Clean It Up

UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Richard iSparkle on February 27, 2017, 10:13:33 pm

Title: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Richard iSparkle on February 27, 2017, 10:13:33 pm
had a LT customer complain convinced that WFP had caused his door to flake. he's replaced it once and the same thing has happened with the new one. now he is saying his neighbour we used to clean left us for the same reason years ago (they didn't mention this to us).

its on a new build estate.

any thoughts?

we use on pure water, no additives or additional cleaners ever.

its my POV that an external door is designed to get wet. but you do need to repaint or revarnish if its a wooden door...
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Shrek on February 27, 2017, 10:44:28 pm
Iv stopped wfp'ing wooden front doors , just wipe them down with a cloth
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Richard iSparkle on February 27, 2017, 10:45:48 pm
Iv stopped wfp'ing wooden front doors , just wipe them down with a cloth

whys that?

we clean all doors unless the customer asks us, or unless the door is in bad condition and looks like it'll leak
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Shrek on February 27, 2017, 10:48:20 pm
I find that by brushing water on them , your effectively washing the paint/finish  off every month and eventually your down to the wood. If it rains on the door that's different as it's not getting brushed down at the same time.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Tosh on February 27, 2017, 10:51:49 pm
We use brushes on our poles not sand-paper.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: jk999 on February 27, 2017, 11:02:47 pm
We use brushes on our poles not sand-paper.
lol 😆
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Tony dunmall on February 27, 2017, 11:27:49 pm
Problem is there all water based paints these days

Use hot on lead I found the glue hasn't got beat solvents they can come loose over time. They get weathered they come loose

Doors the same it would happen with or without us cleaning  them,new estates the worst in my opinion

I tent not to scrub as hard or use a cloth
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Stoots on February 28, 2017, 07:23:12 am
Not noticed on doors but on wooden painted frame this happens so I would have thought wood painted doors would gob the same way over time.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: EandM on February 28, 2017, 07:55:54 am
Modern paint finishes, whether oil or water based, are generally rubbish. Anything post 2011 is worse with very few exceptions. Due to COSHH legislation it's no longer possible to get a high gloss water based finish or a non-yellowing oil based one. I'm amazed any of them lasted six years!
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: dazmond on February 28, 2017, 08:24:10 am
had a LT customer complain convinced that WFP had caused his door to flake. he's replaced it once and the same thing has happened with the new one. now he is saying his neighbour we used to clean left us for the same reason years ago (they didn't mention this to us).

its on a new build estate.

any thoughts?

we use on pure water, no additives or additional cleaners ever.

its my POV that an external door is designed to get wet. but you do need to repaint or revarnish if its a wooden door...

ive  been blamed for the crappy metal letterboxes flaking(which ive noticed still go bad even when you dont use wfp on them).also i had one customer who asked me whats in my water thats made her brown door fade! ::)roll.

i just tell them its the inferior quality of the materials they use these days. :)
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Jonny 87 on February 28, 2017, 08:28:48 am
Is their any neighbours who also have flaky doors but you don't clean? If there is then point to that and show it's not your work.

As is said above a soft brush will not cause paint deterioration. All painted wood deteriorates after time and that's why it needs maintenance. Ask any painter and they will say every 2 years they need painted to maintain condition.

I've once worried that wfp was causing seals on windows to go as I was noticing a few of my customers windows on new builds we're starting to mist up. Then I looked closely and saw lots of other houses were doing the same, all windows that face the most of the sun (south facing I think) and even houses that I know get cleaned traditionally were still going.

Unfortunately quality of most windows and doors aren't what they used to be, and things are deteriorating quicker.

It's just a shame we end up getting the blame.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Shrek on February 28, 2017, 09:15:01 am
had a LT customer complain convinced that WFP had caused his door to flake. he's replaced it once and the same thing has happened with the new one. now he is saying his neighbour we used to clean left us for the same reason years ago (they didn't mention this to us).

its on a new build estate.

any thoughts?

we use on pure water, no additives or additional cleaners ever.

its my POV that an external door is designed to get wet. but you do need to repaint or revarnish if its a wooden door...

ive  been blamed for the crappy metal letterboxes flaking(which ive noticed still go bad even when you dont use wfp on them).also i had one customer who asked me whats in my water thats made her brown door fade! ::)roll.

i just tell them its the inferior quality of the materials they use these days. :)

Iv also noticed the letter boxes and handles doing this , I now wipe them both before I leave
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: NWH on February 28, 2017, 10:44:10 am
It depends on the wooden frames your on about,some i reckon it does shorten the life of em or make them rot earlier than normal. If you've been doing it for 6 years they'll need a paint anyway I would think,a
Good test to see if it's effecting the houses you do is to look and see if it's peeling off all over the frames and not just on the odd part of the window,I know some of the houses I've done between me and the brush it has help them deteriorate quicker though.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Richard iSparkle on February 28, 2017, 10:49:25 am
It depends on the wooden frames your on about,some i reckon it does shorten the life of em or make them rot earlier than normal. If you've been doing it for 6 years they'll need a paint anyway I would think,a
Good test to see if it's effecting the houses you do is to look and see if it's peeling off all over the frames and not just on the odd part of the window,I know some of the houses I've done between me and the brush it has help them deteriorate quicker though.

thanks for the idea about looking all over the door. that's a good point.

you would expect regular cleaning to increase wear and tear though wouldn't you? if the surface isn't a hard surface such as resin or UPVc then any cleaning with water and a brush will mean it wears more quickly over years.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: chris turner on February 28, 2017, 11:48:45 am
Can't understand why they even use wood windows and doors in this country.  Our climate is not suited for them at all.
3500 houses getting built just down the road from me and every single one will have wood frame windows and doors.
I done the builders cleans on the first 50 that went up and the quality of the wood and paint was shocking. The wood felt soft and the paint would come off with minimal friction.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: NWH on February 28, 2017, 12:03:50 pm
Yeah some will say it doesn't but I reckon it kills wooden windows you are soaking them on a regular basis I know it obviously rains and that makes em wet but not to the extent we are wetting them every 6-8 weeks,paint quality is not the same these days but I still reckon we make a difference although I wouldn't admit that to a custy.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: NWH on February 28, 2017, 12:05:48 pm
Most these days are built to order in Poland and shipped over already painted too,green mildew gets ground into them making it nearly impossible to remove via WFP.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: NWH on February 28, 2017, 12:25:29 pm
Yeah some will say it doesn't but I reckon it kills wooden windows you are soaking them on a regular basis I know it obviously rains and that makes em wet but not to the extent we are wetting them every 6-8 weeks,paint quality is not the same these days but I still reckon we make a difference although I wouldn't admit that to a custy.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: dave f on February 28, 2017, 01:34:40 pm
simple answer don't do doors I never have for the simple  reason of leaks  nor do I wipe em down  give a custy an inch they will take a mile. oh can you just run your brush over the soffits  next thing it a garage door gutters  ffs . the phrase window cleaner comes to mind not dogs body
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Og on February 28, 2017, 02:15:42 pm
The margins in new builds are very very narrow. It's all thuper cheap.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Tosh on February 28, 2017, 04:25:52 pm
Whenever I clean the front doors you can see the doors change from a softwood, warped and decaying edifice to a hardwood, built for endurance, piece of precision engineering that never, ever leaks water even through the letter-box. Ever.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Richard iSparkle on March 01, 2017, 10:12:39 am
it looks like a lot of you chaps were right and it does look like the doors on the estate are all rubbish. to put it in context these homes are £300 000 plus builds.

Having looked at a lot of the other homes, they have the exact same door, and probably 50% of them are showing very bad wear and tear and flaking. Most a lot worse than our client. what is more, we have another client, same estate and same door, who we've been cleaning exactly the same amount of time, and their door looks fine.

i took some pics and will give our client a call back this morning with this new info.

it shows it clearly wasn't our cleaning that was the cause.

thanks for your help guys :)
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Smurf on March 01, 2017, 10:35:36 am
it looks like a lot of you chaps were right and it does look like the doors on the estate are all rubbish. to put it in context these homes are £300 000 plus builds.

Having looked at a lot of the other homes, they have the exact same door, and probably 50% of them are showing very bad wear and tear and flaking. Most a lot worse than our client. what is more, we have another client, same estate and same door, who we've been cleaning exactly the same amount of time, and their door looks fine.

i took some pics and will give our client a call back this morning with this new info.

it shows it clearly wasn't our cleaning that was the cause.

thanks for your help guys :)

And how much are you charging for this pain in the arse custard?
Next he/she will be wanting a new door from you. lol
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: dave f on March 02, 2017, 05:50:02 am
what ever you do don't offer to repaint it  that's a admission of guilt.
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: Richard iSparkle on March 02, 2017, 06:39:12 am
what ever you do don't offer to repaint it  that's a admission of guilt.

i was surprised but the doors aren't wooden. i think its a resin door

its definitely not us, now I've seen the rest of their neighbours doors so wont be offering to pay. I've advised they call the manufacturer

 
Title: Re: customer saying their door is flaking after we cleaned it for 6 years...
Post by: dazmond on March 02, 2017, 08:05:38 am
what ever you do don't offer to repaint it  that's a admission of guilt.

i was surprised but the doors aren't wooden. i think its a resin door

its definitely not us, now I've seen the rest of their neighbours doors so wont be offering to pay. I've advised they call the manufacturer

good man.its defo not our fault the doors are rubbish.ive had a few customers who have had doors replaced by the manufacturer.