The most irritating thing for me is hoses. I do mostly rural residential which means lots of dirt, and bushes, shrubs, tree roots,
rocks and stuff to get hung up on. Jeez that’s annoying. No horror stories though. For the most part wfp’s have only been a great boon to my life as a window cleaner. They have allowed me to do commercial without a lift and not have to hassle with ladders on residential where the terrain doesn’t accommodate them well. I did drop a fully extended Tucker pole once though and it bent in half as it hit a tree branch. Actually I didn’t drop it I left it up against the building and turned to do something and the wind picked up. My first day with a Superlite a year or so ago on a 4 story building and I tried to walk it up with the butt end against a curb and snapped one of the lower section in half. Live and learn (learn if you’re lucky). The only cons would be using it when you don’t really need to. In some cases ladders are just simpler and easier.
Sorry about your ankle Bubba. And not to sound dramatic, but your ankle may well have saved my life or the lives of anyone else who decides to think more about job saftey and changes the way they work.
The risk is real… working at heights is dangerous. If you can invest a little money to keep your feet on the ground I’d call that money well spent!
BTW I do some windows on first story windows on every house I do that way i can check results right away see if need more scrubbing or if im scrubbing to much.
[FONT=“Georgia”]Sounds like hose reels or some type of hose management is essential to headache-free use.
I hear you about using it in some cases where it might be quicker or simpler to just use ladders. But I think that would be a small price to pay for the safety that a WFP offers. Of course I say that now, I’m sure there will be times when I’ll be tempted to just throw up a ladder because I don’t want to mess with the pole- but I’ll have to remember the original reason why I bought it- safety. [/FONT]
[FONT=“Georgia”]I would call it money well spent too.
I’m guessing I’ll do the first floor windows with the pole since it’s already out. But like you said, maybe I should test one first-floor window first, to get a feel for how it cleans before tackling all the upstairs windows.
I’m thinking of going with the Gardnier CLX 26 and renting a DI tank initially to see how I like it. Then buying the Ettore RHG EZ Pure system. Also plan to buy a Hudson backpack. [/FONT]
I do wfp work on midsized jobs (bellow 6 stories) and it saves me money over traditional bozen chair work because of training and time. If you are doing your contracts more than 3 or 4 times a year you can get away with not having to go over the windows twice. My bigger contracts are twice a year so I have to go over them twice; once with a hogs hair seal brush then with a nylon rinse brush. So for the first story I either squeegee or wfp clean them then squeegee the excess water of of them. My cart takes about a half an hour to set up and a half hour to tear down so on smaller jobs it would be a waste of time do get it all out when I can do the job in an hour. I say half hour set up because I have to hook up the electrical, hook up the water supply line, pull out a waste water line, unreel my wfp supply line hook it to a brush, go turn on the water then the turn on my cart and adjust my pressure. I love love love wfp because of the many great advantages and use it as one of my many window cleaning tools.
