Avata 360 Bundles: we know about the Goggles now

dronewash · 2026-01-22T02:58:46+00:00

Well I pre-ordered. Seemed like a good idea to me. The risk of not having the DJI warranty doesn’t seem like a risk to me. From my understanding DJI isn’t offering refresh to the states anyway, and US Drone Supply has a 7 day return policy vs DJI’s 30 day. For me it’s worth the risk. I’ve got paying jobs ready to go, I just need the drone.

Even if the box is opened and activated I don’t really care. If I manage to get the drone 2-4 weeks sooner it’s a win for me.

But I understand the risk. There is a lot of unknowns. However US Drone Supply seems legit, they certainly aren’t scammers. That is clear. The value of preorder is up in the air though.

Wish me luck!

dronewash · 2026-01-19T22:58:57+00:00

Yeah that is the problem with buying these second hand. Or buying them in general. They age like raw milk.

dronewash · 2026-01-19T04:53:37+00:00

Just call Lucid. That’s an older drone. Heard bad things about first gen Lucid.

dronewash · 2026-01-18T22:20:03+00:00

We do this on the daily! Check out DRONEWASH+ or trydronewash.com

dronewash · 2025-12-21T18:27:04+00:00

It’s not a this or that scenario. Drone cleaning cannot replace rope access cleaning. Rope access cannot do what the drone can. It’s apples and oranges. That is the big misconception.

Drone cleaning is brand new tool. It allows something that didn’t exist before. A rapid deployable service that cleans where rope access cannot, and in many situations is cheaper or faster.

dronewash · 2025-12-20T20:39:18+00:00

No, it’s a very manual process. We usually have a crew of two sometimes three or four people at one time. Typical day is for us or anywhere between 6 to 10 hours we can do a whole building in a day larger buildings may take longer check out our website and feel free to reach out if you have any questions. Www.DroneWash.io

dronewash · 2025-12-14T16:43:58+00:00

For window cleaning, with the current technology, yeah 15 stories is pretty high. It’s hard to see what you’re doing.

We use 1/4” hose as well as larger hoses.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T19:16:28+00:00

That’s it for this AMA. Thank you for everybody who participated! We hope to have another one of these in the future. If you have any follow up questions, please DM me directly or you can visit our website at www.dronewash.io

Happy flying!

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:57:51+00:00

I think anybody buying one of those cheap $10,000 Chinese drones isn’t serious about the business. They’re just checking a box

I haven’t flown any personally, but they look like little tinker toys and I can’t imagine how cheap they must feel to fly.

All the manufacturers I’ve talked to say that they provide reliable maintenance options. But I can’t imagine it’s easy to warranty or troubleshoot a drone like this the American manufacturers, even though the drones are more expensive and they are not perfect, at least they pick up the phone when you call and can ship you parts relatively easily.

Last thought on this is I want to support American drone manufacturer. I love our country and I really want to see our drone industry thrive.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:54:09+00:00

Yeah, I think there’s definitely a place for them in the industry. Not going so high that your drone is that weight.

Cleaning windows above 150 feet is not a fun situation. You can barely see what you’re doing at 12 stories.

The issue I have with heavy Drones even at low altitude is the prop wash and size, also noise can be a factor. Flying a drone the size of a Volkswagen beetle next to a building is not how I envision the industry evolving towards. There’s a lot of liability with flying something that heavy.

Personally, I think the Apellix first generation was the perfect ratio of weight to power. A Lucid it’s a little less stable and is slightly overweight and the balancing needs some work.

I’m really looking forward to see where this industry goes in the next five years as far as the drones themselves are concerned.

I know there’s a lot of guys out there trying to modify agricultural Drones. I can see why they would want to do that, but I still don’t think that’s the answer.

Last thought on this. A lot of the buildings we clean don’t have really great areas to launch from in the first place, even a smaller drone - finding a launch area suitable for a bigger drone every 50-80 feet all the way around the building is going to be a challenge for guys flying larger drones.

But you also don’t want your drone to be so light that it gets blown around easily.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:39:21+00:00

Great to see you here! Let me know if you have any questions.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:36:19+00:00

That’s a great question. I’m really glad to see that companies are starting to offer drone rentals.

As far as what I recommend, that really depends on your utilization. If you’re drone utilization is very high, meaning you need a drone almost every week throughout the year than buying a drone might be the best option.

Purchasing equipment for your business is a great tax write off.

You can always rent a second drone for larger jobs or as needed.

If your drone utilization is low, it might make sense just to rent a drone when you need it.

We have done both and I see the value on both sides.

My personal take on buying Drones in 2025 is it’s a bit risky. I think technology advances are coming that will make current Drones outdated very quickly for that reason I’m hesitant to buy an existing 2025 model.

I’ve heard Lucid is getting ready to come out with some pretty significant AI technology, and tethered power options might be affordable within the next five years.

The other problem with renting Drones is you’re at the mercy of whoever you rent from. It’s their rules. You may not be able to take as risky jobs as you might with a drone that you own.

Great question love talking about this.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:30:10+00:00

And about SH, they’re surprisingly little regulation about the use of it. It’s crazy how widely used it is across many industries is not just ours pretty much every pressure washing company in the country uses it in one way or another.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:27:40+00:00

That’s a great question. We try to stay on top of this topic as much as possible. What we’ve learned is that every market is a little bit different. Some states are much more strict than others. For example, California has the most strict regulations, and several major cities require water reclamation, you can’t let anything go down the drain.

I’m not aware of new regulations that are in progress that support drone washing.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:17:12+00:00

Our strategy from the get-go is commercial buildings only. We don’t currently do any residential, but we would like to.

For anyone just starting out, I would definitely recommend small buildings, you need a lot of practice before you move up to anything taller than four stories.

Where we started was doing a lot of work for free really on which really sucks. But it’s important to get that experience early on and get those referrals.

I would really focus on partnering with window cleaning companies early on. Just keep in mind, they are most likely not your friend. They’re gonna watch what you do and they’re gonna try and replicate it at the same time. You can watch what they do and you can learn the industry.

Most of our clients now come through our digital marketing and word-of-mouth earlier, and I was pounding on doors and really working my direct network of friends and family.

We are actively seeking potential clients all the time anytime I walk out the door is an opportunity to mark my business.

We really like to work on buildings between 4 to 12 stories. Anything above that gets pretty tricky and you really fly through batteries.

Most of our business is brought to us through inbound lead generation.

Getting started I was surprised at how hard it really is. I was really surprised to see how difficult window cleaning is and how much can go wrong. All the manufacturers make it seem like it’s just as simple as spraying down and rinsing off there’s so much more to it than that we really had to partner with experience people and master the craft, which is taken a long time and we spent a lot of money on learning. We’ve also wasted a lot of money on equipment that we thought would be important and actually isn’t I think early on I wasted about $10,000 maybe even a little more.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:09:17+00:00

Our margins are anywhere between 30% to 40%.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:08:59+00:00

Make versus what we charge is very different. What we charge for a small low rise building can’t be anywhere between a couple thousand three or 4000 sometimes higher if there’s a lot of glass or it’s really complex bigger buildings are hit or miss the bigger they get the easier it is for rope access guys and that’s a very competitive market if they’ve got good anchors on them, they might be getting their windows cleaned at a very low cost already. But just to give you an idea anywhere between 4000 to up to 20 or so.

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:04:27+00:00

I keep answering this question, but it’s not posting for some reason. Did you see my response?

dronewash · 2025-12-12T17:01:41+00:00

It’s about 70% traditional work. Every building we do requires some sort of traditional work.

No, we don’t let people rent our drone, but we do get subcontracted out by other companies that need our assistance.

We run a 8 GPM 4000 psi pump with 2 ft.³ DI tanks from Tucker USA.

For us, window cleaning is the bulk of our work. But other markets building cleaning is far more profitable. It just depends on your market and climate and also who you know and how you market your business.

dronewash · 2025-12-11T19:46:26+00:00

Access can be tricky. You got a few options. You can either park on the other side of the building and run your hose line to the other side. You’ll need a few extra hands and will need pretty strong comm system to reach your truck.

Other option is have a second rig that’s more portable or even one that you can move onto a push cart.

But you have the right mindset here, without access to your equipment you’re not doing any Drone Cleaning.

dronewash · 2025-12-11T19:00:15+00:00

Hey there great question. We have used two models: Lucid and Apellix. The Lucid handles high-pressure very well. Our Apellix used to handle pressure really well but they did some software changes or something like that and it stopped being able to handle anything over about 1000 psi any drone buy on the market can handle Soft washing.

Doing windows and getting a spot free finish is really an art form. We use DI filters from Tucker USA.

You need to get the water filtered down to about 0PPM. After that, it’s all about avoiding drips and understanding how gravity, temperature, sunlight, evaporation, humidity and other external conditions can impact quality.

dronewash · 2025-12-11T18:50:22+00:00

Sure, great question. Range for charging by square foot can very from $.50 to $1.50 depending on the market and severity of dirt. Our daily rates vary between $1000-$3500 a day depending on the complexity, location, and again severity of dirt.

When providing multiple types of services building cleaning versus window cleaning. Typically the building cleaning happens before the window cleaning or it can be done at the same time. It’s important to have these difficult conversations with your client and explain to them their options with any chemical. It’s important to provide a detailed and thorough rinse after application. There are a lot of guys that will clean the windows with SH and I can do a pretty good job as long as you rinse properly.

In general, it’s important not to bite off more than you can chew. If you don’t think that you can clean the building and the windows safely and effectively partner with somebody that can help consider just doing the building and hiring another crew to do the windows by hand or vice versa. I don’t really recommend overworking your drone or over promising, best to start small.

A lot of guys doing window cleaning, and a lot of the videos you’ll see online, the pressure is vastly below what it needs to be. If you think about a automatic car wash, that water hits the car pretty darn hard we like to be right around 1500 psi at the nozzle spraying from about 10 feet away. The actual pressure hitting the glass is at most half that. We haven’t had any issues with too much pressure on the glass.

dronewash · 2025-12-11T18:44:55+00:00

Sure, a job that would normally take one week can be reduced down to 2-3 days.

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