Do you ask customers to move furniture and obstructions before you come out, or do you just move everything yourself? I have been asking people to move everything if possible but want to know how you guys do it.
I do it myself myself almost always because I hate seeing how some people will go through the trouble and actually take down there blinds and drapes. I mean it’s pointless however, if I do a window that has quite a few little figurines on it, I see these over kitchen sinks. I’ll take put them to the side and leave them there. Same thing in kids rooms if they put a bunch of crap on the window. If a window is super blocked up like a living room window with long shelves full of plants I’ll tell them at the start it’s inaccessible unless they move the plants while I do the rest of the house. If you can’t get to a window you can’t clean it. Sometimes I’ll see hoarders in the basement and just skip it.
If it valued over ~1k or I can tell its old, or has a sentimental value I do ask the customer to move it. And if they need help I do help.
i have worked over these custom glass canes that were 3,000 each. there were 9 of them. They are moving them next time. I was unaware of their value until after the fact.
Yeah couches are the easy part. It sucks when you have shot glasses figurines lined on window sills. I dont ask i just execute because it’s what needs to happen to get the windows cleaned.
What if you went to a house and saw this stuff in front of the sunroom windows. The bid was done over the phone so I couldn’t account for this originally. We just went ahead and bit the time and moved everything in and out. How would you guys have handled it? Would you have told the customer to move it, charge extra, or just move it?
Yes, I do. Always. I never move anything.
Thats what can happen with the over the phone bide.
Next time make sure you ask the question “will anything need to be moved from the windows that will take more than 1 person” and you can get an idea.
I would explain the situation, maybe take the 20 minute hit and tell them its on them next time.
I move furniture as a courtesy, but I will never move anything valuable. I know thats a relative term, but if it “looks” valuable to me I wont touch it.
So do you handle this in the estimate before cleaning, or do you bring it up while cleaning. If you handle it before, do you just tell the customer that you move furniture but will not move anything that looks breakable?
Hello everyone, my name is Taylor and I run a pretty small WCing business in Salt Lake City. I am a relatively new member to WCR.com, but not new to the industry. Since stumbling upon this website I have been reading it religiously. It’s great to have such an insightful resource available and I hope to grow my business as a result.
Anyways…. I just wanted to add to this thread that I will move furniture as a courtesy, but only small pieces that don’t seem too valuable and never pianos!
Last spring I was on a job with a couple of my guys and there was a baby grand piano blocking a bank of windows. We carefully moved it out of the way and back into place while the owner watched. She didn’t say anything about it until a couple of months ago. Now she claims that we knocked it out of tune when we moved it and wants me to pay for it to be retuned. What would you guys do?
I only ask them too move valuable, breakable things that sit on / around windows. I move furniture as a part of what I do.
I always walk the house first with the customer if it was a phone bid. With a room like that I would tell them I need to charge a little more for the time spent moving. If they balk too much, I’ll usually just eat it. If I make $50/hr instead of $60/hr because of the extra time
I don’t sweat it. I figure I’ll have one next week where I make $80/hr.
Matthew
If you had the owners permission to move the piano then it’s on her. However, if you and your guys just up and moved it without asking, even if she saw you, she may have grounds to have you pay for the tuning. I know from experience that you can’t move a piano without knocking it out of tune. But this isn’t common knowledge. That said, one should still ask when having to move a heavy (and of course expensive) piece of furniture/piano.
I just googled ‘how much does it cost to tune a baby grand piano?’ and found a site giving the price range of $125-$185 depending on when it was last tuned and condition of piano.
Piano Tuning, Service, Repair, Rebuilding, Refinishing, and Restoration Rates and FAQ’s
Hope this helps.
I don’t know for sure but by the look of the pic it looks pretty easy to work around. I would just slide that little brown thing out on the left of the dispenser and reach behind. If I can’t reach I might rock it out a bit, if it’s too heavy I skip it. I don’t think you should expect every window to be perfectly accesible and easy to clean.
I would have thought it would be more then that. My sister got hers tuned and they guy had to come back 3 times. maybe that was new strings I forget.
I was once cleaning an American Diplomats house, it was just after 911 so the RCMP were there for security. These guys had just got transfered from Israel after 911. The diplomats wife told me one of the RCMP guys backed into a vase and broke it. She said it was… if I remember right like 3000 years old, it was from the desert in Israel. I’m thinking why isn’t it in a museum anyway, the Vase itself was the ugliest piece of crap I ever saw. It was brown, it was broken I’d probably just throw it in the garbage.
We never ask the customer to move furniture. We build in an up charge to do interiors right off the get go. It covers moving furniture, blinds, curtains, muttons, whether we have to deal with them or not.
I tell them to move anything that’s on the sills or anything of value that’s near the window. I move furniture if needed
Howdy Kurt…
You know I’ll move the furniture only because it goes much quicker then having the home owner doing it for you…When they do it lots of times they just get in your way and slow down your process.
Now mine you as others pointed out, expensive furniture or art is a hazard . So Yes I would work around it or have them move if necessary, but my process is being a minimalist. Your photo portrays really an easy access without moving anything !
The only window truly blocked is the one behind the coke machine…and the window opens to the left, so I’d just open it up to clean, and the rest you’d just need to be a contortionist, which is part of a window cleaners job description !!
You know the job dictates what to do and moving stuff to me is standard operating procedure in my view !
Ranger Danger
I believe the point that Brett is making, is S.O.P.
We are a service business and I’ll never ask the home owner to move stuff, unless it is an expensive piece of art ! I’d never ever move a piano, just to involved !
Now lounge chairs or similar facsimiles that are right up against the windows, I just ROLL them forward then ROLL back. Sometimes with sofa’s I do the same thing. But I always put things back the way I found them.
Still I try to avoid moving things !
Danger / The Non Re-arranger
I move most things, but if it’s real valuable I let the owner take care of it. I normally don’t rehang breakable items on suction cups.
