I’ve always tolerated storm windows. It is hard work. I always suck it up, take them apart, clean em up, put em back in and move on to the next job where I can make some real money. Thing is, this year I’m getting many more of these jobs than usual. A sole proprietor, I simply cannot move fast enough on these things to turn a decent profit…does anyone else have trouble with excessive detailing needed on the storms? Also, I’m getting an average of $22-$24 per opening…anything more and customers start to convulse. Am I just not charging enough? Or do I need to learn something about the cleaning process? My guess is probably yes to both questions, but seek input.
I work solo also & i know exactly what you mean. Fortunately i don’t get too many jobs that involve storms. When i do the $ is high & im honest with th H.O. sometimes i win sometimes i loose. Up your price & explain why. Good luck to you.
Hey John…thanks for the support! Like you I never really got many of these jobs so it has never been a big deal. But this year I’d be leaving lots of money on the table if I turned these down. My gut tells me I should be getting more like $30 an opening…that might make the back pain feel a little better. By the way, I hail from Rockland, went to RCC, lived in the spring valley/pearl river/nanuet area before moving further up the hudson valley…so I know your territory pretty well.
I too am a solo operator. This year I’ve actually had less of these, I guess because I keep raising my prices on them. Truth is, you gotta aim for consistency in hourly earnings.
Read the following sentence, [COLOR=#008000]“my boss has asked me to do extra work, harder work and will require me to work overtime and I’ve decided to ask him not to pay me for the extra time and effort.”[/COLOR] Now, does this make any sense in your mind? Take these tpes of jobs for less only if you’re short on work but remember, they will always expect that lower rate, even next year when you’re swamped with work.
Price them high, if you lose (oh well), if you get them, then at least you can smile when you are done.
At $24 a window you should be good. You probably just need need to work on your process. Do you do all the storms at the same time in one location or do you do each window individually?
Try this process: remove the storm window and set it aside. Vacuum the sills/tracks and clean the interior pane of the house window. Take the storm out to the garage (or wherever your easel is. Repeat until you have all the interior house glass clean and the storms set up at your easel cleaning station ready to be cleaned. Clean all the storms and set them aside to dry. Clean all the exterior panes on the house windows, then go get your storms and go around and put them back in and touch up as needed.
That’s how I used to do it when I was a solo operator.
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Hey Jay-
Might I ask what kind of storms you are talking about?
pretty much exactly how I do it, except I break the house into two sections: upstairs and downstairs. Even just reading your description reminds how labor intensive these jobs are.
They cover the outside of a single pane, double hung window. Most of them are in houses built up to the early 1980’s. They are usually aluminum with a baked enamel (usually white) but the really old ones are just unpainted aluminum. They are also double hung, with spring loaded clips that you must push in in order to move them up and down or remove.
Ok so you are talking about triple tracks.
Triple tracks are all about an even system. Some ideas that may speed you up-
When you pull them out of the window, turn them around before you place them on the floor. So now the outside is facing you.
You are going to pull the bottom one out first, then the top, so the order they are going to be in on the floor is top to bottom.
So you will clean the outside of the top window first, flip it, clean the other side, then set aside. Repeat with the bottom and now the storms are facing the right way, in the right order to go back in.
At all costs try to keep them in the room you pulled them out of. Don’t waste your time dragging them all the way downstairs and outside. Bring some puppy training pads or plenty of towels to set them on while you clean.
If the room has Pearl white carpet, take them to the hallway or a bathroom close by.
I do 1 room at a time, so your not pulling out every single storm in the house and getting over whelmed.
I also keep either a piece of wood or something similar handy because not all of the double hungs ill stay up, so you may have to prop them up. And keep a flat head screwdriver handy, sometimes the latches on the frames are SOB’s.
Hope this helps a little, I’m sure I left something out.
Sounds like Ryan has it down pretty good. We run into a lot of those around here too. Definitely the less moving around with the storms the better. I have also found if I can lean up like for storms in a row against a wall it tends to be faster than doing them one at a time on an easel. I soap all four, squeegee, detail, then flip then over and do the other sides. It just kind of sucks bending over. For whatever reason I have also found for me that straight pulls tend to give me less detailing than fanning with storms. A vacuum and track brush is also key for the sills.
Storms are never fun, but as long as you price them enough to make your hourly rate they are worth doing.
Steve,
Did you build your easel? We have a lot of storms around here and I need to get one. Any suggestions? Are there any you can buy or do I have to make one?
Thank god I live in San Diego! I had to google what these look like, sounds like a real pain in the butt! Kudos to all of you who deal with these bad boys!
Jay-Ster,
Storms do suck, I do them on occasion…Some can be very Dangerous. Here’s a video of me doing one !
I have two ladder L shaped hooks (kind of like these below) mine did not have foam, so picked up and modified a kids swimming noodle, long carriage bolts and wing nuts. Drilled a few holes in a 6’ step ladder and now have a diy easel.
50 lb. Gray Steel Heavy-Duty Arm Hanger-18042 at The Home Depot
Thanks Steven. I have seen these, just wondering what other people do. I need to do something. Also the older storms seem to want to come apart from the frames if you are not careful. I need suction cups as well. I have been lucky. I have onle cracked 1 piece of storm glass.
I don’t have an easel, but I do use kneepads to save on the ol’ legs!
You don’t need to pull both storms out. Once the bottom is out, the top will slide.[INDENT][U]Outside[/U]
- do the bottom first
- drop the storm (you can reach in to pull the pins when it’s up)
- do the top (don’t drip)
- clean the the storm.
- slide storm up for the bottom to be replaced
[U]Inside[/U]
- Pull the bottom storm
- clean the exterior side
- clean upper and lower window
- replace and clean interior side of storm[/INDENT]
Forget doing both sides while they are out… do the outside then get off your knees/stand up straight.
i roll like ryan but i only remove the bottom storm. i lower the top storm, but leave enough room for me to get my hands underneath. from the outside i clean the top part of the double hung, raise the storm, clean the outside of the storm and then the lower double hung.
and speaking of breaking glass. when removing storms, look out for those damn bugs that nest in there. broke a pane last year because of it
great tip dange. i could have used that a couple of times!
