[Ian101]

Been WFP for about 6 weeks now (taking out 3 weeks not worked December)so most of houses now been converted over and all of them either ok with it or love it 

Question is how do I get quicker ? .... do you guys do the tops of frames every clean ? any other ways to save a little time ?

Personal best with ladders was 18 .... same round yesterday but working 2 hours less managed 24 so well happy but still want to get quicker so any pointers well received 

[d s windowcleaning]

you will speed up without knowing its when doing the first cleans that it takes time , the next time you go because all the hard work as been done you will find that youve been quicker .

[dazmond]

by the time you ve faffed about with unsnagging hoses etc you just wont be that much quicker on some work but at least you wont fall of a ladder!

also its not good  to keep trying to cram in as much work as possible as your more likely to make mistakes or have an accident and be knackered the next day and end up having the day off anyway!

steady,brisk at a measured pace is the best way to work IMO!

you can actually slow yourself down by trying too hard to speed up!!


maybe im the sunday driver of the window cleaning world  though after 17 years at it and pushing 40!!!

[Lee GLS]

ian, im in the same boat as you, i changed over 3 months ago and looking for ways to speed up.

I dont to the top of the frame each time, that saves a little bit of time, also i have found that when rinsing windows that bead, that i can rinse quicker with the brush as close to the window as possible, then the jet of water hits the glass harder and spreads out further meaning that it is possible to rinse them quicker, some of those windows that bead seem to take forever to rinse.

I also feel that the more times the windows are cleaned, eventually they will need less rinsing, i think because i am new to wfp, i am rinsing too much, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

[JoeMax]

Do you have the hose reel nailed down to the back of your van..

[Ian101]

Do you have the hose reel nailed down to the back of your van..

not yet but off to B and Q later today for plywood ... screwing reels to that ... good idea as saves my back as well 

[andy1975]

you will speed up by knowing where to park so you can get as many houses done before needing to move again

[chopsie]

how many litres of water did u use on 24 houses? I am jealous

[Ian101]

how many litres of water did u use on 24 houses? I am jealous

got a 650 litre tank and had about a quarter  left so i rekon used about 450 to 500 litres roughly work on about 20 litres for an average sized house but rekon I can get that down by another few litres a house

[chopsie]

bloody hell, I have 400 litres and am very lucky if I can reach double figures of houses with that.

[ascjim]

Everyone is slow when they start doing trad and get better with practice and WFP is the same

[scud]

  get some fan jets and never walk around empty handed.

[Paul Coleman]

Been WFP for about 6 weeks now (taking out 3 weeks not worked December)so most of houses now been converted over and all of them either ok with it or love it 

Question is how do I get quicker ? .... do you guys do the tops of frames every clean ? any other ways to save a little time ?

Personal best with ladders was 18 .... same round yesterday but working 2 hours less managed 24 so well happy but still want to get quicker so any pointers well received 

There are all sorts of little ways of cutting several minutes off a job's time.  A lot of it just happens naturally without realising you are doing it an as you re-learn your round.
One thing that I do that saves time on some jobs is to have a longer piece of hose between the van and the reel (for those who don't have a fixed reel).  It often allows me to run the reel end around the back of the house but work the front with the connecting hose.
This doesn't sound much but when you have a job where the side alley is very cluttered, it means having to wade through the clutter twice instead of four times (assuming you do all tops first then do ground floor after.  Other awkward jobs can be done by backpack if tricky to access.  You just figure it out as you go really.  On larger properties it may be possible to do tops on one side followed by bottoms on the same side as there will be time for the water not to be dripping much (saves hose movement).
I started off with half inch hose.  When I came to replacing hoses, I went fore a smaller bore as it's much easier to pull around.
Some will say I'm wrong but I just don't do frames every time.  It really doesn't need it - unless it's one of those larger, lower frequency jobs.  Sills yes.  Every time.  Dirt settles on them.
Use a light pole too (such as SLX).  It will speed you up.
Whatever you do, don't drive faster though.  Any time saved should be on the cleaning, setting up, and putting away.  It would be stupid to go too fast with half a ton or so of water at your back.  I don't care if they crash test them or not.  It could still all go horribly wrong if you abuse it.
EDIT TO ADD:  Use a high flow rate too - especially if not on a meter.

[james44]

Personal best with ladders was 18 .... same round yesterday but working 2 hours less managed 24 so well happy but still want to get quicker so any pointers well received

Ian how many houses have you done as you have only been wfp 3 weeks and yet theses will all have been first cleans i would say that is very fast, was that glass and frames?

[dazmond]

bloody hell, I have 400 litres and am very lucky if I can reach double figures of houses with that.

you must be seriously over rinsing chopsie because i use on average 200L A DAY cleaning 20+ three bed semis on a full day.mostly WFP bar the odd ground floor windows trad.



dazmond

[chopsie]

Yeh I keep thinking so, do not know how little i can get away with though Daz. Then bloody hydrophobic (?) glass I always do at least twice as it seems to do nothing. Had a women come to me the other day asking if i cleaned her windows, I said no. She said the bloke she has uses one of them poles and he has made a crap job last few times. Things like that make me rinse even more.

[Ian101]

Personal best with ladders was 18 .... same round yesterday but working 2 hours less managed 24 so well happy but still want to get quicker so any pointers well received

Ian how many houses have you done as you have only been wfp 3 weeks and yet theses will all have been first cleans i would say that is very fast, was that glass and frames?

yup glass and frames but when i did em trad i always done the tops of the frames so none were minging to start with

prob seems high number but tbh all this work was spread over 4 closes on 1 estate with 9 houses on 1 close that meant no moving of the van required on at least 1 close

[dave f]

ive just started wfp 2wks ago first day only got 10 jobs done they wernt big .also they were first cleans ,i was on here and asked the question a bout flow rate and got a few good answers, ie set controler to get approx 1ltr per minuet so if you get 1/2 ltr bottle fill it up via the jet in 30 sec your not far off i just faffed about and now im getting around 20 plus jobs done hope fully done right its the hydrophilic glass thats a ball ache seems to be loads about and takes longer to clean rinsing etc.

[geoffreyspecht]

takes me about 7 mins to do a three bedroom house

[Nameless Drudge]

I`ll let you do mine in 7 mins but it will be a £5 absolutely not a penny more.