As most on here do mostly domestic houses they will never go for this type of system, the logistics of it all simply won't work.
But I understand the fear of the one man band coming along and, while not going out to undercut the opposition, putting in prices that are way to low.
Perhaps many of them get carried away by the fact that you can work so much faster than traditional window cleaners, and don't have a proper understanding of the fact that they have had to spend (even on a low priced system, DIY notwithstanding) over a grand on their WFP setup, and the fact that the running costs are far higher, the only bit you won't replace (if you're lucky
) is your holding tanks!
On the ordinary house windows using something like 5 litres per min is way over what is needed, as it is I only take about 20 secs or so (I think, I'll have to do a proper time & motion study) on a standard casement window.
The brush you use still has to scrub the glass & frame (if you do frames that is
), no matter how high the flowrate this has to occur.
Also, the higher the window, the longer this will take.
You still have to pull up and (if using a van mount) need to open up the van, drag hose to house and move from window to window.
All the bits in between the actual cleaning of the window has to be accounted for.
I do an office that now takes me under an hour and a half, it used to take anything from 3 to 5 hours.
The top floor is still hard work, its 30ft up and takes longer than the next one down, the ground floor takes less than 5 minutes, it is almost being cleaned at the same pace as you can walk around the building, and that is with a flowrate of between 2 and 2,5 litres per min.
I could have that flowrate at 5 litres per minute, but I wouldn't be cleaning the windows at twice the speed.
I do understand what Bull is saying about the link between pressure/flow/workrate, but there is probably an optimum, an ideal.
There will be a point where the flow of water being used, no matter how fast you are actually working is overkill, much of it being wasted.
Huge, plate glassed buildings are something that not many of us will work on, the criteria will be different on those.
On the point of pricing;
I have already found that I am, even though I'm trying not to, pricing differently now to how I would have done when working traditionally.
I picked up an all leaded account last week, 23 windows, 23 quid, first time clean took 30 mins, repeat cleans will be 15 to 20 minutes.
Good money perhaps, but I would have counted that up as at least 30 windows 2 years ago, maybe even 35 because every one is leaded, and some would be awkward to get at with ladders.
2 years ago I would have priced this house at £30 and taken at least an hour and a half for the first clean, down to an hour for repeat cleans.
At £23 per clean I'm still going to be earning more than double what I would have done had I been doing it trad.
And therin is the danger that Bull mentioned, the bigger the job, the bigger the drop in price, particularly for the one man outfit as against a company with several full time employees and a few vehicles and all the overheads that go with it.
Staying ahead and remaining competitive is no easy task.
I'm digressing all over the place, I'm going back to finalising my accounts for the tax man
Ian
