Hi there! Super excited about a referral from a friend. I did a drive by and took a few photos to find the house is HUGE! 90 panes, 2 stories on the front, 3 stories on the back. It has a very large cathedral area 2 stories high on the interior facing south.
We have been practicing and are doing well with sqeegee work. Have been doing pole work on our house with luck. However…we have a similar arch only smaller on our house and are having a hard time with runs. We pull the squeegee on an angle arching across the top and then do a 7 type technique across (tapping between pulls) and closing it down. I find that water is left in the upper corner and runs down after the window is finished (I will see if I can take a cell vid tomorrow to post). We are using a 14" fixed squeegee with Ettore rubber. I would think if we just wipe it, it will show when the sun shines through…especially on southern windows! I did buy some foam window cleaner as shown in a video, but would prefer to know what Im doing wrong. Can’t find any real videos about arched windows or doing large, high, interior and have scrubbed this site and the net.
So here are the few other questions I have.
What would you price this at? Inside and out Including screens
Please note your type of pricing. Per pane (inside and out), per full window, ect.
If we pole the arched window, you can detail the edges of the window but how do you make sure the drywall framing the window is dryed off? Seems like I would have to use a ladder inside for that? If YOU use ladders inside how do you position them for the arched window at this property? Do you put it in the A position and just keep moving it?
Most guys are probably going to be around $4 - 5 per pane for in and out as an average. Whatever your time is worth is what you should charge, if your new come in around $400ish (or whatever your market will accept), if your time is worth more, charge more. That being said we would be $800ish :). If you can avoid bringing a ladder inside it is always better for liability reasons. If there isn’t any sun on those do them when they are cool. Pole them and drag a rag across the bottom of the ledge when you are done for any water.
If you have no experience with a pole it can be frustrating. For new guys I would have them work on a 1 story office building all day fanning with a pole and a 0 degree squeegee. By the end of the day, they feel comfortable.
Correction 93 panes total. Went out to bid gutters and mulching today and double checked.
That being said, I have been shopping my local competition who located about 45mins away FISH is here but thats about it. Seems they are coming in around 5.45 per pane for a house that is 1-2 stories, not sure about 3 stories. So I could keep it EZ and charge $5 per pane 1st and second story and then maybe $8 or $10 per pane on the 3rd due to it being much more difficult to access? That would put me at $500. Plus screens at $1each with there being $32 screens.
Crazy how price varies per area. $700-$800 is alot different than $535!
This referral is someone who could send alot of biz our way due to his presence in the community. My only concern with coming in low would be him telling others…“yeah my big ol’ house for $400!”. Then the trickle effect starts and Im already shooting myself in the foot.
Ive estimated 6hrs for my husband and I to do the job being that we’ve practiced on our house for about 50hrs and have done a few for friends. How long would it take you to wash? How many guys in the crew?
I’m not a big fan of "shopping your competition."
How would you feel if this “very large” house you are really hoping to get, was just someone shopping [U]you[/U]?
Never fall for the “I’ll send a lot of business your way if…” line.
Are you willing to work 12 (6+6) hours for $535? If yes, go for it and learn. The speed of others is irrelevant at this point. You’ll get faster with more experience. Concentrate on quality and professionalism.
A low price on one job can always be explained to a future potential customer who “heard about your pricing.” Make sure they hear about what a great job you performed. That’s what’s really important.
Yes, totally figuring my 1st customer house will take alot of time due to being green. Im guessing 6hrs…I really have no way of knowing. We cleaned the interior of our windows 28 panes in 20 mins. We treated them like a customer detailed, finished, reinspected, ect. Now we realize that our windows are pretty clean from all the practice so maybe an additional 10 mins if they werent clean. So I figured 1.5hrs - 2hrs on our house which is 46 panes, 26 screens mostly 1 story with 12 2story windows. So 6hrs for this house on the high end. Even if it went really bad and took 8hrs it would still be around $33 each. And for the 1st go that would be ok for us. I figure we can only get better from there, which makes our hourly go up.
So would it take u pros around 3hrs? Not too dirty
As I see the pictures, there are few window truly hard to reach. Except for the 3 fixed windows and I’m guessing the level of double-hungs and transoms directly below them, it’s almost all reachable from the inside or ground level. That’s provided the double-hungs are tilt-ins which they sure look to be. Even the slider on the 2nd floor in pic. 1 may possibly be taken out of the frame. Those small ones on the 3rd floor in pic. 1, do they roll open from the bottom? If so, you [I]may [/I]be able to reach out and over from the inside.
If you want to use a pole on the 3 arched panels, try mopping them real well across the top and before squeegeeing run a clean towel across the frame above the glass and the top inch or so of the glass. Then start the squeegee at the top right, drag it left and down, ending in the bottom left corner and keeping more pressure on the left side of the squeegee so as to leave no drips where frame and glass meet. If you’re using a 14", you’ll need to repeat the step two more times, that is start in upper right and pull down and left, ending in or around the center, and then finally pulling straight down from the upper right. You’ll leave little, if any water at the top. And it’ll be easy to get off. As far as reaching the arches on the inside, you could either pole them being very careful about dripping on the walls. Or I would just extend a Little Giant type ladder up to the sill and it would be an easy reach from there.
BTW, I’d bid it at a minimum of $575, probably a bit higher as a few things are unclear from the pics.
3 hours alone for that house would be pretty amazing, but I suppose not impossible. I would do the outsides with a wfp, so unless they’re ungodly dirty they would take way less than the insides, probably 2 hours -if that- since they are bunched together mostly.
Speed will come with time and experience. Around here FISH is dirt cheap, so I would tend to think they were 5.45 per opening, not per pane. Don’t worry about being competitive on price, for all you know the competition may target cheap clients, you really want to be competing with them?
Well, I priced it middle of the road and included free screens, sills and tracks so they dont feel nickle and dimed. He is having us do exteriors, and Im in the process of selling a soft cleaning and gutter brightening. I just have to bid those few items. Alot of the white aluminum (soffit, facia, trim, ect) is oxidized, chaulky with black streaks. Dont know if i will have to hand scrub…but hand scrubbing 3 stories sounds pretty sketchy. So we could change thread to what would you price the pressure washing at…lol. Im looking at typical $3.50-$4.50LF for brightening just gutters.
