Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Clive McDonald on March 21, 2009, 10:04:55 pm
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Thus far i've been one man and a van and have gone as far as i can with this. I'm pretty pooped and can't keep it up for much longer.
But how do i turn my 650l scudo into a two man operation. I have plenty of spare reels ,pumps,varistreams and batteries lying around so don't think i would need to buy anything. What is the best way of going about this. and oncce i do what is the best method of splitting the work beteen me and my partner?
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i have had a guy working with me for the last 2 weeks
i cannot see how it would work from the same van BOTH using a van mount, unless 1 does front and the other back, though thats not symbiotic
you could have a trolley in the van aswell and a sub pump, to sub pump the water into the trolley, make the trolley a fair size and the other guy could walk down the other side of the street doing them, get a 125 L tank, a electric winch and a ramp ( a scaffold plank ) into the van, no real lifting, 125 L enough to do a fair few houses with
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1 fixed reel and the other 1 free standing so your able to point it in any direction you want so you won`t get in each others way.
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Assuming you have clustered work,it is not that difficult.
The key thing is to park your van in a position where you can reach as many houss as possible. Then each work as far from the van as posible and work back towards the van. Only do fronts and backs on single houses.
This is where you get the most benefit from 100m of microbore, you should be able to reach at least 6 houses next to each other.
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My work is not clustered, and even where it is a little bit, neigbouring properties are often done on different days.
My van was first owned by a true green franchisee and the winch is still in it, but i don't think i would do this.
It's one of those steps that seems impossible to me, but many on here have done it.
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Easy! The second person you employ must be a trad cleaner. You park, he takes his ladders off and crosses the road.
Symbiotic? What's that a yogurt drink?
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it works fine for me. he uses a back pack, and barrels and i use a van mount or another back pack. with a bit of organisation you can get a good routine going .....
dont expect to see a huge increace in the firsrt few weeks, ...it takes a couple of months to see the real benefits, but once he knows your round and the routine it works well. especially when you have clumps of houses all together, you can double the hourly rate. ;)
the only downside is that you need a LOT of extra work :-\
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Personally my experience is that 2 ppl in the same vehicle NEVER manage to do twice the work.
I'd take on someone with their own van, send them off on their own.
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i run a two man set up and we now know who does what on each house ,
on the odd occastion that we cannot park we go on to the next house and the come back to it or of we are back that way the next day we will do it then
its only routine once you have one you will be fine :)
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My work is not clustered, and even where it is a little bit, neigbouring properties are often done on different days.
My van was first owned by a true green franchisee and the winch is still in it, but i don't think i would do this.
It's one of those steps that seems impossible to me, but many on here have done it.
Before going two up, why not "cluster" your work better?
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One WFP the other works the hosepipe, not saying you would do twice the work that way though. As prevoiusly mentioned look at your round and speak to customers change dates times etc to suit you , i'm sure most customers would be fine with it , also speak to other W/C around you maybe swap some work around . Old boss of mine said "Dont work harder work smarter"
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why not have someone trad the bottom and you wfp the tops?
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Symbiotic? What's that a yogurt drink?
watch it you
strawberry is the better flavours
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put in two person set up so hopefully can get the wife to do fronts while i do the backs .
have not started just yet but it will be interesting to see how it goes and if it will be viable
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in fact apart from the obvious....working with your wife issues the bonus must be keeping more money in the business with the extra productivity
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Thanks for all the comments, my brain is now in overdrive on this so i welcome all comments including the critical ones.
As regards clustering Malc my round is very unclustered, and very spread out. In the early days i needed work even if it was a while away.Sometimes neighbours joined in the spirit of things sometimes not.
What i tend to do is print my week off, and then attack it day by day. A typical day would be to drive out eight miles, do a few there, and then make my way back with the last few being closer. If an eight weeker is due the following day in that area i will do it early.As with all of us there are jobs i like and jobs i dread, but my philosophy is that this is a business and every single day (6hrs) i try to achieve maximum earnings.
A lot of my problems are self inflicted. My wife likes holidays, and when i come back after two weeks, the george list is a small deposit on a house.It's daunting both physicaly and phycologicaly, on something so large that hasn't any real sence to it where do you start, what is the first house and why?It can drive you mad, so i just get out the door and do my best.Often i dread holidays because i know what i will come back too.
Over xmass the weather was bad, and i had to help my wife in the other business (usually i can't work the last two weeks in december), so it is only now that i have really caught up. All of those marketing and branding ideas i used to waffle on about mean that i constantly have to deal with new work. I'm not complaining about this because it's very exciting to be building a business but do find the phyisical side hard.
I want to work less hard, even if that means earning less money and want to be able to come back from holiday less stressed not more stressed.
I need a helper, i just haven't figured out a great way to do it.
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ditto, so very gently trying to persuade the wife may work may not.
we got first job together tomorrow....big house one off job shes doing the insides me outs.
taking the camera as i am building up to getting a web site post some pics tomorrow
may also give the two person system a quick blast
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I need a helper, i just haven't figured out a great way to do it.