[Steven White]

I have recently converted over to wfp (pure water) from trad cleaning. Before that I was a lithographic printer, so I do know how the greasy image areas of a printing plate repel the water and attract the ink. What I got when going over to wfp was not what I expected. What I expected was that windows would be either hydrophilic (where the water rinses in sheets) or hydrophobic (where the glass repels the water and it runs into rivers, also this so called self cleaning coated glass). The technique I use is to rinse closer to glass for hydrophobic wins. What I got is one double patio door being hydrophilic and and the other hydrophobic, even when it's the same glass by the same manufacturer. Worse still most windows seem a mixture where patches of the window are hydrophobic and on some it's just the edges so all the water runs to the center. In this case I have been turning my brush to the side and giving an extra slow rinse down the edges, because I had some complaint about water spotting on the sides.

Question: Will the pure water cleaning eventually break these greasy areas down? And are they caused by the detergents I used to use (washing up liquid/meths) when I traditionally cleaned them?

[Cliff perkins]

I wouldnt worry to much after a few cleans they will be fine.
Good explanation of diffrent glass though.

Rinse well 1st time 

[magic moments]

Forget types of glass just rinse with pure all will be good.

[Dave Willis]

Dunno but spray the glass with mdr or Viakal and it renders it Hyrophobic. So does wnisol 500 or whatever it's called.

[Nathanael Jones]

Forget types of glass just rinse with pure all will be good.

100% agree

You're over thinking it,.. in reality it doesn't matter if the glass beads or sheets - clean it right & rinse properly & all will be good when it dries. 

[Steven White]

Cheers Mark. That's probably that blue stuff they buy in the shops. This house (quite expensive because it has a ridiculous amount of windows for the size of house) that I had a complaint about, because the rinse was running away from the sides into the center. Anyways, I went back to tell her I'd give her some money off next clean and see the problem when they had dried off. I caught the hubby red handed with blue spray bottle and cloth going round the edges of the window. I told him to use a rung out chamois and no cleaning detergents, as I said detergents leave a film on the window. I also said you can't mix two different types of cleaning, you either have pure water cleaning or trad detergent cleaning, not both or otherwise they end up fighting each other.

[Steven White]

Thanks for the advice. I'm using about 300L per day (1 guy) and am trying to get it down to 200L like my friend and so I can get two days clean before I have to drive back to fill the van tank up (static system). I was watching this other window cleaner while I was painting an apartment block and it was like niagra falls. He said 600L was even lasting him a day. He had like garden hoses instead of microbore and was using pipe jets (I use fan jets). I set the flow on my pump to 6 out of 10. Am I being to stingy with the water do you think? Maybe I should be rinsing at a higher speed.

I haven't had any complaints out of about 150 customer round apart from this one and a couple of sash ones where I got white runs down the bottom sash. I put that down to powdery paint on the underside of the top sash. So pretty good going really and I'm well pleased I made the decision to convert. The income chart looks twice as nice anyways.

[EandM]

Lesson for today:


Lithographic printers know more about window cleaning than window cleaners do about lithographic printing.


Life is a learning process.....

[Dave Willis]

200l a day? Yikes!

500 is normal for me and I still wish I could get more flow.

[AuRavelling79]

If you have a van system and work 9 - 4 at a brisk pace in a compact area I reckon 400L is about right.

More on first cleans, less if driving between jobs.

[sunshine windows]

I can get through 400ltrs inaround 4-5 hours of domestic work but i'm a rinse-a-holic.

[g.brookes]

most people use 300-400 a day i think.  200 is deffo too little and is more likely to lead to call backs

[EandM]

We rarely use more than 200 litres per day without any problems.
Did use around 350-400 per day then we bought triggers........

[Granny]

Hi
Either you're scared of water or you've got rabies!!!!
g.

[lee_dewing]

200 litres a day is about average for me.

I use lemark fan jets and an aqua-dapter

9.30 til 4-ish, don't have the most compact round but it ain't bad

lee.