We all take risks on the job but putting a ladder against glass is not SOP, but every situation is different.
He’s talking about having his ladder almost straight up and down, that in its self is a major risk !
So putting your ladder against the glass is a major act of a risk !
We all take risk in this industry but that is a decision I need to make alone,ergo calculated risk. a calculated risk isn’t a total, absolute, dangerous, non thinking overly calculated risk. I would never tell another to do it or say that it’s ok, because I know that their life would be in my hands.
If I were a field supervisor and saw a worker doing that I would call him down and help him figure out a better way. Even though if I was his field supervisor I would of already solved the problem before we started and would of given him proper direction.
This job Is very dangerous and we want to eliminate as many risks as possible and think through the risk we do take.
the client and your sense of what is quality work. When the client bitches about the work a window cleaner thought was of good quality…;. it’s time to improve not only on the quality of the work but your sense of the client’s expectations
I’ve seen a guy place the ladder against the glass and climb it, but he was also using a bath towel for his edges
I personally wouldn’t trust it. In the beginning I used to have a hard time with certain windows, now it’s all pretty easy. Either get a bigger ladder or wtf.
This is just my own opinion and in no way represents the gospel of window cleaning resi with a pole but here’s my experience. #1 Does it come out as good as nose to glass? - rarely. #2, If you have to do it with a pole- be prepared to do it a couple of times because one screw-up with pole screws the window and I restart the process because I’m anal about it I guess. I cut my teeth on three story beach houses with hillside terrain and manicured gardens and terraced landscapes. So running a long pole to get up there is easy- having room to make a quick clean (no stop) pull can be hard when your on terraced landscape with obstructions all around you. Your pole is fine when you start, but when begin to bring the pole down you may find there is nowhere for your pole to go with out hitting a bush or a deck pillar…etc. So if you can walk back and with the pole (which changes the angle of the squeegee…and the quality) you may find that trying to rest the pole and instead of firmly one stroke pull you try and let gravity pull the pole down while it slides in your hand. Either way you have a headache.
Now if you have open space and can walk the pole down the window (or across) if your squeegee handle is multi position then you have a good chance of doing fine. Just make sure you hit all the edges with a wrapped up huck (or whatever you use) to detail it.
One trick I learned on the big houses when poling- have two poles ready to go. One with the scubber and the other with the squeegee. I personally hate having to scrub window with a long pole then have to run the pole all the way back to swap the scrubber for the squeegee. I have a back flip but I prefer to use my big s0rb0 squeegees instead these days.
As far as putting a ladder on glass- I won’t do it ever. Glass is not a load-bearing surface and you would be putting a load on that surface unless your ladder angle is wrong- in that case there are bigger worries.
If all else fails use a combination of ladder and pole- it’s bitch sometimes but it also works sometimes.
Bottom line- every house is different. Don’t be afraid to try different things/ways untill you get that window the way you want it. Just be safe above all else. I’ve had nasty geodesic windows that I’ve had use poles on- I had to do them
and redo them, untill I figured out a way that worked for that particular window. Sometimes the quickest way to figure out what works is to eliminate what doesn’t work. When you do figure it out- you’ll remember it the next time you come across something similar.
So put on your window cleaning “lab coat” and go experiment.
Btw- sorry for poor grammar/spelling. I’m typing this on my phone and I’m up late with a sick baby.
This is my favorite post, in the history of WCR, and I think it could stand against any other post as being quite possibly the best post ever. Just wanted to throw that out there.
As a cleaner our expectation should always be higher then a clients…That’s called service !
If I can’t see the mistake then the client won’t also be able to see it 99.99 % of the time !
I would disagree Dange, but for this reason - As a service oriented business (I stress business) we have to juggle the balance between quality and profitability. If we are spending time trying to make the glass perfect when the customer is ecstatic w/ near perfect we are losing profit which is why we are in business in the first place.
Perfect and quality are 2 different points of reference ! Bringing ourselves to a level of quality is a reasonable standard for advanced cleaners. It don’t mean they don’t make mistakes because we all can make mistakes and are not perfect !
My quality is at a higher end then a newbie or a could careless cleaner that is looking just for money!
I sell my service as a quality product the best that money can buy…You know the guy who trained me said that it’s easier just to do the job then to find ways to skirt around things !
As a advanced cleaner we learn to do things in a way that cuts out moves but still produce the higher end quality that clients look for and refer to others ! Producing quality doesn’t take more time to produce…Quality comes from experienced processes and will actually take less time because of the quality of the process and end result !
I take less time today producing a quality product then when I first started ! My work is not perfect but at a high quality level !
David Gutierrez / Advanced Window Cleaning Service, Seattle Washington
[FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]In my opinion your both right.
Dange, your right that we need to have a high standard and meet or beat the expectations of our customers. However, we cannot realistically know exactly what our customers expectations are, other than a clean window. So all we can do is clean the window as best we can in a timely/practical manner using our skill and experience to guide us. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
And as Tony said, we are in business to make money- not just to clean windows. I can spend a half-hour on a window if I wanted to be super anal and check it from every angle and clean it as if the the Pope were planning to eat off it later. But I don’t, because obviously the Pope won’t be dining at my customers house, and my time can be better spent elsewhere cleaning windows. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
With window cleaning, you come to a “point of diminishing returns”. Whereas it may take you 3 mins to clean 98% of the dirt off the glass, but it will take you 5 mins to get that last 2%. It’s not worth the time because the customer probably doesn’t care, and both we and the customer are better served by our balancing speed with quality.[/SIZE][/FONT]
I’m assuming this is an outside window? Is there any reason you can’t just WFP it? Or just do regular pole. I had kind of a similar situation and the limiting factor was the neighbors fence, so i just went over knocked on theyre door and asked if i could clean a window from theyre backyard, and then offered to clean theyre sliders (in hopes that it might fetch me more business)
This is going to sound like BS but I can clean a window blind folded and still produce the same quality if I was looking at it or being super anal ! Process application is the key and learning the process is what takes time and training !
Speed comes with quality ! I look like I’m doing Ti-Chi and still out produce most cleaners I have worked with !
Most customer do care… For instance you walk into the store and your there to buy a box of cheerios and there are 2 boxes there one has the lid open but the container bag is still sealed, the other box lid is still sealed…Which one will you buy ? A rhetorical question …The customer wants quality service not perfect service !
I had a Lady once fellow me around the house to every window, telling me my job when I had been cleaning for 15 years !
At one point it became very burdensome but as a service provider in her home I did not respond in a street fashion. I came into her bedroom and the carpet was white and I always carry a 5’x5’ drop cloth with me.
I needed to step out the window onto the roof to clean about 5 bays of cut ups. So I placed the drop down in front of the window with my bucket near, in case I needed to reach in and re-wet my swab or sponge.
She fellowed me into there and said I needed a bigger drop cloth, by this time I was getting flustered with her fellowing me but did not display the fluster. I told her the drop cloth was big enough and it should be OK…She walked out…
I thought about things for a minute and read between the lines and figured that’s what she wanted no matter what…So I went outside and got my biggest drop cloth a 15x20 and spread it through out the room !
She came in and saw that I was willing to do as she ask and from that moment forward she never fellowed me again and or ask me to do anything because she knew I was going to do a quality job…
That was 15 years ago and if I was to drive to Mrs. Harwell’s house today with a slurry truck and slurry her whole house and then go to the door and ask for my payment for cleaning her windows she would say oh Dave good to see you again and you do such beautiful work !
This Lady was so anal …That I was going to clean 2 in-setted windows next to her fire place that both had 2 glass selves with maybe one or two nic-nacs on them ! She saw me reach to move them and yelled for me to wait…She came over with a poleroid camera and took a picture of both bays then said continue…She wanted the stuff to go back exactly as she had it !
The point is service is half of the work we do ! Without quality service you leave yourself open to competition !
[FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]Dave, its kinda hard to follow you here on this one. Let me see if I understand.
On the one hand you say that you are very quick and efficient like a Tai-chi master with no wasted movements. You say that your work is so good that that you could not possibly improve upon it even if you took more time or were “anal” about it. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
Yet you take extra time to go get equipment/tools that you yourself admit that you don’t need. Do your customers always dictate to you how to do your job? Are you the professional or are they?[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
I thought speed came with experience- not quality. If speed came with quality, then anybody who does a quality job, would automatically be fast right?[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
You kind of imply that my service is sub-par and that I’m vulnerable to the competition because of this. If not wasting my time (or the customers) to get that extra 2% of grime that is essentially invisible to the the customer makes my work inferior- then that’s ok with me. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Georgia][SIZE=3]
I go out of my way to make the customer happy- that includes being timely and efficient.[/SIZE][/FONT]
I notice the original OP only participated on this forum for about a month last September and never mentioned how he made out. I hope he didn’t put the ladder against the glass.
Get a stand off, put it a few rung from the top of the ladder then put it just under the window you need to do, then you have something to hold on too as well.
