Around in the town I live in, there are many neighborhoods that were built in the 60s and 70s that have all FRENCH windows. Nobody around here has has ever took me up on my quote for cleaning one of these houses. I charged .5$ per pane on most of them and .3 (on accident) on one and I havent got the go-ahead on any of these houses.
So I’ve been thinking of ways to make cleaning them easier so in turn I can lower my price to something more reasonalble to the home owner.
Here is what I have come up with:
[LIST=1]
[]Clean them like normal with a scrubber (french pane size)
[]Rinse with water
[*]Rinse with DI water in a handheld sprayer
[/LIST]
I would get the DI water from a local health food store for 42¢ / gal.
Has anybody done this? How much water would it take?
Obviously if I had a WFP system I would use that but I don’t have one.
I think your price isn’t really that bad considering the amount of work these windows present. Ask yourself if you really need the work that bad before you lower your price or you could regret every minute of the job.
As for the cleaning process I’d eliminate the 2nd step and just go w/ the final DI rinse.
50 cents a pane sounds a little low to me. 75 cents a pane is common. At 50 cents a pane you’re only getting $6.00 for a 6x6 window. $7-$8 is common for a regular DH window.
Perhaps you need to learn how to move faster with the squeegee.
Can I ask how long it takes you to do let’s say 10 windows?
PS
6 french panes should only take about 20% longer to complete than one single pane, right?
If you want to speed things up you can also take along a few extra channels and cut them to fit each pane. Most of the time you will find that most of the panes are the same size. after a few houses like this you will have a good collection of small channels. I keep all mine together and when I come accross windows like these I will just hold them all up to the window and pick the best fit.
I charge $15 per french pane window and $20 for a french pane door. As for the DI water have you tried a auto detailing shop? I get DI water for 12 cents a gallon at one of those places.
You could get into a WFP system cheap by using an UNGER tele-plus pole (which is 30 ft.) a back pack sprayer, a hogs hair brush with a convertion kit and buy the DI water like you said.
When the money starts rolling in from your WFP jobs you could upgrade to a real water filtering system, and stop buying water. Just a creative thought.:rolleyes:
How fast I am isnt the issue, even though I am prorobably not that fast. In my area, I have yet to have somebody want me to clean their french windowed house for what I have quoted. The market value for window cleaning is about 30% lower around here from what I have read on these forums from people pricing their jobs.
Checking with an auto detailing shop ls a good idea, I will look into that!
So is that just any ole backpack sprayer that you pump with air to spray? then just convert it to a tube going up to the pole attaching to the brush? How much water does it take to do WFP jobs?
I would like to do that as soon as possible and if its that simple and as long as I don’t have carry around massive amounts of water.
[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]I have cleaned 60 windows with 15 gallons. My backpack holds 4 gallons. You can get an electric sprayer model or use a hand pump model. Some guys wear the backpack, in the UK they like to put them on 2 wheel hand carts. [/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]If you wear it, it’s important to have a support strap around your waist to shift most of the weight off your shoulders and onto your hips.[/FONT][/COLOR]
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[COLOR=black][FONT=Verdana]The UK forums have a lot more information on this topic. Maybe backpacks will increase in popularity this side of the pond. Window suppliers including WCR have them in stock now.[/FONT][/COLOR]
Can any body tell me if there is a simple way to connect some vinyl tubing to a small 2 gal. pump sprayer? I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find a way while at the home improvement stores in my area. It appears easy to do with the large 4 gal. backpack sprayers but I need something smaller and more portable for a job on the 15th (1 day from now). The threading in the sprayers are different than the threading for any other fitting I can find .
Find the ID of the hose & just get a connector for the connecting hose where you have added the extension. If you take your sprayer into a plumbing shop - they will sort you out. Matabi do a nice sprayer with a 6 foot extension. You will need a brush on the end to agitate the dirt.
Have a look at the starter wfp system in the WCR store & speak to Chris & Alex about finance.
Sounds to me like you will spend more time stuffing around using bottles etc, rather than using a squeegee. To be honest they don’t take that long - might get a little sore in your wrist is there are hundreds of them though. As suggested before cut a squeegee to size. I soap up the pains (using GG4), then wipe around the frame - left side, top, then right side (as you do the right side you are also doing the left side of the next pane) , one pull down of the squeegee and you are done. move on the the next pane. You do the bottoms when you do the next row below. You would be surprised how quick you can power through them - much quicker than using spray bottles etc. This relates to inside - outside I use my WFP and pure water.
I was talking internal windows here so you shouldn’t have a lot of water to deal with . One small towel ( i use toweling nappies ) does a whole house.
You are only using two fingers to run around the frames and to dry your window edge.
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