August 7, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Those are just some of the questions the German industrial-cleaning firm Kärcher has grappled with during almost 30 years of donating its services to clean monuments worldwide.
In May, the company began sprucing up Seattle’s Space Needle, using just hot water, high-pressure hoses, and the rappelling team at the Skala company, in Reno, Nev., to complete a “green cleaning” of the 605-foot landmark. Frank Schad, a spokesman for Kärcher, estimates that the undertaking cost the company $250,000.
Kärcher completes three or four of the charitable monument cleanings a year, on average. The costs range widely, with small jobs starting at about $10,000.
The company’s work is often just one piece of an overarching restoration project conducted by other groups. Kärcher itself only starts cleaning after it conducts a thorough examination of the materials that make up the monument and analyzes the dirt and pollutants on it — a process that takes the company two years on average.
For Kärcher, Mr. Schad says, donating its services to clean the monuments, which aids greatly in their preservation, is “our manner of being a good citizen,” as well as providing the company with invaluable research to help it create new products.
He also jokes that he “could write a novel” based on what he’s learned navigating government bureaucracies across the globe. Located in Winnenden, Germany, the family-owned company was founded in 1935; it has a production plant in the United States.
