally envisioned his woman bearing a torch as standing over the Suez Canal. Ultimately, of course, it was erected in New York Harbor, where it has been an inspiration to generations of immigrants. One of these immigrants was a poet-writer named Ameen Rihani. Gazing at her lamp held high, he wondered whether her sister might be erected in the lands of his Arab forefathers. Here is how he put it: "When will you turn your face toward the East, oh Liberty?''

The U.A.E. address was the centerpiece of an eight-day tour of the Middle East in which Bush promoted his vision of a lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians and exhorted Arab leaders to pressure Iran to stand down from its nuclear ambitions.

The ruler of Bahrain, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, who met and dined with Bush, called the American's initiative in the Middle East "a historical opportunity'' for "the realization of your vision for the establishment of an independent and viable Palestinian state, side-by-side with Israel, at a time such a vision being demanded by word's conscience.... We are hopeful that these aspirations will be realized.''

Yet, with the opening of the world's highest high-rise today - a symbol, in its own right, as emblematic of one nation's aspirations as the Statue of Liberty - the vacant quarters of the tower remain as empty as the promise of peace in the Middle East, which looms large in an agenda of unfinished international business.

President Barack Obama has vowed to take up the challenge of Middle East peace, embracing the two-state solution that his predecessor pursued. But, with renewed American focus on terrorist threats stemming from the al Qaeda-sponsored attempt to attack a U.S.-bound airliner on Christmas Day, the ability of the U.S. to get those Middle East peace talks back on track appears as elusive, for now, as full occupancy for the soaring new Burj Dubai.

The View from the Top of Burj Dubai the World’s Tallest Skyscraper

From “At the Top,” the name given to the observatory on the Burj Dubai, you can see the faint outline of the Middle East’s pariah-state Iran on the other side of the Persian Gulf. But at the media opening of the skydeck close to the top of the world’s tallest skyscraper Monday, you could just make out the undeveloped islands that make up the offshore Dubai World project that is synonymous with the sheikdom’s collapsing real estate industry.

After taking the brief ride to the 124th floor in one of the smoothest elevators I’ve ever travelled in, visitors are met with a bird’s eye view of the sprawling city - patches of desert, skyscrapers that appear tiny from such a height, unfinished buildings, the city’s Sheik Zayed road and interchanges - and perhaps the most impressive view of all - the Burj’s own shadow stretching out to the sea. “It’s like a huge sundial,” I heard one reporter say.

Even though you’re almost 2600 feet in the air, it surprisingly doesn’t feel that high. Despite my own fear of heights, I felt more grounded than I have done on other vertical tourist attractions such as the Eiffel Tower or the Empire State Building. Perhaps the dirty windows helped. I was told that they had been cleaned just days before but that given their height they are prone to attracting dirt. I was also told that it takes six months to clean the towers windows from top to bottom so I couldn’t complain too much.

Inside the skydeck, there isn’t much to see. There is the obligatory souvenir shop and some trick viewing binoculars which allow you to see the view by day or by night, or in a live shot, but little else. Some information on what you can actually see from the viewing platform may be welcomed by the untrained eye, but like most things in Dubai, I put the lack of information down to the fact that the building is being opened when it’s not 100% complete.