[combat1]

I start around 8.30 and finish around 4, working wfp backpack on upper windows and trad downstairs, all 3 or 4 bed houses usually on same site although sometimes a move is involved.
The prices are an average of £10 per house.
The thing is i'm doing between 10 - 13 houses a day.
So income is between 100 -130 a day.
Looking at the numerous posts I reckon i'm well behind most in earnings per day.
and realistically i need to earn around 150 per day.
Contributing factors are i'm 60 and do sills door frames etc , garage doors.
I know if i was replying i'd put work faster but i dont seem to be dawdling.
so where am i going wrong?

[Pope vader]

u aint doing any thing wrong, dont listen to what the earnings are on here,  if you want to go quicker , wfp the bottoms as well

[steven ainger]

Where you are going wrong is,
Using backpack... Get a van mount
Trading bottom.... Get a van mount
Charging £10 for a 4 bed house and cleaning the garage doors ..... Put your price up

[Helen]

Your average price is quite low at £10.
Perosnally I would start wfp downstairs to hurry things along.
Do you include garage doors in your price?
If so, with new customers, get your windows price and add £3.00 per single garage door, or £6.00 per double garage door. So if windows are £12.00, and there is a double garage door, you just say to the potential custie all windows frames, house doors and garage doors will be £18.00, If they then hesitate about the price, you can then offer " well that does includes the garage door, so if I don't clean that for you I can do it for £14 and once every 3 months I can clean the garage door off for you free of charge"

[Sean Dyer]

£3 for a garage door?


They take seconds... Suppose its worth it if you can get away with it
I was out canvassing yesterday and was telling people i clean all frames and sills, glass, and doors each visit

It really impressed people and i think there might be a few miffed trad cleaners knocking about but that aint my problem, plus ive realized just how much custys hate there frames looking minging after windows have been done!

Just as an idea houses i was charging say £10 - 12 for now i can easily get 15-20 just for doing frames and doors, which probably takes the same time with wfp as it did to do the house trad

So its extra £5-6 every time so its great

[dazmond]

prices are low if there mainly 4 bedroom houses or biggish 3 bedders.

backpack must be a pain having to fill up all the time and lugging it about wasting time.

unless im charging a good price garage doors do not get cleaned unless requested for an additional charge.

some garage doors will take 5-10 mins to clean if there double garages are full of grit from a nearby gutter.

[Spruce]

Hi Combat1

I'm the same age as you and I can't do 1 house with a back pack, so how you manage the number you do is beyond me. I find the weight of the packback seems to cut blood circulation to my arms and my head starts to go light and buzzy.

I would also advise a van mount as hose management is less energy zapping. I would probably try a sack truck to start with to put your backpack on.

Also remember we aren't as fit as we were 15 years ago.

Spruce

[windiewasher]

if they are all near by you should really be doing 3 houses per hour maybe 4,obviously if they are stretched out and have to drive 5 to 10 mins to each ones,i can understand where your losing time.
i cleaned 12 all over £10 each on friday on the same estate in 3 hours!
I wouldn't bother trading.Nothing wrong with backpacks!If you are losing time due to a backpack it would be very little per house,perhaps 2 or 3 mins at most!
 Do you have a hose extension on your backpack,so you don't need to keep moving the backpack?
 I have 10 metres on mine so i can leave the backpack and do the front in one go and the same around the back!.

[combat1]

ok thanks very much everyone, to be honest I was expecting a bit of flak!
The comments on the van mount are so right, the history is that I became full time after many years of part time taking voluntary redundancy.
So i had enough money to buy a van and unit, the  problem being that my partner will not entertain me having a van, even though she has a new saloon.
we wont go into that one but i ended up with an astra estate!
wfping the whole house would be much faster if i could carry enough water.  on the occassional one i have done complete its been much quicker and easier.
I do have a hose extension on the backpack, i bought orange hose from ionics which dosent kink and allows me to park the backpack and do so much more without moving it.
A good tip is you can deliberately kink the hose when moving between windows and save water, it dosent damage the hose at all.
Prices are going to rise, all my new houses are on at £12 and i.m going to increase the existing customers, my fault i've never increased them!

[Dave Anderson]

looking at this it's easy to say you need to raise your prices and only you know what your 'market' will bare.

A tank in the vech would be good...perhaps a 12v bilge pump to 'reload' the backpack or trolley.  Perhaps get a pump box and 100 meters of hose...no need to spend a fortune.

I would in all honesty try to do wfp ups and downs and I imagine you could save some time and possibly get a few mores custys per day which would give you some more earning power.

Many people on here will earn 30+ per hour many will earn 10 per hour it's upto you who you believe ... it's what you need to earn thats important not what Billy Whizz 'Splash & Dash earns.

And to put it into perspective...Your doing nothing wrong! IMHO.

Good luck

Dave.

[Spruce]

ok thanks very much everyone, to be honest I was expecting a bit of flak!
The comments on the van mount are so right, the history is that I became full time after many years of part time taking voluntary redundancy.
So i had enough money to buy a van and unit, the  problem being that my partner will not entertain me having a van, even though she has a new saloon.
we wont go into that one but i ended up with an astra estate!
wfping the whole house would be much faster if i could carry enough water.  on the occassional one i have done complete its been much quicker and easier.
I do have a hose extension on the backpack, i bought orange hose from ionics which dosent kink and allows me to park the backpack and do so much more without moving it.
A good tip is you can deliberately kink the hose when moving between windows and save water, it dosent damage the hose at all.
Prices are going to rise, all my new houses are on at £12 and i.m going to increase the existing customers, my fault i've never increased them!

I don't understand this one. Window cleaning is your livelyhood and you need the equipment to do that job. Most of us work from home to save outgoing costs.

An Astra Estate isn't the most friendly WFP vehicle IMHO.

Spruce

[bobplum]

sorry to go against everyone.............but whats wrong with his prices,seem reasonable to me.
prices are set more by geography then anything else.
we have a second van covering the widnes area and im not kidding when i say that they are cleaning houses,5 bed with conservatorys for £7/8 pound,why because there are that many w/c that the "market" as set the price
imo i think £10.00 for a three bed semi is about a right,give or take
if combat works 4 days at £130.00 thats £520.00 for a 4 day week is that not a good wage

combat if your happy,whats the problem

[Johnny B]

sorry to go against everyone.............but whats wrong with his prices,seem reasonable to me.
prices are set more by geography then anything else.
we have a second van covering the widnes area and im not kidding when i say that they are cleaning houses,5 bed with conservatorys for £7/8 pound,why because there are that many w/c that the "market" as set the price
imo i think £10.00 for a three bed semi is about a right,give or take
if combat works 4 days at £130.00 thats £520.00 for a 4 day week is that not a good wage

combat if your happy,whats the problem

+1

John.

[Paul Coleman]

sorry to go against everyone.............but whats wrong with his prices,seem reasonable to me.
prices are set more by geography then anything else.
we have a second van covering the widnes area and im not kidding when i say that they are cleaning houses,5 bed with conservatorys for £7/8 pound,why because there are that many w/c that the "market" as set the price
imo i think £10.00 for a three bed semi is about a right,give or take
if combat works 4 days at £130.00 thats £520.00 for a 4 day week is that not a good wage

combat if your happy,whats the problem

£520 isn't his wage though.  It's business turnover.  Quite a bit can come out of that before you get to a wage ad een then tax and NI will eat into it.  It souinds like he runs his business more economically than most but even so, there would be a number of business expenses to consider.

[David Kent @ KentKleen]

combat??? do you loose many customers???

[combat1]

no, i havent 'lost a customer' for years. doing only military quarters means i have a  fair turnover in soldiers that get posted but i seem over the years to maintain or increase the customer base.
The car / van thing is an image thing with my wife and we'll leave it at that or it will go off topic, I think the best course of action is to become so successful that i cannot manage without a van!
I do try to run the business tight on costs but can do 80 - 100 miles round trip in getting to army camps where i have business.
Thanks for all the help, it only worried me because reading the frequent posts on here i seemed to be a low earner and after the time i've been doing it i should be at least at a decent level on the scale.
It dosent worry me though, i love the life and after 20 years in sales i wish i'd gone full time much earlier.

[David Kent @ KentKleen]

IMO you are not doing anything wrong. if your not losing customers your doing alot of thing s right!!!!! Cleaning to a top standard takes time. Just up the prices slightly and you will be earning your 150. happy days  

[P @ F]

Combat , not getting the van bit chap , does your other half like to see you struggle or what ?
What i would do in you position is to get a tank , 250 or 350 layflat depending on the size of your astra , not sure which would fit best, if you have to fold the back seats for the 350 then so be it , that much water should do you all day .
Mount your trolley by the hatchback , that way you can go mobile if plumbed right .
100 m of hose and your laughing , as said wfp everything , you wont look back , check out Dazmonds posts .

The other thing i would like to point out is the money bit , nowt wrong with what your pulling in chap , screw what you read on here ,  just to put my point across , i have been full time for 6 years , i have a transporter with full 2 man set up and a combo with 1 man set up , and power wash ability oh and also a gutter vac on board too .

The combo dont get out much due to staff probs , i.e , cant find the right blokes !
The transporter goes out every possible day and earns whatever it earns 1 day it can pull £380 and the next it can pull £120 , both figs are for 2 men  

Do i care , no not really , im happy with the figure at the end of the year so why stress out , i used to do 60 hours a week for £215 take home in another line of work .

Just think about the tank mate , you aint no spring chicken no more  

Regards Rich    

[woody1]

good to hear some honest reply's for once, my advice would be het a van with a system in it with the biggest tank you can, if im honest i earn between £100 to £200 a day but not enough work for 5 days like that but when i am working i always aim for about £150 a day even if i end up working till 630 pm

forget what some idiots post about earning loads as it prob a load of rubbish and they prob work in a office and never been out

[andyM]

I have to agree that your primary goal should be to make your working life as easy as possible.
And I agree with the advice that has already been given that a "van mounted" system would be the best way to go.
There are systems available that will go into estate vehicles if a van is not available.
You will have more energy, be less fatigued and likely be able to do more work in a day.
I guarantee it 
The only thing I lift during the day is a pole with a brush on it which probably weighs about 1.5 kgs, surely thats got to be better than lugging 25 kg barrels and backpacks about!
At the minimum it would be worth considering a hosereel with 100mtrs of microbore hose.