Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Przemek Jersz on September 20, 2016, 03:29:53 pm
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hi i need to price a a retirement homes complex, its about 940 windows all together on ground , first and some on second floor , what is the best way to price for the job? need cleaning every 3 months
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A quick and easy way I price up large jobs is figure out roughly how long it will take. The best way to do this is break the building down into smaller chunks. You say its 3 floors so will be a similar size to townhouses. I clean alot of townhouses, they average 12 windows and take me 20 mins, with the most difficult windows being the tops.
Well 940 windows is the equivalent of cleaning 78 townhouses, at 20 mins a pop your looking at 26 hours of continuous labour to clean the lot.
Now you know it's roughly 26 hours (1 man) labour you have a good basis to work from. Add breaks, travel time etc and your looking at 30 plus hours work. I would charge 4 days work at the top end of your usual earnings.
Not sure what area your from but I would say 1k would be about right, maybe slightly more.
But that's just me, someone else may have a better formula.
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I think that price is pretty close to the mark. I reckon you'd knocked the job out in three days though but the price would be the same.
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What the guys above have told you is spot on, I suspect the facts are very different.
This is how some price. Allow about 10 seconds on the glass per window and at the most 30 seconds per window in total for moving around the building.
This works out to at most a day. I suspect a quote of £200 might get it but I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.
Commercial window cleaning is frightening place to be price wise.
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thanks for all your help guys, i was going to price it at £1175, 940 windows i think i will spend on average 3min per one ( ground floot will be quicker, top floor slower plus time to move around ) thats is 47 hours at £25per hour =£1175
does it sound about right?
p.s I've only started my business on the 1st of september so not the fastest guy in town--yet ;)
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It would be interesting to hear the outcome of this one.
I think Nick is probably right in his assumption. Some employed cleaner/contractor will be put on the job earning the minium wage with an impossible to achieve target time. He will invoice the company who he worked for and they won't pay his bill.
Tbh I wouldn't be too dissappointed if I didn't get it if I were you. Can you produce current liability insurance and also provide a RAMS assessment?
Also, have you got the water to do the job?
As you are new to window cleaning, I think you have to learn to crawl first before you run (not meant derogatorily.) I would be sticking to smaller stuff. Cleaning that number of windows will 'kill' you. You need time to build your muscles up to do that.
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at 1175 you wont get it ! we just quoted one similer size and didn't get the job at 460+vat as we worked it out as a days work foe two men
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at 1175 you wont get it ! we just quoted one similer size and didn't get the job at 460+vat as we worked it out as a days work foe two men
this i currently done in two days by team of 5! so i was thinking about 2weeks work for me, let see what happen;)
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A quick and easy way I price up large jobs is figure out roughly how long it will take. The best way to do this is break the building down into smaller chunks. You say its 3 floors so will be a similar size to townhouses. I clean alot of townhouses, they average 12 windows and take me 20 mins, with the most difficult windows being the tops.
Well 940 windows is the equivalent of cleaning 78 townhouses, at 20 mins a pop your looking at 26 hours of continuous labour to clean the lot.
Now you know it's roughly 26 hours (1 man) labour you have a good basis to work from. Add breaks, travel time etc and your looking at 30 plus hours work. I would charge 4 days work at the top end of your usual earnings.
Not sure what area your from but I would say 1k would be about right, maybe slightly more.
But that's just me, someone else may have a better formula.
thats the best bit of pricing help i've ever seen,
most say work out how long etc etc but if you could do that you wouldn't be asking would you ,
pure quality there mate i'm copying it down & sticking it in the van , nice one
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a simple £1 a window comes to almost the same figure and you don't need a degree in maths to work it out.
I must be missing something? ???
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a simple £1 a window comes to almost the same figure and you don't need a degree in maths to work it out.
I must be missing something? ???
Lots of townhouses I do have 4 Windows on the front and 5 on the back, does that make them £9?
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As Spruce pointed out, how much water do you have available, Nick was estimating time cleaning each window, but you
have to also factor in how dirty are these 900+ windows, bird muck etc etc, all adds time on to cleaning, especially with
that amount of windows.
Lal
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What about access, are there any issues? Balconies, plant pots on window ledges, flower beds, bushes to get your hoses caught on, parked cars? All the little things that add time to the job. Work it out on a day rate and put your price in, if you don't get it don't worry too much and move on!
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so i was thinking about 2weeks work for me, let see what happen;)
Are they providing hot meals and a bed for the night?
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I would charge £470.00 for that I clean something similar to it
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at 1175 you wont get it ! we just quoted one similer size and didn't get the job at 460+vat as we worked it out as a days work foe two men
this i currently done in two days by team of 5! so i was thinking about 2weeks work for me, let see what happen;)
This is when things start to go wrong with a quote.
Chris Turner has broken it down into bite size peices and has 78 townhouses at 20 minutes each. Going flat out with no breaks = 26 hours. Whilst I think this is an excellent way of doing it, my question is; how much extra time do you allow for breaks (moving van etc), because this is included in the time it takes to clean the complex? Another 26 hours?
(For residential we estimate that half the day is spent actually cleaning windows and the other half is spent on the detail - drying doors, unpacking, packing up, writing out tickets, collecting money, etc. On commercial we estimate that we spend about 75 - 80% of our time on the glass and 20 -25% on the detail depending on the job. We have one commercial job where 40% of our time is cleaning windows and 60% is hose management, unlocking and relocking gates etc.)
You say it takes 5 workers 2 days to complete the job. So in effect this is a 10 day job for one person. We don't know how quickly that these workers are working. According to my feeling and Chris' formula we need 54 hours to do the job - providing you are fit and able. So that tells me the gang should be able to do it in less time.
If that's the case then the complex's management can see that the 5 guys are 'taking their time' and so would feel they are paying for this. They won't consider they need to refill the van/vans with water etc. They just see them disappearing down the road.
I would expect, as in most commercial job quotes, they are trying to get a cheaper price and using you as a lever. If your quote comes in cheaper they will approach the company involved to renegotiate their quote. If you are more expensive they will laugh at you. We've experience this many times. They also lie to get your interest hooked. (We had one recently, job to be done every 2 weeks - turned out he wanted the job to be done every 2 or 3 months or when dirty. Time waster).
In cases like this, management want a quality job but only want to pay for a slop and dash job. I would have asked them what I was up against money wise as well. You will get a ball park knowing they have purposely cut the price. In other words they will tell you £400 when in fact they charge £500.
If the management had told me £200 I would immediatley tell them to stick with the current cleaning contractors.
In your quote I would recommend you be very specific about the time schedule you are quoting on. If its once every 3 months then state that. Then state that an adjustment will add to the cost of cleans. So a 4 monthly clean will cost £x and 6 monthly will cost £xx.
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What about access, are there any issues? Balconies, plant pots on window ledges, flower beds, bushes to get your hoses caught on, parked cars? All the little things that add time to the job. Work it out on a day rate and put your price in, if you don't get it don't worry too much and move on!
Good points to consider.
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Water consumption is another very important factor. A 300-400 litre tank will not get you very far on a job of this scale so unless you have a bigger tank you need to consider if you can produce water on site.
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Remember that your doing it on your own....5 men doing it should be far quicker man hours wise because they won't be as tired.
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a simple £1 a window comes to almost the same figure and you don't need a degree in maths to work it out.
I must be missing something? ???
Lots of townhouses I do have 4 Windows on the front and 5 on the back, does that make them £9?
No I'm sure you get £50 for them, (roll eyes ) I have nine window town houses where you would make a killing at £9 a pop
as long as you have enough of them to keep van moves and traveling to a minimum, you certainly wouldn't charge that if it
was a one off in the middle of nowhere.
Then I have others where even though they still have nine windows some of them because of the size or type might count as two or three.
The price wont be solely about the number of windows but the shape, size, type, handiness of access and so on, but there will also
be benefits to make you more competitive such as having all the work in one place, that said good luck getting the work from
a nursing home, I clean the property of a wealthy Nursing home owner and have priced all four nursing homes with no success
and believe me I'm nowhere near Lord weekly's pricing bracket.
In her own words unlike her own property she just wants a cheap acceptable job done from somebody with the right paperwork and can get it for a lot less than I want.
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asking window cleaners prices on forums is never a good idea the difference can be massive .
with out seeing the job your answers will be too varied.some have allready said around £450.00 some around £1200 that's a big difference in price.
The same goes for time some will say 3 days others 10.
10 days like you have estimated is far to long I clean a site of 220 flats a rough guide will say 4-5 Windows per flat plus communal areas so around 1000 windows which I can clean on my own in 3-4 days.
Geting big jobs wrong can cost you massively in both money and time.
Sometimes if you don't. Know what your doing or its to big a job you have to know when to walk away.
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a simple £1 a window comes to almost the same figure and you don't need a degree in maths to work it out.
I must be missing something? ???
Lots of townhouses I do have 4 Windows on the front and 5 on the back, does that make them £9?
No I'm sure you get £50 for them, (roll eyes ) I have nine window town houses where you would make a killing at £9 a pop
as long as you have enough of them to keep van moves and traveling to a minimum, you certainly wouldn't charge that if it
was a one off in the middle of nowhere.
Then I have others where even though they still have nine windows some of them because of the size or type might count as two or three.
The price wont be solely about the number of windows but the shape, size, type, handiness of access and so on, but there will also
be benefits to make you more competitive such as having all the work in one place, that said good luck getting the work from
a nursing home, I clean the property of a wealthy Nursing home owner and have priced all four nursing homes with no success
and believe me I'm nowhere near Lord weekly's pricing bracket.
In her own words unlike her own property she just wants a cheap acceptable job done from somebody with the right paperwork and can get it for a lot less than I want.
Can't resist can you? Haven't you got any work? Has the big bad millionaire windowcleaner taken it all?
I was just making the point that £1 a window is not a sound pricing policy.
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The figure of just over a 1000 is fine if your normally earning quiet a bit under 300 a day,on jobs that size you need to be pricing over what you'll earn a day normally + a profit or you may as well continue doing your usual work you do day to day. This work I would always go in over and above what I'd normally want TBH,jobs of this size all you are is a number one year your doing it next month your not don't kick yourself if you lose it thinking I could have got a lot more from that job over the years coz I've done it myself.
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I also agree £1 a window system is not good,it leaves little room for profit on large jobs and on houses you'll end up doing in some cases large houses with not a vast amount of Windows for peanuts. Say a large house had 35 Windows but it was out in the middle of knowhere and the round trip was 2 hours,what do you do say I'll do it for £35 I think not.
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Lots of great posts on this, but generally the op does not have enough experience to take this on, not enough water or manpower what happens in the 2 weeks your cleaning this home to your regular customers ? - most places will not want you taking 2 weeks either.
Like ms dean said this is a two man job that may be done in a day at most day and a half, cleaning a large site does not compare to residential work in terms of the number of windows (size is a big factor for example office windows can be taller and wider than residential then there are glass atriums but offset that with they are all in a row (compact) a two man crew cover 200 meters without a single move - this could be easily a third of the building
Be prepared to take a long time on the first clean to get them up to a decent condition the following cleans will be quicker but I suspect the 3 monthly clean we be binned within a year for either six monthly or annually
Darran
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If it's out in the sticks I'd do the conservatory roof free.
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Price it per flat.
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id walk away if i were you and concentrate on smaller jobs mate.a lot of these sorts of jobs take ages to pay,mess you about and get rid of you at the drop of a hat and your daily rate( if you go in too cheap and it takes you too long) will be lower than normal run of the mill work.
aint worth it for a sole trader IMO.(esp with limited experience)
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at 1175 you wont get it ! we just quoted one similer size and didn't get the job at 460+vat as we worked it out as a days work foe two men
How would you know what he will and wont get? You havnt seen the place!
Your price sounds well off and id worry "cowboys".
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Obviously not always but a lot of the time you can earn more money doing domestics that are priced well and in general you'll hang on to them for years. On commercial all it takes is a new manager or someone that deals with this to fancy a change and all you'll get is an email saying we've made over arrangments thanks,I've in the past tried to get this kind of stuff contracted but most of them wouldn't agree to it so you will always be in the dark wether or not your for the chop.
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I find £1 per window is a good starting point, then I factor in all the other variables. Finally I look whoever is asking in the eyes and judge what they're willing to pay. With this particular quote you aren't talking about a big house in the middle of nowhere with 35 windows, its one site with nearly a thousand windows.
It can't be that difficult? ???
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I find £1 per window is a good starting point, then I factor in all the other variables. Finally I look whoever is asking in the eyes and judge what they're willing to pay. With this particular quote you aren't talking about a big house in the middle of nowhere with 35 windows, its one site with nearly a thousand windows.
It can't be that difficult? ???
Thats lovely work but not work I would say I may keep for a long period of time and I would price it accordingly,work like that is cleaned for a fraction of the price it was 10 years ago and the world and his wife is after it and are willing to clean it for not a massive amount more than you'd be getting on smaller work. I would be a nervous wreck having a book full of work like that TBH you could lose half a years income in a dozen emails sacking you off it,I'm not being negative on purpose it happens and it's happened to WCs I know personally. Years ago if you cleaned a main Tescos store it would set you up for the week or even 2 weeks but those days are well and truly gone.
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I got the job!!! :) :o
12 months starting in january
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How much did you get it for?
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How much did you get it for?
for the price i quoted £1175 every 6 weeks
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Good news. Well done. Great feeling I bet.
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How much did you get it for?
for the price i quoted £1175 every 6 weeks
I thought it was every three months.
Well done, anyway; ever thought of canvassing full time, haha.
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I got the job!!! :) :o
12 months starting in january
Well done 👍
Hope no one on here knows where you work, as you've just given all your competition a heads up
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Awesome, well done!
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well done if you get bogged down with it give me a shout and I will help you out if needed ,
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well done if you get bogged down with it give me a shout and I will help you out if needed ,
I could've used your help the last few months!
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well done if you get bogged down with it give me a shout and I will help you out if needed ,
I could've used your help the last few months!
then all you had to do is ring the man you know he would help you out at a drop of a hat
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well done if you get bogged down with it give me a shout and I will help you out if needed ,
I could've used your help the last few months!
then all you had to do is ring the man you know he would help you out at a drop of a hat
I know, I know, didn't even think.
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I could've used your help the last few months!
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@concept Have seen your vans quite a bit over Hitchin and Stevenage way they look smart..