That works too. Awesome
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Brutal dose of irony: Had a job that was going oh so smooth today⌠Around 5:30 was looking forward to popping the screens in and being out by six, just in time to catch Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The screens took FOUR HOURS to reinstall⌠With the homeownerâs help, at that! None of them fit and they were so brittle they just crumbled at the slightest touch. I was at a loss, but just kept going till it was done. Got a hefty tip and the home owner was delighted and already thinking of possible referrals in addition to wanting to leave a 5 star review. Rough day, but tomorrow is prolly gonna be worse, but that will be a story for later.
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We do over the phone estimates almost exclusively. When it comes to unexpected items like shutters that have to be removed to take out screens, we find that out when we get there. Politely let the homeowner know that there is an additional charge (labor is not free). Rarely does this cause an issue, and even more rarely does it cost a job.
If storm widows that have to be taken off from the outside, there is an additional fee for that, too.
Basically, know what your time is worth. As such, charge according to how long it will take. I really donât like haggling over price, and will walk from a job before taking a loss because they donât want to pay a âfairâ price.
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Thatâs great that you worked through the situation Daniel.
Work flow TipâŚ
If your removing a lot of screens and stacking them to clean, mark the frame (on the side with black sharpy) of the screen so you know exactly the location they go back to.
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Smart move. Thatâs what we do when using our screen machine (part of our premium service).
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Exactly. Canât like this comment enough!
Good suggestion, Steve. Sadly, thatâs actually exactly what i do, so every screen was going back to itâs original location. Problem was these were really tight and there was no apparent trick to the system. The corners of the screens weâre literally plastic! And that plastic was brittle, so the screens were breaking with the slightest touch. I have no idea why manufacturers continue to use plastic on something that needs to withstand the elements. Anyway, the only way it worked was to work together with the homeowner, one of us on the outside and the other on the inside.
I almost took a picture to post and see if anyone knew of a better way. I would love to say, âAh well, lesson learned,â but i didnât come away knowing better how to do those. What i did learn (well, it was reiterated in my mind) was how grateful a customer is when you go the extra mile even when thereâs problems. You donât always have to know everything and make everything look effortless. As long as you communicate and work hard, a reasonable person will be happy.
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Up sell!
âI can repair these screens for you for $XX.xx, and have them back by end of the week.â Or something to that affect.
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Lol yes, I actually âpre-upsold.â Told him that i will be offering screen repair in the future.
But, Garry, give me a moment to learn this whole wfp thing first, ok? 
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Something you can do today. By the 2nd or 3rd screen youâll have the hang of it and on your way to helping you pay for that WFP. 
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Did the screens come out easily? Wonder why so hard going back in?
Thatâs what I do.
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I agree with Garry, Daniel screen repair is something âyouâ can add right now to your service offering, for less then $100.00 you can have all the tools you need and that includes a roll of screen,spline, corners, springs and pull tabs to do at at least 15 screen repairs depending on the screen sizes. Charge $20 bucks a screen to repair and after the first 5 screens everythings payed for plus some money in the bank.
Its a great add on for window cleaning! 
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So what Iâm seeing here is a company with hourly employees like @anon46335951 has will benefit more from a high-production model, where missing the bidding bullseye every now and then is still more profitable than taking whatever time is necessary to price 100% accurately and sell the service in person.
Guys like @WVWindowWashing and myself probably still have enough time in between jobs to make a deeper bidding process possible, that in turn can help increase our close rate (by establishing the all-important rapport, and by building more value in the service) and avoid potential pitfalls that would put a major dent in our average hourly production.
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Very logical summation, Sam.
@Garry and @wcs would what youâre suggesting include building entirely new screens from scratch? I believe thatâs what this customer really would need. Also, would they be durable? The last thing i want is to set customers up with crappy screens with brittle pieces that Iâll have the nightmare of dealing with in the future.
No the price i gave was for re-screening and fixing a couple corners new spline if necessary and new pull tabs if necessary. Most of the time spline and pull tabs can be reused.
Rebuilding is a little more money it depends on the size of the screen, and your tools price goes up a bit also.
In your situation with that customer it sound like the corners just needed to be changed out and re-screened, as long as the frame of the screen is straight no reason to rebuild the frame.
When rebuilding a screen it should last just as long as the manufacturers screen did. Plastic breaks down over time no matter what.
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Sam, you are spot on.
Can you please summarize all threads the same way?
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Yes but then I would have to live with the âcaptain obviousâ rap for the rest of my time on this forum
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You just rescreen, spline, and put in new corners; or you can also build new frames, screen spline and corner those for an additional price. Everything you would need is at Home Depot, or Lowes.
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