The Exterior Cleaning RFP Behind a Commercial Cleaning Bid You Can Defend

The award memo says "lowest responsive commercial cleaning bid," and the committee signs it in ten minutes. The winning number sits comfortably below the other two. Within a month the change orders begin: ground-floor storefront glass was excluded, the contractor assumed the agency would supply water and power, after-hours access carries a premium, and nobody priced wash water capture near the creek. By spring the savings are gone, the schedule has slipped and the award is harder to defend than it should have been.

Almost none of that is the contractor being dishonest. Each bidder priced a different job because the solicitation let them. The fix happens before the RFP is published, and it works best done in the order below.

Inventory Every Building Before You Write a Word

Bidders cannot price what they cannot see, and "clean all exterior glass on campus" invites every one of them to guess. Start with an inventory, one entry per building, that records its use, height in stories and feet, each surface in scope and any known conditions.

List surfaces separately: exterior glass, frames, facade by material, roof type, solar arrays, canopies, plazas, walks and garage decks. Give quantities where you have them, and say whether they were measured or estimated. Marked-up elevations or photos are worth the effort for recessed glazing, atriums, courtyards and anything under an overhang, because those are the areas bidders most often exclude.

Price Routine Cleaning and Restoration as Different Jobs

A routine glass clean and the removal of baked-on mineral deposits are different jobs with different prices. So are a maintenance soft wash and the removal of years of organic growth from a shaded limestone wall. When a window cleaning RFP lumps them together, one bidder prices the light task and another prices the heavy one, and the numbers stop meaning anything.

Write each surface as a set of named tasks: routine cleaning, heavy soil or stain removal, post-construction residue, graffiti, coatings. Ask for the restoration tasks as separate line items or alternates, so they cannot hide inside a routine price or inflate it without explanation.

Spell Out the Calendar, the Hours and the Ground Rules

Operating constraints change price and method as much as square footage does. For each building, state the frequency you want or ask bidders to recommend one with a reason. As a reference point, most commercial and institutional buildings do well with glass on a quarterly rotation (semi-annual at minimum) and a facade wash every year or two.

Then describe the rules of the site:

• Permitted work hours and blackout dates, such as commencement, move-in, home games or council meetings.

• Entrances and accessible routes that must stay open at all times.

• Ambulance bays, loading docks and service roads with restricted access.

• Turf, irrigation and planting beds where heavy equipment is not allowed.

• Available water connections, backflow rules and who supplies power.

Stay Neutral on Method, Specific on Consequences

Exterior work can be done from lifts, swing stages, rope access, ground-based equipment or drones, and the best choice often changes from one building to the next. Naming a method in the RFP can shut out better options. Saying nothing about method lets bidders skip the details your risk office needs.

The balance is to leave the method open and require a method statement for every building. Ask each bidder how they will reach each elevation (including ground-floor and obstructed areas), what equipment will be staged and where, how long walkways or parking will be affected, how turf and paving will be protected, and what weather stops work. Those answers let evaluators compare the real disruption of each approach. A lift plan might close a walkway for several days, while a drone plan typically keeps the crew on the ground with a small perimeter that moves along the facade as each section is finished.

Ask for Safety Evidence That Matches the Method

Request documents tied to what each bidder actually proposes. For any work at height, that means the fall protection program, training records and incident reporting process.

Rope access brings the building owner into the picture. Under OSHA's walking-working surfaces rules, no rope descent system goes into use until the building owner has given the employer written confirmation that every anchorage was identified, tested, certified and maintained, and the same standard generally limits rope descent work to 300 feet above grade. The RFP should state whether certified anchorages exist on each building and who holds the records.

For drone work, require proof of FAA remote pilot certification. Commercial flights operate under Part 107, and the FAA lists passing the knowledge test to become an FAA-certified drone pilot among the core steps. Ask how the bidder checks airspace, sets safety perimeters and manages drop zones on the ground. Every pilot we fly holds a Part 107 certificate, members of our team carry OSHA 30 General Industry cards, and you should expect the same paperwork from every drone bidder.

Put Insurance and Water Handling in Writing

Agree insurance requirements with your risk management office before release, including any coverage specific to unmanned aircraft. Then make water handling explicit. Wash water carries dirt, organic material and cleaning solution, and some sites need it captured instead of sent to storm drains. Ask each bidder how their runoff plan complies with local, state and federal rules, and whether they can recover wastewater near sensitive areas.

Hand Every Bidder the Same Pricing Form

Most apples-to-oranges problems are solved by the pricing form. Organize it by building and task, require every line to be completed, and for each line ask for:

• The quantity and unit the bidder priced against.

• Price per visit and total across the contract term.

• Whether the first visit is priced differently from maintenance visits.

• Mobilization, equipment and water handling, either included or shown separately.

• Exclusions that apply to that line.

Put optional work such as hard water removal, graffiti removal or anti-graffiti coatings on labeled alternates outside the base total. If you would consider awarding glass, facade, roof and flatwork together, ask for that combined figure alongside the line items so you can see exactly what it covers.

Define proof of completion too. Dated photos by building and elevation, a list of areas not completed and why, findings referred for repair and a walk-through before invoicing all give you something concrete to approve.

Normalize the Responses Before You Rank Them

When proposals arrive, line them up before anyone looks at the totals. Confirm that each covers the same buildings, surfaces, quantities and number of visits, and mark every exclusion or assumption that shifts cost back to the agency, from water supply to traffic control.

Then score what the price buys, as far as your procurement rules allow. Completeness of scope, safety approach, disruption to building users, experience on buildings of similar height and material, and quality of reporting are all worth weighting. Call references from comparable projects. Our checklist for vetting exterior cleaning providers lists questions any buyer should put to any bidder, including us.

Asking bidders where their method does not fit is revealing. Our drones are built for buildings between 3 and 15 stories, up to roughly 200 feet, and we will say so when a low storefront or a tight courtyard is better served from the ground. Height is where they earn their keep. On one major university football stadium in Austin, the high-elevation glass took our crew a single day on site. The sectors we serve include higher education, healthcare, government and corporate campuses, and you can see everything one contract can cover on our exterior cleaning services page.

If Bids Will Not Line Up, the RFP Is Not Finished

When two bids cannot be laid side by side line by line, the gap is in the solicitation, and the bidders filled it with their own assumptions. Fix the scope and the pricing form first, and the lowest comparable bid becomes a number you can stand behind in front of any committee or auditor.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should evaluators score a drone-based bid against a lift-based bid?

Score both against the same outcomes: scope covered, safety exposure, disruption to entrances and grounds, schedule and price. The method statement shows how many days walkways close, where equipment sits and who works at height, which lets evaluators compare approaches fairly without favoring one technology in the specification.

Can an exterior cleaning RFP require wastewater capture?

Yes, and it should when work is near storm drains, creeks or other sensitive areas, or when local rules call for it. Mark those zones on the site plan and ask each bidder to price capture as its own line, so the cost of compliance is visible and cannot be left out of a low bid.

How long should the bid period be for an exterior cleaning RFP?

Allow enough time for bidders to attend any site walk, measure or verify quantities and submit questions, which on a multi-building campus usually means several weeks. Rushed bid periods tend to produce more assumptions and exclusions, which later show up as change orders.

Should past-performance references match the buildings in the RFP?

As closely as possible. A reference for a single-story retail strip says little about a bidder's ability to clean a ten-story residence hall or a hospital with active ambulance bays. Ask for references on buildings of similar height, material and occupancy, and call them with specific questions about disruption and reporting.

Can a government cleaning contract be split between vendors?

Many agencies allow awards by building, by service or by region if the solicitation says so in advance. Structure the pricing form so each service and building can be evaluated separately, and state in the RFP whether you reserve the right to make multiple awards.

The RFP is the cheapest place to fix an exterior contract, and we are glad to talk through scope and method for yours. Book a free consultation and appraisal with Ascent Surface Care, call our Austin team at (512) 400-7201 or our Oklahoma City team at (405) 673-1325, or email info@ascentsurfacecare.com. We respond to most inquiries within one business day.