Above the roofs of Vienna

The crossing tower of the Votive Church was cleaned as part of the comprehensive restoration of the whole church. A cleaning team, trained by Kärcher, cleaned the hard-to-reach tower with the dry ice blasting machine IB 15/20.

The dry ice method was chosen in order to remove the two different patina layers. With a temperature of -79 °C the dirt freezes and cracks. Therefore, the dry ice pellets, dashing against the surface with a high speed, are able to remove dirt from several hundred years without damaging the original substance of the tower. The Ice Blaster IB 15/120 and the six to eight tons of dry ice were provided by the family-owned company Kärcher within the scope of their cultural sponsoring.

The cleaning of the tower yielded a historically relevant finding: On the surface, an inscription with a year, older than the tower’s suspected year of construction, was revealed. This discovery arrogates a new research on the construction of the crossing tower.

The restoration has been going for about 15 years and will presumably continue for another five years.