When I was full time trad it would really depend on the account I was on at the time, and also the style and type of window.
On some windows it made little difference to the time taken to just give the frames a quick wipe over as you cleaned them, others it can be a major time factor.
I have had some accounts where the frames have been stinking and not been cleaned since the windows have been fitted, I have often told customers that I won't charge them extra, but won't clean all of the frames in one go, rather that as each repeat clean came along I would gradually bring all the frames up to standard.
This I guess really applies to the bigger jobs to be honest, on a 10 windows semi, if the frames are dirty then you may as well spend an extra 10 minutes getting the frames right, but on a job with 30 or 40 windows it can quadruple the time taken, you can go through half a dozen scrims on a single job and yo uwill also need to change your water a couple of times.
Tell a customer that instead of charging them £30 to clean the windows you are going to have to charge them £100 for the first clean and you'll give them a heart attack!!
Most people want clean glass to look through, they will be chuffed if you can add the frames for no more than a litle extra, but the odds are that they will not want to pay a fortune to get them cleaned too.
So by gradually bringing them up to spec you can keep them happy and not effect the time taken to do the job very much.
On these jobs, once the frames are cleaned, half the time you could just flick over them with a dry scrim to keep them right, or as I washed the glass with the applicator I would use a damp scim to 'pre'detail' the glass and include the frame as I did so.
I have one largish office block that I only ever did frames and sills only, occasionally they would want the frames washed down too, but it changed a 4 hour job into a 12 hour one.
These windows were all UPVC, 12 panes of glass per window (mostly) each pane about 15" square.
Where the glass is beaded in, the UPVC is square to the glass, so when you squeegee them you ALWAYS have to detail the bottom edge of each pane as well as the top and sides.
Horrible frames
Even after you had cleaned the frames thoroughly it would add a lot of time (doubling it in fact) if you tried to keep these frames clean as you went along and at £90 a clean I was not going to get away with doubling my price.
Ergo it was glass and sills only, and if they wanted the frames done then it was a requested clean and I charged accordingly.
All done WFP now and the frames are part of the job, what was 4 hours is not under an hour and a half and the frames are washed every time too.
So there are many ways of getting the frames done, it isn't always plain cut, and there are a few differing ways of getting around it.
you have to be flexible, sometimes adding the frames every time you clean the account may just not be feasible, and to do so then you just have to charge more.
Most who have replied on here claim they all do the frames religiously, but as I walk around or watch other windows cleaner I see very little 'frame cleaning' going on, I know one who has been going over 20 years who doesn't even bother with the sills!!
The frames are one of the biggest differences between WFP and trad, with WFP doing the frames makes little or no difference to the time taken to do the job.
While I was trad, if I didn't need to do the frames to get a decent job done then they didn't get cleaned, for me it all depended on the job in hand.
Ian
