PUBLISHED ONOctober 11, 2025 8:35 AMBYSean LerThe sight of workers on gondolas or abseiling down facades to clean high-rise ledges at HDB blocks may soon be a thing of the past if an ongoing trial is successful and adopted.
The Ministry of National Development (MND) is trialling the use of drones to do the cleaning.
In a Facebook post on Saturday (Oct 11), Senior Minister of State for National Development Sun Xueling said that she has been studying the use of technology for higher-risk activities in the built environment sector.
"Traditional methods involve (the) use of workers on gondolas and ‘spidermen’ which unfortunately have risk for workers.
"This morning, we are testing out using drones to wash high-rise ledges. This involves various steps involving use of water pressure and dissolvents."
The trial was conducted at Block 271D Punggol Walk.
Following the trial, Sun said that MND will be studying the results of the cleaning, residents’ feedback and also the cost of deploying such technology before proceeding further.
Speaking to AsiaOne, Loraine Hew, co-founder of KTV Working Drone (Singapore), the company involved in the trial, said the use of drones for cleaning can mitigate risks and reduce costs.
Spidermen typically take up to three or four weeks to complete the cleaning, she said.
"During this period, fatigue will set in over time. The rope access points will also need to be shifted along the facade, inspected and certified,” said Hew, 33, adding that costs are involved for each inspection and certification.
Spidermen are high-rise cleaning technicians who use rope access systems to abseil down building facades to conduct cleaning.
Hew highlighted that the use of drones are not meant to eliminate them.
"The cleaning drones are equipped with obstacle censors and would not be able to operate in certain areas such as air wells (where service yards are typically located). So, the use of drones are to complement spidermen, but can reduce the total time taken substantially."
She estimates that timelines can shrink from between three and four weeks to one or two weeks, depending on factors such as the design and layout of the building.
"If we were to use a straightforward layout, such as regular-shaped HDB or condominium blocks, it will only take one or two days to complete an entire facade on one side of the building, if the weather is good."
Hew said that with the reduction in man-hours, costs can come down from between 10 to 20 per cent, or even 30 to 40 per cent — depending on the frequency of cleaning and size of project.
The company, a franchisee of Norway-headquartered KTV Working Drone, was incorporated in 2023 and adopts the technologies offered by its parent company.
The use of drones for work at high-rise buildings is not new.
In a parliamentary oral answer to MP Christopher de Souza in October 2024, MND said that the Government has been exploring the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to perform facade inspections and maintenance for high-rise buildings.
The ministry added that the use of UAS allows inspections to be conducted more quickly, while reducing costs.
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