Maybe it’s the climate, or sea-salt, but I hear that many homes are monthly’s and quarterly. Is this true?
I guess ocean-front homes stateside are similar, but are most homes in GB coastal?
Just curious…
I don’t know about the UK market. But I know that when I started offering monthly, bi-monthly or quarterly residential service many of my clients said “Yes”. These exterior-only residential maintenance cleans are absolutely my favorite and most lucrative days.
Many homes are indeed cleaned monthly. It’s been part of their culture for many decades. Europeans in general care much more about how their surroundings look and are maintained.
However, UK cleaners earn but only a fraction of what North Americans can earn.
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Splendid elaboration blokes! I guess I shouldn’t be gutted because many of my customers are yearly cleans… I like Tony’s idea of offering more frequent service.
Yes it’s culture… got no idea why…
many just ‘opt’ for a monthly or every 2 months service.
Prices range from approx £8 per house (u can work that out for dollars)
Houses are much smaller in the UK than the rest of the modern world, and have less glazing also as a result.
Many small homes I do can be regularly cleaned in under 15 mins.
Lately a lot of my work is in line with the american/auz appointment in and out but prices are not anywhere near the US market, mainly because our windows are so easy to clean, no storms etc just very easy to clean casement windows, no pella style etc.
i disagree about the fraction of what you can earn. its true the price per job IS a fraction, but the job demand is very high, i would say that 80 per cent of uk houses are cleaned [outsides] on a monthly basis AND It is year round, there is no let up in the Winter. Houses are generally small with 10 windows being about average and spaced close to each other. this is what id call a typical house in my area. as long as you have a slick act and get on with the work at a decent pace theres good money in it
wow, very different from southern california suburbia!
from my figuring, seems out here only 7-10% of homes will pay a service to have windows cleaned and a fraction of that on any type of regular servicing, way different
window routes in the UK seem parallell in nature to pool or lawn routes where I am, as far as length of time on job, number of stops in a day, % of homes using a service etc
good for you having high demand year round, very nice!
right now there is a building boom going on right across England after a slowdown stretching back 2 decades . the government are encouraging large and small residential building projects in every town and city in the land. its the first time that iv witnessed this and quite exciting times . if you are a construction worker the wages have tripled in the last year i saw this on the local tv news. Pretty much all building trades who took up window cleaning in the recession years are back on the building sites .
no matter how many new startups set up [and i dont see any newboys this year ] theyll never keep pace with demand for window clean once these projects get into gear.
I understand that things greatly fluctuate within a market. I meant more per hour of operation. I’ve read of guys on UK forums discussing how they make between $30-60/hr… Please correct me if I’m wrong.
In N. America or here, in Canada, a solo cleaner can earn $100-200+/hr.
Do you earn more per hour on semi annual or quarterly jobs vs annual cleans? I would love to integrate WFP into the works but nearly all my residential work is annual and the windows require scraping. I cleaned a house on the lake today that I cleaned 6 months ago and sure enough, steel wool was not sufficient enough to get the job done. I know I’m OCD but honestly, I think it’s a good thing.
Either way, $5/pane is the going rate around here amongst all the window cleaning companies. Clear the cobwebs from the frames, scraping overspray, bug guts, and seeds that steel wool otherwise would not effectively clean is included. (I don’t think simply removing all the dirt from the glass is cleaning the window, otherwise I would be making much more per hour.) I think it’s a fair price myself but seeing the suggestions on here about charging more blows my mind. In a good way of course. My goal is always $100/hr and I work in the fastest growing county in the U.S. These are $500,000 plus homes and people gawk at a $375 bill for 75 windows, 1/2 of which are either 24’ or stack work!
I know I’ve jumped around a bit but I’m really interested in how I can either A, effectively raise my prices or B, get annual cleans to move to semi annual cleans.
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I am guessing a residential company might develop a specialty flyer for quarterly residential work. Maybe focusing on just the outsides of the more important windows only. I had this idea awhile back and called it short order window cleaning. But since then I have moved almost exclusively into doing just storefronts.
Henry
my own experience is that window cleaning businesses over here in England make a decent [but not fantastic] living. oh theyre all chasing the dream of fantastic money but reality is you “do allrite” . i probably earn just a tad more personally now iv got 3 workers than i did when i was solo, but enjoy it a whole lot more cos the graft is shared i dont need to sweat it like a dog like i did when solo. Burnout is the risk cos the high year round demand for service is what finishes many here -you get good at it solo,you get the better money but are too tired to enjoy it . Suddenly one day you wake up with an aching shoulder and say to hell with this- or your legs wont get out of the car on arrival at the 1st job - iv heard these stories several times
i can see the rate per hour in the States is far higher but balanced out by meagre earning in the winter id guess it balances out- no millionaires that iv read about in this line of work !
because the resi cleaning here is monthly,the general public gets a very good idea what is the going rate . most know that its around £1/ 1.50 per window , per side. Even if you portray a really pro image nobody will pay double that for very long before a friend points out theyre paying too much. just my experience
On the commercial side most all window cleaners i see look to be chasing the same dream same as us resi guys.
I was talking to a lady who originally moved to Canada from the UK. She says that the window cleaners their are like having a mailman. You would often see 2-3 on one small section of street. I think they just maybe smarter there and realize its easier and safer for a homeowner to get a professional to do it. We are one of the highest insurence rate jobs here in canada.
those are flawed formulas that so many base things on
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there aren’t 8 billable hours in an 8 hour work day due to driving, I find about 6.2 (77.5% of day)
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there aren’t 52 5 day weeks (260 work days) a year because of holidays, sick days, personal days, vacation and weather. I find more like 221 days a year (85%)
so 208,000 a year would actually require generating $4705 a week (as an average, and having the headroom/capacity to generate more many times thru the year to end up with this as a weekly average) and adjusting for 6.2 hours a workday (31 hours a week) would end up at $152 per man hour as a yearly on the job per man hour
that’s why “not a lot of single solo guys making that”
$100 per man hour will generate $137,020 a year (620/day=3,100/wk *52 = 161,200 *.85= 137,020)
that’s a 71,000 difference or 65% of the flawed formula result
this is my theory why there are so many “half pricers” out there
they are using incorrect pricing structures to generate the totals of these flawed formulas ending up with $65 per man hour instead or about $89,000 gross revenue a year
hope this helps
