Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Craig 72 on May 20, 2009, 08:10:59 am
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Morning all.I wondered if anybody could give me some advice.One of my customers mentioned to me that her sister wanted her place cleaned so I've phoned her up and gone round for a quote.When I've turned up my jaw nearly hit the floor as she lived in the biggest mansion I've ever seen.I'm reasonably new to this and to date my biggest clean is an annexe on a church which takes me a couple of hours or so.She wants this place cleaned inside and out including huge conservatory.10 bedrooms and all rooms with old fashioned style leaded windows.I don't know if wfp is going to do a good job on these windows,so I worked out that it would realistically take me 10-12 hours doing it traditionally (and I always seem to underestimate).I quoted her £100 for the outside and same again for the inside.She seemed to think the quote was astronomical.This place is near Biggin Hill which is northwest Kent near Sevenoaks.Anybody else work this area?She seemed like a decent person so I think she'll be up for negotiations but is my quote ridiculously high or about right?
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Id say that was under priced, 8am-6pm or 8am-8pm,
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Craig,
If the windows are real old leaded windows, then some of them will leak, but don't worry especially if you're going to do the insides after you do the outsides.
Make sure you take into consideration all the obstacles on the inside of the house; the big ming vases and stuff in front of what can be really high and awkward inside windows.
Also, places like this are rarely done 'every four weeks', so take this into consideration when you price.
Price well, would be my advice.
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£200 to have your windows cleaned is a lot. But if you live in a 10 bed mansion then whatever you have done is going to cost a lot. Imagine the quote if she decided to have new curtains all round!
Not really for us to say if you're too expensive or too cheap, but from experience, stick by your price. She probably hasn't got a clue what she should pay to have her windows cleaned, thats why she thinks it's a lot.
Probably when she puts her Merc in for a service and they charge her £400 she'd be shocked, but the garage won't negotiate, will they, she knows that and glumly pays up.
Wealthy people are usually no happier parting with their cash than the rest of us, in fact their often mean with it.
Get the job, do it, you'll soon know if you've charged right at the end, you can't lose it's only window cleaning, but you can learn from it. You'll probably wish you'd gone in a bit higher. She'd be shocked whatever.
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Hi Craig,
I understand where you are coming from on this one, big jobs can be hard to price.
The best way to do it in my experience is try to think of a £10 house that you clean and then try to break the mansion down into £10 sections. If the price seems a bit high you can afford to give a bit of a discount as all these windows are in one place, ie no travelling between jobs.
From what you've said (10-12 hours) your price sounds quite cheap but it depends how much you want the work.
If your price for the outside is £100 I would charge a minimum of £150 for the insides as they always take longer. If they are smokers I would charge double.
Good luck with it,
Andy
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If you can do it in one day then £200 seems Ok to me.
At least you can work in one spot all day long.
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Id say that was under priced, 8am-6pm or 8am-8pm,
;)
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It's a bit of a toughie because I badly need the work and she also mentioned neighbours with similar sized houses who might be interested which could be a great earner.I think £200 is reasonable for potentially slogging my guts out from dusk til dawn.In fairness I would probably go down to £150 which for days work,in this climate,is nothing to be sniffed at I suppose.One things for sure,I'll be gutted if I don't get her custom at all,especially if she's prepared to pass the word around.
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I take it with a pinch of salt when they say they'll pass the word around, in my experience that has been to encourage you to offer a lower price. You need to tread VERY carefully here, you're in danger of taking on work that you'll end up doing resentfully if you're not careful.
Matt
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£100 for that near seven oaks........you are having a laugh.
You need to up your price.
If it was a regular clean then it might be in your interest but thats a bit low.
Dont fall into the trap that I and many others do when first starting out........Under price yourself to get the work. It a nightmare situe. These big houses always take more cleaning.
If She does not take your price then walk away.
If She tries someone else they may well be more expensive and you might win her back.
All the best. Its never easy when you are keen for work.
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If i were you I would agree with them an hourly price and then time yourself as you go. just explain that there house is very different from what your used to. that way as long as they see you are working hard its much more fair all round
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Cheers fellas,I take on board what you all say.She says she wants it done regularly,with one month outside and inside and the following month just the outsides.Lee,yeah I considered that approach.How much would be fair to say for an hourly rate though,in your opinion,remembering that I've been cleaning only a few months or so and probably am not as fast as people more seasoned?
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She just rang up and agreed to £200.Not sure what made her change her mind.I can't argue with that for a full days work.I think for the position I'm in (i.e in need of customers) I'm be wiser to take the work now and ditch it later if it proves a nightmare.Thanks for your input folks.
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exactly - work is work, it makes you money, and when you are just starting out thats all that matters!!
when are you going to do the work? let us know how you get on!
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Doing the job June 1st which is Monday week.Yeah,should be interesting,I'll keep you posted.I'll be cleaning leaded windows in my sleep that night!
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Good luck, keep us posted.
It'll be interesting to see how it goes.
Matt
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She just rang up and agreed to £200.Not sure what made her change her mind.I can't argue with that for a full days work.I think for the position I'm in (i.e in need of customers) I'm be wiser to take the work now and ditch it later if it proves a nightmare.Thanks for your input folks.
She had someone come out 1st thing this morning and quoted her more then you.
Good luck ;)
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She just rang up and agreed to £200.Not sure what made her change her mind.I can't argue with that for a full days work.I think for the position I'm in (i.e in need of customers) I'm be wiser to take the work now and ditch it later if it proves a nightmare.Thanks for your input folks.
She had someone come out 1st thing this morning and quoted her more then you.
Good luck ;)
Yeah you might be right.As I say though,£200 for a days work is a lot of money for me at the moment.When I get to a point where I'm window cleaning full time,(only got enough customers for a day or two a week at the mo),I'll afford to be a bit more selective and charge a bit more.
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I'd suggest planning how you're going to carry the cleaning of this account Craig inside and out if you're to do it in a day.
By the time you've done the outside you'll be ready to have your arms cut off at the elbows.
Matt
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Sounds a very reasonable price. As for the old 'my friends might have theirs done' routine, you can't pay a mortgage with promises.
Tell her that you will offer a reduction when her friends have signed up, but not before. You can make the reduction up out of her friends.
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She seemed to think the quote was astronomical.This place is near Biggin Hill which is northwest Kent near Sevenoaks.Anybody else work this area?
We clean many ordinary detached houses in that area for £40.00 - £60.00
If it really is that big then £200.00 is very cheap
If its a 10 bed mansion then the cost to buy would probably be £5 - 10 million.
A freind of mine lives in a slightly above average size 4 bed detached house in Tattesfield which borders Biggin Hill and he has house up for sale at 1.5 million
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So from thinking £200 is astronomical she suddenly wants to spend around £1800 a year getting her windows cleaned?
I'd be asking myself why she suddenly wants this expense...if she's been living there for a long while when were they last cleaned and what happened to her old w/c.
I hope it works out Craig but she's talking big money month in month out. Even the very wealthy are mostly shy about forking out £300(ish) every 2 months for windows.
I've become very cynical in this game ::)
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I clean a huge mansion worth 8.6 million (probably a lot less now it's credit crunch time) and I just price like any other place, (combination of windows, access & time involved and add on 10% for good luck. Don't underprice....you'll regret it.
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Who's going to pay £300 for a window clean? You can have a mote cleaned for nothing.
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i do an old stately home in cumbra ,it takes me half a day to do the outsides,water fed pole, these are leaded and 3/4 hundred year old windows ,and a day and a half to do the insides you only learn by experence and charge nearly £400 for the privalage all the best and stick to your price
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Morning all.I wondered if anybody could give me some advice.One of my customers mentioned to me that her sister wanted her place cleaned so I've phoned her up and gone round for a quote.When I've turned up my jaw nearly hit the floor as she lived in the biggest mansion I've ever seen.I'm reasonably new to this and to date my biggest clean is an annexe on a church which takes me a couple of hours or so.She wants this place cleaned inside and out including huge conservatory.10 bedrooms and all rooms with old fashioned style leaded windows.I don't know if wfp is going to do a good job on these windows,so I worked out that it would realistically take me 10-12 hours doing it traditionally (and I always seem to underestimate).I quoted her £100 for the outside and same again for the inside.She seemed to think the quote was astronomical.This place is near Biggin Hill which is northwest Kent near Sevenoaks.Anybody else work this area?She seemed like a decent person so I think she'll be up for negotiations but is my quote ridiculously high or about right?
I currently go out as far as Caterham and have done work in Westrham area before. Some quite plush places around there. If it's going to take you 10-12 hours then the £200 you've quoted sounds a bit low. However, if it's only going to take 10-12 hours because of your relative newness, then she may have a point. Certainly you ought to take at least £25 an hour as a start point and hopefully rather more. The trouble is that what you can take when cleaning for a number of customers in a day, sounds an awful lot more when it's coming from one budget. If they were to have it done say, quarterly, £800 a year for clean windows on a place of that size sounds pretty reasonable to me.
If price is such an issue for her, I think you should use WFP on the outside especially as you can clear up any leaks when you do inside.
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The price does seem low for the picture i have in my head, but if (and that's a big if) it is a monthly account you might come close to cutting that time in half within the year.
I made the mistake of pricing up the hall that gordon brown stayed in last summer too low when i 1st started.
I happily walked away from the job after i was finally finished. Lesson learnt. :)
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One of my friends has a very good round out in the surrounding villages by us, Ayot st peter/ ayot st lawrence and charges up to £400 on some monthly/6 weekly cleans.
Some very nice manor houses and old houses that used to belong to kings ex wives etc etc.
All trad.
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Thanks for all your support and advice everyone.£200 might be on the low side but I feel that if I'd charged more I risked losing her custom and I'm not in a position to do that at the mo.I think I will go with wfp for the outside and conservatory as some of you have mentioned and that might take some of the physical hard work out of it.I think I'll consider stretching it out over two days,for the first clean,outsides one day and insides the next to try and gauge how it's going to go.Being a blind optimist it might go much easier and quicker than I've estimated but in my limited experience of being a window cleaner that won't be the case.
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All the best Craig.
You dont know where it might lead........another 10 mansions!
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Lol,yeah.I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.
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One suggestion for you as a relative newbie to this. Get the inside of the conervatory done before things warm up too much.
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That sounds like good advice.When I went in there to price up it was literally like a sauna in there.
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Tip-
Get yourself some microfiber cloths for the inside leaded windows!
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Finished this job today.Took about 11 hours all in all.Pretty damn hard work but I'm hoping subsequent cleans become easier and quicker.I asked her how much other people quoted and she said £200 just for the outside!Ouch.Looks like I undercharged but at the end of the day it's money that I need at the moment and couldn't turn it down.Hopefully I'm doing the next door neighbour who has a similar size house so I'll charge more.Being a relative newbie I'm starting to realise why cleaners don't do the insides of houses.What a pain in the arse with the old style leaded windows.
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So it should have been in the region of £350-£400 for 11 hours work.
One of the problems with newbies is they set a price then rush to get a good hourly rate. Wrong way round. You know how long it takes to do one window, count them and multiply. Dont be afraid of high figures.
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You will get that down to 8 hrs max, so 200 quid for a normaldays work is pretty good going in my book.
Always remember 3% of something is better than 10% of nothing.
It seems to me that people on here go for the big prices, whether they do really I am not sure, but if you can earn 200 pounds a day that is good money.
If you get to quote for a neighbour, remember they will have discussed prices, so be carefull.
You may end up with a full weeks work out of 5 customers, so be careful and don't get too greedy.
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Finished this job today.Took about 11 hours all in all.Pretty damn hard work but I'm hoping subsequent cleans become easier and quicker.I asked her how much other people quoted and she said £200 just for the outside!Ouch.Looks like I undercharged but at the end of the day it's money that I need at the moment and couldn't turn it down.Hopefully I'm doing the next door neighbour who has a similar size house so I'll charge more.Being a relative newbie I'm starting to realise why cleaners don't do the insides of houses.What a pain in the arse with the old style leaded windows.
Did you start this at 6 this morning or do it in 2 days.
Chris
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Craig I would do the conservatory first ask her to open all the windows as you set up as this will cool the conservatory down somewhat.
How many windows are you looking at?
I have had people ask me to quote them on 5/6 bed detached and when I give them the final figure they almost have a heart attack.
People who have big houses dont realise that the maintenance of their homes will be alot higher. heating a 6 bed detached will be more than heating a 2 bed semi etc. ;)
Matt
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I did most of the work on Monday and finished off today.Yeah I'm hoping I can get it down to a normal days work and then £200 is very acceptable,in my book anyway.If I'd quoted more then I sensed I ran the risk of her telling me to sling my hook.To be perfectly honest,I didn't actually note the number of windows.I went round and estimated how long each window would take me and added them all up.There's a bloody lot though!The old style leaded is what took the time.At the end of the day she's my best customer financially by a country mile so I'm pleased I got her.Especially if I can nab a neighbour or two.
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Who's going to pay £300 for a window clean? You can have a mote cleaned for nothing.
You`d be surprised a lot more people than you think,small change for some even in todays climate.
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Who's going to pay £300 for a window clean? You can have a mote cleaned for nothing.
You`d be surprised a lot more people than you think,small change for some even in todays climate.
Have to agree, I have a few over this price per 6 weeks, but they tend to drag cheques a little yet happy to pay late charges on top ::)
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I did most of the work on Monday and finished off today.Yeah I'm hoping I can get it down to a normal days work and then £200 is very acceptable,in my book anyway.If I'd quoted more then I sensed I ran the risk of her telling me to sling my hook.To be perfectly honest,I didn't actually note the number of windows.I went round and estimated how long each window would take me and added them all up.There's a bloody lot though!The old style leaded is what took the time.At the end of the day she's my best customer financially by a country mile so I'm pleased I got her.Especially if I can nab a neighbour or two.
I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
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I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
I honestly think this is a mistake. Assuming that you can get the job done in less time, while it is reasonable that this will happen, you may also be in a position that they only call every 6 months. It then becomes an initial clean each time. The very fact that others are quoting £200 for just the outside should sound the alarm bells as you are doing inside and out for this price.
One of my greatest mistakes when I set up in the last recession was to under price. I thought I had to go in cheap to get the job. The problem is you are stuck with the price and any increase will be difficult if you ever want to be in-line with the other window cleaners. They charge that amount for a reason!
While you will get the work, however from my experience, you can get stuck with hard cheap work for some time. This type of work should be the cream trying to "get it down to 8 hours" will turn it into a chore.
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I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
Just with a spray and scrim then buff with microfibre.Time consuming but seemed to do the job well.As I say I'm still green with all this so any opinions for a quicker way greatly appreciated.
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I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
I honestly think this is a mistake. Assuming that you can get the job done in less time, while it is reasonable that this will happen, you may also be in a position that they only call every 6 months. It then becomes an initial clean each time. The very fact that others are quoting £200 for just the outside should sound the alarm bells as you are doing inside and out for this price.
One of my greatest mistakes when I set up in the last recession was to under price. I thought I had to go in cheap to get the job. The problem is you are stuck with the price and any increase will be difficult if you ever want to be in-line with the other window cleaners. They charge that amount for a reason!
While you will get the work, however from my experience, you can get stuck with hard cheap work for some time. This type of work should be the cream trying to "get it down to 8 hours" will turn it into a chore.
I hear what you're saying mate.She only told me what others had quoted when I'd finished the job so it wasn't like I was deliberately going in cheap.£200 to me for a days (long day admittedly) window cleaning is still decent I think,especially as I only have a relatively handful of customers.She wants me to come back every month on an outside one month,outside and inside next month basis.I'm happy with that for now.If there comes a point in the future when I have plenty of customers and I find it a pain to do I'll knock it on the head.I'm learning as I go along so if any other 'biggies' come along I'll price accordingly.
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I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
Just with a spray and scrim then buff with microfibre.Time consuming but seemed to do the job well.As I say I'm still green with all this so any opinions for a quicker way greatly appreciated.
A damp microfiber then buff with dry microfiber I find best. ;)
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I think you'll get it down to 8hrs deffo. How did you clean the leaded?
I honestly think this is a mistake. Assuming that you can get the job done in less time, while it is reasonable that this will happen, you may also be in a position that they only call every 6 months. It then becomes an initial clean each time. The very fact that others are quoting £200 for just the outside should sound the alarm bells as you are doing inside and out for this price.
One of my greatest mistakes when I set up in the last recession was to under price. I thought I had to go in cheap to get the job. The problem is you are stuck with the price and any increase will be difficult if you ever want to be in-line with the other window cleaners. They charge that amount for a reason!
While you will get the work, however from my experience, you can get stuck with hard cheap work for some time. This type of work should be the cream trying to "get it down to 8 hours" will turn it into a chore.
I hear what you're saying mate.She only told me what others had quoted when I'd finished the job so it wasn't like I was deliberately going in cheap.£200 to me for a days (long day admittedly) window cleaning is still decent I think,especially as I only have a relatively handful of customers.She wants me to come back every month on an outside one month,outside and inside next month basis.I'm happy with that for now.If there comes a point in the future when I have plenty of customers and I find it a pain to do I'll knock it on the head.I'm learning as I go along so if any other 'biggies' come along I'll price accordingly.
Fair point, it's a learning curve for sure. Keep asking for advice but remember on forums you have to filter out the nonsense.
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I use the learning curve too. I often disagree with what is said.Every now and again i make a new connection and try a different approach as a result of what had been said. I've always been an ideas factory but with so many othr people on this forum it stands to reason that every now and again someone will barf a winner.That's the other thing i try to do, spot other peoples winners.
Very often i am totally wrong.
Once or twice i've been right, that's not much considering the ideas i trial. My three biggies are the hot system( first to self install), electric reel ( first again), and my route one marketing (i think i was first but there has never been a forum topic that's approached it).
Very often i find the posts that strongly disagree with me the most productive because they force me to think the hardest and that's when the really creative ideas seem to come for me.
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Route one marketing?
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Didnt you do this over 2 days
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I did indeed,but only because the customer had to go out about half two on the first day so she asked if I could come back.Suited me fine actually,I'd had enough by then if I'm honest.
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I did indeed,but only because the customer had to go out about half two on the first day so she asked if I could come back.Suited me fine actually,I'd had enough by then if I'm honest.
they soon get used to you, and go out while your there doing the work.
I have one that waits for me to turn up and then goes off out asking me to lock up. "Monies on the table help yourself to tea and cake". ;D