Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune

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David Torrez, 32, owner of Rocky Mountain Window Cleaners, washes the bathroom mirror in a home in the Paa-Ko Village community in the East Mountains. Torrez has been cleaning the 43 windows and interior mirrors in the home on a regular basis for three years.

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David Torrez looks as though he just stepped into a painting.

Standing atop a three-step ladder, he is perfectly centered in front of a huge window looking out onto the vast expanses of Albuquerque's East Mountains.

With an outstretched arm and a handful of squeegee, Torrez reaches for the ceiling to dab each corner of the window with a cleaning solution.

As soapy droplets descend along the glass, he pulls out a different squeegee and waves it back and forth in a tight "S"-shaped pattern, wiping away the cleaner.

"That's another thing I love about this job," said Torrez, 32, owner of Rocky Mountain Window Cleaners of Albuquerque. "The views are amazing."

As the Albuquerque metro area continues to expand, businesses and housing communities, like Paa-Ko, create new opportunities for professional window cleaners - whether it be windows in newly-built homes or ones sparkling from Downtown high-rises.

Torrez and his crew of two brothers, Paul and Eddie, are cleaning every square inch of the 43 windows, eight skylights and more than a dozen mirrors in a million-dollar Harwell custom home in the Paa-Ko Village.

Performing the residential aspect of window cleaning, the Torrez crew will work for less than two hours to finish this job and charge $5 per window, a fee that includes going rooftop to scrub skylights.

"An average residential job is about 20 windows, so if we can do seven of those in a day, that's not too bad," Torrez said.

High rise, high safety

With window cleaning, cleaners like Torrez make a distinction between residential and commercial work, the latter including high-rise jobs on tall buildings.

Commercial jobs are also priced differently due to the large amounts of windows. Building owners will often ask multiple window cleaning companies to bid on a cleaning job.

And if a building is tall enough, some window cleaners charge a high-rise fee based on how many floors the structure is."High-rise work requires a certain type of person, different equipment, and a book-full of safety standards," said Barry Coffman, owner of Tux Window Cleaning in Albuquerque, who first promoted his business by wearing tuxedos while cleaning windows.

Gone are the bowties and slacks, because now Coffman and his employees must wear full body harnesses when repelling off the sides of multiple-story buildings around New Mexico.

Some of the buildings Tux cleaners have worked on include the Albuquerque Marriott Pyramid and the soon to be completed University of New Mexico Hospital building on Lomas Boulevard, a job that challenged Coffman in new ways.

"Working on that building was quite an attempt because you're dealing with unions, big liability issues and a lot of extra training for my guys," Coffman said.

At least there were roof anchors.

Often times when window cleaners work on older buildings there the roofs often don't have proper anchoring points, something that eventually changed with new building codes.

"It can be difficult sometimes to get owners to ensure their buildings are safe to work on," said Sam Terry, president of the International Window Cleaning Association headquartered in Kansas City. "You need certified rooftop anchors that are checked by an engineer and the anchors must allow access to all sides of the building."

From fliers to film studios

High-rise commercial jobs are not for the faint of heart, since some jobs require cleaners to dangle hundreds of feet in the air, connected only to a harness and some rope.

It's not something Torrez considered when he first started cleaning windows more than 10 years ago. He was just trying to start his business.

"I was running around town putting fliers up and ads in papers," he said. "One call turned into three, then more work came and here I am today."

In addition to cleaning custom homes and doing other residential work, Torrez is in the process of expanding his commercial services to better accommodate bigger jobs.

One such job that Torrez won the bid on was for construction cleanup at Albuquerque Studios, the massive film production facility which opened this year at Mesa del Sol in south Albuquerque.

With more than 150, five foot by five foot windows at the studios, Torrez said he was excited for more than just work.

"You never know who you might see out there," he said.

But taking a window cleaning business to new heights requires more than just enthusiasm. It requires more employees, which means extra equipment and added insurance.

"I didn't have coverage when I first started," Torrez said. "Now, every job I do is covered, but it isn't cheap."

Industry experts estimate that for every dollar paid to an employee for labor, anywhere between 10 to 20 cents goes to insurance companies for liability and workman's compensation in case of injury.

Coffman estimates he pays more than $20,000 per year for coverage on 11 employees.

While window cleaners confront the challenges of keeping up with safety measures, expanding their businesses, and paying hefty insurance rates there is sometimes an unlikely foe - the glass itself.

Poor temper

On a typical construction cleanup job, it's not unusual for windows to have paint spatter or tape residue; window cleaners just un-holster their razor blades and scrape it off.

But an increasing problem facing window cleaners is poor quality glass that scratches easily, said Terry. Microscopic debris are sometimes not washed away during the manufacturing process, so when the glass is pressed and heat treated, that debris remains in the glass, he said.

"Some small window manufacturing companies don't have the standards larger companies do and they're trying to make more affordable windows," said Scott Bower, co-owner of My Window Man in Albuquerque. "It's tempered glass, but it's bad tempered glass."

Most modern buildings require tempered glass because of its increased strength and shattering ability in case of a break, there aren't huge shards falling from the sky, he said.

In some cases, unsuspecting window cleaners often bear the cost of replacing scratched windows. It's a cost that can drive a small cleaner out of business.

Since the windows Torrez is cleaning inside the Harwell home don't have any paint spatters or strange residues requiring scraping, his razor blade remains securely fastened in his leather tool belt.

Folding up his ladder and grabbing the handle of his soap bucket, Torrez double checks every door and window lock. Pulling out a small, white cloth he wraps his finger around it and wipes a miniscule smudge off a hallway mirror.

"I get so many ideas from these houses for my own house," he says. "That's always been my goal with window cleaning, to clean my own windows in a house like this."