Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Michael D on April 30, 2005, 06:40:24 pm
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Hi guys,
How many houses, per month would be considered to be a small round, a med round, and a large round. for a one man and a two man team
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Michael,
If you are busy all day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month, 12 months of the year, the amount of accounts you have doesn't matter.
It's all relative, kind of depends how big your accounts are.
All 2 bed terrace houses and you will need 30 or more a day. Got lots of large houses out in the countryside and you might only need 10 a day.
If you are averaging £100 a day you are doing pretty good no matter how big your round is!!
Ian
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Ian,
Would you say 100 for a small round 250 for a med round and 500 for a large. I only wish to find out what people think about the av size of a round. Not how much to make
Michael
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Hi Michael
There's 3 of us doing our thing with windows.
Your question is difficult to answer because it depends on the size of properties etc that you clean.
We now have 142 resindential customers and 45 commercial customers. In the past we had more customers and earnt less.
The largest house we do takes 3 of us 6 hours and the quickest takes a few minutes. One commercial customer is just 1 window and the largest is maybe 60 odd.
I think the best idea is to fill up your books untill you always have work and then go for higher prices when quoting for new work and pass on the under priced work.
Cheers
Ross
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Hi Graham
Is that per person?
We average about £200 in total for 3 of us when the weather allows. Today between us we managed £178.
I think I am correct that you use WFP's and I am now of the opinion that for some work they are quicker. I think had we been using WFP's then we could have done maybe 3 or 4 house more which would have taken the takings to about £250.
So yes, I agree with you about £250 - £300 but not with trad methods and ladders even though we use trad methods at the present.
Cheers
Ross
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Rosskesava,
I am not trying to be derogatory, but that is way too low a turnover for 3 people, I expect one person to be doing that in a day.
By the time you've paid for your overheads, there must be hardly anything left. Even without overheads, its less than £60 each per day, you can work in a factory job earning more than that.
One person should be capable of doing a 3 bedroom house (11 windows) in no more than 15-20 minutes and it is proportionatly faster if there are two of you doing it because the gear is split between the two, one concentrates on ladder work/pole work whilst the other does the ground floor.
You are either pricing yourselves way too low or you are working too slowly, I would guess it is most probably the price that is causing you the problem.
Surely Brighton is quite an affluent area and you should be able to command good prices. Go out on Tuesday and stick all you prices up by £1.00 and if you are doing 40 houses a day then thats another £40 without any extra work, you may lose a couple but stick to your guns, make sure when you price new ones that they are priced right.
We live in the back of beyond where they winge about any price increase, but our minimum now is £5.00 for a small terraced house 6-7 windows, we did lose a couple that had been at £2.50-£3.00 but pick up lots more lucrative ones instead.
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You are either pricing yourselves way too low or you are working too slowly, I would guess it is most probably the price that is causing you the problem.
it may be somthing to do this Ross's car - they don't go over 5mph ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D they take all day to get down the road :P
only kidding - john
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Hi Graham
Is that per person?
We average about £200 in total for 3 of us when the weather allows. Today between us we managed £178.
I think I am correct that you use WFP's and I am now of the opinion that for some work they are quicker. I think had we been using WFP's then we could have done maybe 3 or 4 house more which would have taken the takings to about £250.
So yes, I agree with you about £250 - £300 but not with trad methods and ladders even though we use trad methods at the present.
Cheers
Ross
Very wrong! With a decent well priced, compact round, easily £200-£250 per day! EASILY!
I sell excellent rounds and ALL of my previous clients earn £200 + per day, and that`s a 6-8 hr day. That`s just 1 shiner NOT 2 or 3!
All the fellas i know will NOT use WFP, and use traditional, on 3 seperate occasions i beat my mate who uses WFP, domestic i believe is far superior traditionally.
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I wouldnt know if I have a small, medium or large round, I start the day off and finnish they day off 3 and a bit days a week. Its like Ian says it dosnt matter so long as your busy.
If I look at my paperwork it dosnt look like a lot of work but I do mainly large houses some of which take all day in & out.. My smaller houses I only need to do about 15 to earn my money.
Steveyboy
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Ross
I think you are undercharging. It took mean years to realise that I was undercharging and I had to give up w/c cause I couldnt live on it. When I went back to it I was really hard on my customers and it has worked.
I gave a lot of work over to a mate who was starting up and he refused to do work that was underpaid unlike most of us when we first started. He went onto 1 road where i was charging 10.00 and increased the price to 18.00. Not everyone was happy but they accepted it. I was gutted cause I had always tried to increase them but got all the funny looks etc which made me feel bad. He said that if they didnt accept it he would just say that its not worth doing for less and start walking off. They soon stopped him and accepted the price.
I have found over the years that people seem to give you more respect when you charge more than they do if you are cheap. I dont know why but most certainly where I live it seems to be that way.
Steveyboy
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£200-£250 easily?
No way. Not a chance, there may be the odd and very lucky experienced pro with several years working as a window cleaner getting up to that rate, but anyone reading this thread as a newbie will be being given very inaccurate information.
As an individual, if you can average around the £100 a day mark you are doing ok.
A great many will earn more than that, and many will earn less.
BUT IT IS REASONABLE TO EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO EARN £500 PER WEEK.
If you think you are going to buy a round as a complete newbie to window cleaning and earn £200 a DAY you will be in for a sad and disillusioned awakening.
It'll take you at least 3 months before you can become even reasonably adapt at the job, several months before you really get up to speed and in the groove.
If you read these forums, the average price, for the average 3 bed semi is probably around the £6.00-£7.00 mark.
Bare in mind I am talking AVERAGE there.
You will after you have got some experience be able to do 3 houses like this in an hour, 4 per hour if they are all virtually next door to one another.
But they are rarely all so close together, they are rarely all the same type of houses, or the same size.
You will not work for 8 uninterupted hours, time is lost throught travelling, talking to customers, driving off to find somewhere to use the loo, buying a pastie and so on.
Throughout a 9 till 5 day your productive time will be between 5 and 7 hours.
If all your accounts were 3 bed semi's and you were charging £6.50 per house, managed to do 3 an hour and also managed to work 6 hours you would turn over £117 in the day.
And don't forget, you can't work till 5pm for a lot of the winter, it's too dark.
When you apply time and motion studies to your working day you will see.
But to get back to the original thrust of the post.
The physical size of a round is totally irrelevent, it isn't how many, it's how much.
As I said above, if you are doing 20 accounts a day that is 100 houses a week, 400 a month. And THAT is PHYSICALLY a large account.
But you won't have all 3 bed semi's with just 10 or 11 normal casement windows in them :-\
Now if someone is bragging they do 600 houses every month all by themselves they must be cleaning one bedroom grannie flats ;)
There are just too many variables to consider, and if someone has a round that are all shops, they may well have lots of accounts that only take them 2 or 3 minutes to clean, less even on some (I know, that describes much of my work) add in a big office block and one account is taking up to 5 hours to do.
I'm hungry, need my breakfast ;)
Ian
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IAN: YOUR SPOT ON MATE :ave you been watching me on my round,doing a time and motion on me.some mornings though you must be wrong ,cus when Ive been on the booze the night before you would need a sundial to do t/motion.
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£300 per day, that's £1500 per week, getting on for £75 000 per year !. In most peoples language, that is very serious money. I agree that an average of £100 per day is more realistic on residential work, although without working terribly hard. Frankly, my experience is that most window cleaners don't want to bust a gut. The good news is there aren't many easier ways to earn £400 - £500 per week.
There was an interesting thread here the other day about tight fisted customers, but the only way I can think of possibly earning £250 - £300 per day is to have a bunch of customers who are frankly paying far more than they need to. £6.50 - £7.00 for a three bed semi sounds low to me, but you would need to be charging triple that to earn £300 per day, or else be jet propelled.
I have no wish to compete with the benifit fraudsters supplementing their beer money charging silly cheap prices, but I'm sure that even if I could pick up work at the other end of the scale, I'd struggle to retain much customer loyalty.
If it is EASY to earn £250 - £300 per day, please tell me how?
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IAN: YOUR SPOT ON MATE :ave you been watching me on my round,doing a time and motion on me.some mornings though you must be wrong ,cus when Ive been on the booze the night before you would need a sundial to do t/motion.
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£250-£300 per day easily?
sorry Graham, that is simply not true. We've been in business over 40 years so I know a bit about window cleaning.Of course for some it is achievable if you have the right contracts and work hard, but in my experience £300 per day for the average single window cleaner is way off the mark. Do you actually clean windows for a living?
PS.let me know when you want to sell that gold mine of yours.
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Depends what your prices are. 20 houses aday at £6 = £120 now same 20 houses at £10 a clean = £200 aday.
Justin
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£300 a day is way of the mark. Ian is right. If you can get it then great but in residential as a 1 man band I dont see it. Yes your prices may be high but I think that for any newbie w/c to read a thread like that will put them off w/c cause they simple are nowhere near to it. Us who have been in the trade for years can see when pigs fly (sorry for the expression) but I can see that every now and again you can achieve it but not everyday. No-way.
Steveyboy
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Justin is right. You can charge £10.00 where someone else selling himself short may charge £6.00, but even if we are talking bog standard 3 bed semis, 20 per day, day in day out is not easy & even then is only £200 per day, not £300. Unless you are insane, we all lose time to the weather etc. etc. Even £1000 a week as a residential window cleaner,working independently is unrealistic. It's wrong to mislead others as to what is reasonable to expect if new to this. I ask again. How is £1500 a week easy without charging way over the odds or bumping every other window ?
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Simon, I agree with you 100%. I have never, ever met a residential window cleaner, working on his own make any thing like £1500 per week, and I know lots of window cleaners. The only way to approach that figure is high quality , high profile commercial contracts.
Totally misleading.
Thats why I asked if Graham was a window cleaner.
I would assume the fundamental reason for this sites existence was to share knowledge, experience and help us all promote our businessess.
Stating on a website that window cleaners make £300 per day is not good PR.
cheers
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Hi All
I agree with Ian £100 on a good day, and if I work hard. Sometimes £120 All depends what i have on my job list for the week. In total I have 230 houses 1 goverment job and 2 other jobs I fit in I also clean carpets I do have a busy month
There have been some very intresting replies.
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That's £25.00 per hour for a 10 hour day, both of which is not unreasonable, but it's this easy bit that has provoked many of the responses. The assumption is that we are talking about sustaining this, week in week out. Anyone can bust a gut for a week or two or identify enough quality business 'easily' for the odd exceptional day or maybe week, but for a month, every month !. For a start, it's dark by 4 in mid winter. Also, we've all worked the odd few hours in bad weather, but who would consider a 10 hour day in driving rain & howling gails easy?. Most of us would go home. As a self employed, one man band, there are so many factors that come in to play when you are genuinely considering what is possible & sustainable.
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I can make up to about £120 in roughly 5 hours a day...non-stop, 5 days a week. That will be between 12 to 16 jobs per day, depending on their size. After that, I'm knackered. IF..I had the energy and youth on my side...I could probably do 20 or more a day, but to be honest, if I've made over a ton in a day, I'm happy...I'd rather spend my free time riding my bike, lazing at my static caravan by the river...or off scuba diving. I work to finance my pleasure and pay the bills, as soon as I can stop, I do.
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£200-£250 easily?
No way. Not a chance, there may be the odd and very lucky experienced pro with several years working as a window cleaner getting up to that rate, but anyone reading this thread as a newbie will be being given very inaccurate information.
As an individual, if you can average around the £100 a day mark you are doing ok.
A great many will earn more than that, and many will earn less.
BUT IT IS REASONABLE TO EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO EARN £500 PER WEEK.
If you think you are going to buy a round as a complete newbie to window cleaning and earn £200 a DAY you will be in for a sad and disillusioned awakening.
It'll take you at least 3 months before you can become even reasonably adapt at the job, several months before you really get up to speed and in the groove.
If you read these forums, the average price, for the average 3 bed semi is probably around the £6.00-£7.00 mark.
Bare in mind I am talking AVERAGE there.
You will after you have got some experience be able to do 3 houses like this in an hour, 4 per hour if they are all virtually next door to one another.
But they are rarely all so close together, they are rarely all the same type of houses, or the same size.
You will not work for 8 uninterupted hours, time is lost throught travelling, talking to customers, driving off to find somewhere to use the loo, buying a pastie and so on.
Throughout a 9 till 5 day your productive time will be between 5 and 7 hours.
If all your accounts were 3 bed semi's and you were charging £6.50 per house, managed to do 3 an hour and also managed to work 6 hours you would turn over £117 in the day.
And don't forget, you can't work till 5pm for a lot of the winter, it's too dark.
When you apply time and motion studies to your working day you will see.
But to get back to the original thrust of the post.
The physical size of a round is totally irrelevent, it isn't how many, it's how much.
As I said above, if you are doing 20 accounts a day that is 100 houses a week, 400 a month. And THAT is PHYSICALLY a large account.
But you won't have all 3 bed semi's with just 10 or 11 normal casement windows in them :-\
Now if someone is bragging they do 600 houses every month all by themselves they must be cleaning one bedroom grannie flats ;)
There are just too many variables to consider, and if someone has a round that are all shops, they may well have lots of accounts that only take them 2 or 3 minutes to clean, less even on some (I know, that describes much of my work) add in a big office block and one account is taking up to 5 hours to do.
I'm hungry, need my breakfast ;)
Ian
I never said form day one did i??
I said previous customers are doing £200 + per day, and i`ve sold some to forum members on here...
If you can`t do £200 per day after 4-6 mths on traditional you have a poorly priced round and NOT compact work...
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If you can`t do £200 per day after 4-6 mths on traditional you have a poorly priced round and NOT compact work...
I think Ian's point was that people considering window cleaner read some off the cuff remark about how easy it is to earn big money, in just a few hours and then embark on the road of dissolutionment.
This thread's starting to sound like this one (How to earn £200 quid a day):
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=5529.msg41526#msg41526
I've been at window cleaning for just over two years, and I'm earning £600 per month more than I was doing last year. My cash flow is excellent too.
We don't yet earn £200.00 per day (I work with my Missis, who won't sacrifice quality for speed, no matter how much I beat her), but some days we get close(ish) in five or six hours work.
Speaking of which, (work), it's stopped raining so I'm off out.
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If you can`t do £200 per day after 4-6 mths on traditional you have a poorly priced round and NOT compact work...
I think Ian's point was that people considering window cleaner read some off the cuff remark about how easy it is to earn big money, in just a few hours and then embark on the road of dissolutionment.
This thread's starting to sound like this one (How to earn £200 quid a day):
http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/index.php?topic=5529.msg41526#msg41526
I've been at window cleaning for just over two years, and I'm earning £600 per month more than I was doing last year. My cash flow is excellent too.
We don't yet earn £200.00 per day (I work with my Missis, who won't sacrifice quality for speed, no matter how much I beat her), but some days we get close(ish) in five or six hours work.
Speaking of which, (work), it's stopped raining so I'm off out.
2 people don`t work as quick as 1...For example...1 shiner does 20-30 per hr=£160-£240 per day...2 shiners as apair approx £35-£50 per hr=££280-£400 per day.
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minimum price of 15 pound and you will rake it in.but it takes time to build up at these prices
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speak for yourself....
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UBA1 is correct in one thing, two people do not work twice as fast as 1 person!
But I live and work around Chepstow, South Wales, there are many window cleaners in the area, and I only know of 1 guy (who is from just outside what I would consider my cachment area, but we overlap) who earns upwards of £200 a day.
Inside any of the estates in town you simply will not earn that kind of money, you just cannot go around charging twice what any other window cleaner is charging and hope to get away with it.
Around here an average semi will be around £7.50 or so, lower still in some parts of town, doesn't matter how professional you are you won't stand a snowballs of charging £15.00 as a minimum charge.
10 miles up the road is a town called Lydney, prices are tighter still up there.
Location counts for an awful lot. :-\
I have now gone over to WFP (just over a year ago) and that has definitely made a big difference for me personally.
Prior to WFP I was only doing what I needed to to get by, was utterly fed up with climbing ladders day in, day out, I don't even think I would now be a window cleaner if I had not changed :'(
I was doing 15k per year, that has jumped 5k within a year, and will probably jump another 5k quite comfortably. If I am submitting 25k to the tax man I will be more than happy.
But to double that? Or even treble that?
75 grand a year cleaning domestic accounts?
I believe that were I sufficiently motivated I could achieve 30k Any single window cleaner cleaning only domestic work and earning that much money is on serious money for a window cleaner.
That is the high end of potential earnings for one of us.
Very few will earn that.
Fewer still will earn 50k plus.
Some may well do so, but most will think they are doing well if they are topping 20k.
Ian
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I`ve said it before and i`ll say it again...
I sell rounds in Surrey, Sussex, Kent, essex, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, herts, Beds, and now Norfolk...ALL, I SAY, ALL the guys ARE doing in and around, AND over £200 per day.
The surrey and Kent chaps, are doing anywhere between £30-£45 per hour, every hour. The WFP lads who have purchased rounds un affluent areas of surrey, ARE doing £50+ EASILY with WFP, and sometimes more...NOT Bull**it, this is FACT!!!
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UBA1,
Location, location, location ;)
Try getting a round that will pay you £100 a day in the Valleys.....You can buy a house up there with a £100 deposit :o
WFP will boost your income, no argument there.
I'm sure the tax man could tell us what the average window cleaner in any area will be earning, and I don't mean the lumped in average, but the income range of what the majority of cleaners will be earning.
The affluent South East will be higher than most places, Surrey, Essex and so on, we all know that.
I'm not accusing you of lying UBA1, but you are the exception, not the rule.
I know of no one man band cleaners that are VAT reg on domestic work, on £300 a day you would have to be, totally unatainable for most of us.
78 grand a year is a staggering income.
So too is 52 grand.
It takes a very special person to earn that sort of money, if you are up at those lofty reaches and are building and selling rounds of such high calibre then I absolutely hold my hat off too you, I wish I had half of your drive and ability.
Ian
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UBA1,
Location, location, location ;)
Try getting a round that will pay you £100 a day in the Valleys.....You can buy a house up there with a £100 deposit :o
WFP will boost your income, no argument there.
I'm sure the tax man could tell us what the average window cleaner in any area will be earning, and I don't mean the lumped in average, but the income range of what the majority of cleaners will be earning.
The affluent South East will be higher than most places, Surrey, Essex and so on, we all know that.
I'm not accusing you of lying UBA1, but you are the exception, not the rule.
I know of no one man band cleaners that are VAT reg on domestic work, on £300 a day you would have to be, totally unatainable for most of us.
78 grand a year is a staggering income.
So too is 52 grand.
It takes a very special person to earn that sort of money, if you are up at those lofty reaches and are building and selling rounds of such high calibre then I absolutely hold my hat off too you, I wish I had half of your drive and ability.
Ian
Ian, with no disrespect to you or other shiners, quality rounds can be built, and there are many people who can vouch for the quality rounds i`ve supplied over the years.
I spent time and careful planning training my canvassers to get the correct compact work, and all my clients are very, very impressed...Currently they are trained in traditional, as i feel this won`t hit their pocket, but as time goes on they may want to enter the WFP scenario.
Maybe i`m just a fast shiner, but the truth is, i can do 5/6x3 standard semis in 1hr. Again people who know me will vouch for that, and that`s not even going flat out...therefore i would charge £7/8 per house earning £40-£48 per hour.
I appreciate not everyone can knock `em out that quick, but even just half that is gonna give close £25 per hour.
Most of the clients that buy rounds are given 5 intensive working days, before they start their round, and when they do, they normally earn from day 1 approx £75-£90 per day, Month 2 approx £115-£140 per day, and month 3 approx £150-£180 per day,as time goes on, they will obviously still speed up.
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This canvassing bit ..... very interesting. Care to elaborate?. I've tried to recruit canvassers & paid them £10.00 for every lead that I convert into a regular customer. I think that's an ok deal, but can I get anyone to respond !. I generally have to fall back on my own efforts. Canvassers are a special breed, in my experience very hard to find. If any good they'll be off selling bigger ticket items with big commissions.
I'm going to be surprised if you are prepared to go into too much detail, but in the spirit of the forum, I for one would be grateful if you are willing to share with us your expertese, not least of all bearing in mind not only that you are obviously unearthing a steady stream of new customers, but also getting them to commit to above average prices.
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I think a balance between Ian's point of view and the £200 plus point of view needs to be struck.
It will be demoralising to many who start off thinking they can do quickly earn £200 a day and because they lack motivation, are less organised on one hand or are in a "poorer" area with a need to get immediate cashflow on the other - begin to struggle.
But I don't like being told that I cannot earn better money - it is entirely possible to be professional about your round - constantly pruning and weeding it, dropping less profitable work and replacing it with better stuff.
Simply through natural growth I am asked at least once a week to clean someone elses windows, my round is full so I price up new work more profitably and look to sell on, drop, even give away less profitable stuff.
By scheduling half a day a fortnight to canvass commercial work I have picked up two small businesses and a small block of flats in the last six weeks. This all adds up to "only" an extra £120 every two months - but it only takes me three hours. A lot of my round earns me £20 per hour and I am happy with that, but am aiming to increase that to £25 per hour and on a typical seven hour day I will be near to the £200 mark.
I want to average £200 per day - I've some way to go - but Ian, please don't, while aiming to be realistic, inadvertently stifle my ambition to improve my income.
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Recruiting canvassers has always been a problem, whether it`s double glazing, British gas, or even us shiners.
I certainly don`t mind to a certain degree of telling you how to gain canvassers, and no, NEVER pay them £10 per lead, totally wrong way to go about it...Like most sales, ALWAYS work on commission basis, more incentive for them that way!
I give out bonuses for good quality work, and the more customers per month they produce, the higher their commission!
I won`t go into how i do this, but lets just say, i look after my team. They earn most canvassing days an average of £20 per hour, some will reach occasionally £50-£60 per hour, then in quieter periods virtually bugger all!
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Hi UBA1
Maybe i`m just a fast shiner, but the truth is, i can do 5/6x3 standard semis in 1hr
12 minutes a semi for one person?
Then taking into account moving the ladders, arkward angles, getting round the backs of the houses, locked gates, getting the stuff off the van, putting it back and so on.
And clean maybe upwards of 20 paines of glass whether big or little?
All in under 12 minutes?
With 3 of us we would be very hard pushed but one person on their own?
Then you wrote
Again people who know me will vouch for that, and that`s not even going flat out
Apart from the false argument to give weight to what you wrote (sorry) of people to vouch for you, 12 minutes is not flat out? ? ?
I don't want to appear rude but I don't believe it.
I won`t go into how i do this, but lets just say, i look after my team. They earn most canvassing days an average of £20 per hour, some will reach occasionally £50-£60 per hour, then in quieter periods virtually bugger all!
I won't go there but .................
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Hi UBA1
Maybe i`m just a fast shiner, but the truth is, i can do 5/6x3 standard semis in 1hr
12 minutes a semi for one person?
Then taking into account moving the ladders, arkward angles, getting round the backs of the houses, locked gates, getting the stuff off the van, putting it back and so on.
And clean maybe upwards of 20 paines of glass whether big or little?
All in under 12 minutes?
With 3 of us we would be very hard pushed but one person on their own?
Then you wrote
Again people who know me will vouch for that, and that`s not even going flat out
Apart from the false argument to give weight to what you wrote (sorry) of people to vouch for you, 12 minutes is not flat out? ? ?
I don't want to appear rude but I don't believe it.
I won`t go into how i do this, but lets just say, i look after my team. They earn most canvassing days an average of £20 per hour, some will reach occasionally £50-£60 per hour, then in quieter periods virtually bugger all!
I won't go there but .................
Then come to where i live and i`ll prove just that...are you telling me a straight forward 3 bed semi (not bays) i.e, 2 flat windows at the top front, 1 or 2 at the bottom, maybe a landing on the side at the top, and 2 at top and bottom round the back, plus front and back door, you can`t do that less than 12 mins???
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UBA1 lives on Fantasy Island with that midget whos mates all live in tiny houses.
Meaning?
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Hi UBA1
2 flat windows at the top front, 1 or 2 at the bottom, maybe a landing on the side at the top, and 2 at top and bottom round the back, plus front and back door,
What can I say to that. There are literally thousand of properties like that around where I live all next to each other all with straight forwards easy access.
Being realistic, apart from when you wrote 3 bedroom semi's, you did not make that qualification, what does the term '3 bedroom semi' conjure up in most people's minds who are window cleaners?
To me, it's a question of realism that comes from experience. I'm a window cleaner like most on this forum and most of us have a good idea of whether or not a job can be done a bit quicker, a lot quicker or 3 or 4 times as fast.
Also, you know it's virtually garaunteed that I'll never go to where you live just to watch you prove your point. So that means you have not been, or will not be disproved. That is another false arguement like 'people who know me will vouch for me' etc'.
I'll stick to what I know based on the experience I have so far as a window cleaner and I've made my own mind up as to the truth of what you write based on that experience.
Why not get someone to video you from start to finish? Now sending that off to people like me would be real proof.
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Then come to where i live and i`ll prove just that...are you telling me a straight forward 3 bed semi (not bays) i.e, 2 flat windows at the top front, 1 or 2 at the bottom, maybe a landing on the side at the top, and 2 at top and bottom round the back, plus front and back door, you can`t do that less than 12 mins???
I wouldn't say doing an average sized semi in 12 mins is impossible. I think an average window cleaner does three, three-bedroomed semi's in an hour. So that's one every twenty minutes.
But that twenty minutes is broken down into not just the cleaning. Some could be gaining access to the rear. Speaking to a customer. Waiting for the customer to find his/her wallet/purse/cheque book. Giving change or writing a chit. Updating your own records, then walking to the next house.
It's not just the 'cleaning' that takes time.
Not only that, do you really want to be throwing yourself round a house - going like the clappers - all day? Mistakes will be made and accidents will happen.
I've just re-read UBA1's post:
Maybe i`m just a fast shiner, but the truth is, i can do 5/6x3 standard semis in 1hr.
Sorry UBA1, but I too think this is impossible for one person.
Just say they're small semi's and have 9 windows and two doors. That's 11 items to clean in 12 minutes, giving you under a minute to knock for the cash and be cleaning your next house.
I seem to remember there was someone on this site, a year or two ago who also used to claim wild earnings. Eventually he followed this up with a 'Get Rich Quick Book'. I don't know how it panned out.
UBA1, don't flame me. I believe you can clean a house in 12 minutes. I think I could, starting from the time when my ladders hit the first wall; finishing when I cleaned the last window. Not taking anything else into consideration.
However - no offence - but it can't be achieved at a workable level. No way!
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UBA1 lives on Fantasy Island with that midget whos mates all live in tiny houses.
Meaning?
I understood the meaning.........
Hi Ian
I seem to remember there was someone on this site, a year or two ago who also used to claim wild earnings. Eventually he followed this up with a 'Get Rich Quick Book'. I don't know how it panned out.
I also recall a familiar theme but I couldn't at the time of my posting put my finger on it.
I'm eagerly awaiting the video because, afterall, money isn't an issue with UBA1, he will do it to prove his point.
Also, a video will help him earn more money by proving it is true. He could show that video to those he sells rounds to. Strange he hasn't thought of that already. ;D
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UBA1 lives on Fantasy Island with that midget whos mates all live in tiny houses.
Meaning?
I understood the meaning.........
Hi Ian
I seem to remember there was someone on this site, a year or two ago who also used to claim wild earnings. Eventually he followed this up with a 'Get Rich Quick Book'. I don't know how it panned out.
I also recall a familiar theme but I couldn't at the time of my posting put my finger on it.
I'm eagerly awaiting the video because, afterall, money isn't an issue with UBA1, he will do it to prove his point.
Also, a video will help him earn more money by proving it is true. He could show that video to those he sells rounds to. Strange he hasn't thought of that already. ;D
Sarcastic pr**k
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Hi again UBA1
Sarcastic pr**k
Be as insulting as you want.
Well, will you do a video or not?
Proof, yes or no?
Cheers
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Malc,
My main point is that £100 per day is achievable, a potential income of 25k per year isn't beyond reach, If you have what it takes you can climb higher and higher, though in fairness the higher incomes will rarely be achieved by one man bands, as you grow you expand. We all find our own level.
When I first started window cleaning there was another guy form a nearby town who started roughly the same time, within 2 years he was turning over a million a year :o Or it may have been that he had turned over in that time a cool million.
The sky is the limit, no matter your trade, if there is a Richard Branson inside you then you soon eclipse your peers.
Once more....£100 a day is a reasonable target to acheive, if earning £100 a day, starting at 9am and finishing by 3pm sounds a good deal to you, well, it can be acheived, and all by yourself too.
Aiming for 50k a year? 75k a year? If you have what it takes you will get there, but by god you will have to work for it.
How many of you can run 100m in ten seconds?..........not many of you I guess, it can be done, we have all seen it, but you have to have natural ability, we all have our limits!! The same for window cleaning.
Most of us could do 100m in 15 seconds, just as most of us could earn £100 a day.
I'm labouring a point I know, but I hope most of you get my drift?
UBA1, sorry 5 or 6 semi's an hour, all day long, five days a week? 52 weeks of the year (less holidays) nope, sorry, thats just too much to swallow.
The faster you work, the more mistakes you will make.
As Tosh said, the average 3 bed modern semi will have a minimum of 11 or 12 windows. Even if you had 20 houses all in a row, I can't believe you will do 5 or 6 an hour.
I wonder how quickly Terry Burrows would clean the above houses??
The fastest window cleaner in the world.
Even his standard working pace would leave us all in the shade, I would love to hear what the average time, or how many standard houses he would clean in any one hour during his normal working day?
I am not saying UBA1 is lying, only that I just cannot believe the pace he works at, if you read this UBA1 bear that in mind please.
If you came to our area (Chepstow) You could canvas it from top to bottom, all 11,000 houses and you would not get a compact round that you could reasonably expect to whack out £200 plus a day, too much competition for one thing :-\
But come on, Linford could do 100m in under 10 seconds, there has to be a window cleaner that can work at a pace that would leave us in the shade, we are giving UBA1 a rough ride over this, for us plebs we will always find it hard to believe such speeds can be achieved, you only have to watch Turbo Terry in action to see what is actually possible, watch him live and the speed he works at is staggering.
Sigh, look at the time! I'm up at 5am!
I need some shuteye ;)
Ian
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Graham,
I give everyone a certain degree of respect, and I wasn't apologising either, when I do a reply I try to make it as balanced as I possibly can.
There may be few of us that believe UBA1's claims, but that doesn't make them impossible, merely unlikely.
This thread has gone off topic, at least in true relation to the original question, it has instead turned into a debate, with rebuttal and counter rebuttal.
If it degenerates into name calling and outright rudness, with silly pointless replies then the thread will have run its course and perhaps it will need to be locked
Ian
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Hi again UBA1
Sarcastic pr**k
Be as insulting as you want.
Well, will you do a video or not?
Proof, yes or no?
Cheers
I`ve given you the option of seeing me do it, secondly why should someone take time out from their job to video me for a few hours, and lose money, why don`t YOU lose some time and money and take up my offer. As someone else said the average shiner does 3x3 bed semis an hour, therefore you must be WELL below average then. My lads are obviously well above average...
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Not getting involved with this one, just earn what you can and enjoy
Steveyboy