When drone cleaning beats a lift

Lifts are still the right tool for a lot of exterior work. Streak-free glass that needs a squeegee finish, tight parapet coping, and any zone where airspace or wind makes flight unsafe are lift or pole days.

Drones win when the problem is access time, not polish. Mid-rise and high-rise faces that would burn a full day of staging for a soft-wash pass are good candidates: brick, EIFS, stucco, precast, and coated metal with organic soil, exhaust film, or urban dust.

The crossover is usually about square footage per mobilization and how many elevations you can keep in one work window. If you are already paying for a swing stage for glass detail, fold soft wash into that plan instead of forcing a drone into a crowded airspace.

Ask for a scope that names which faces are drone, which are lift or pole, and what happens if wind or airspace kills the flight. That document is more useful than a slogan about replacing every lift.