[Morph]

Not just for Squeaky Clean, but for anyone with objections to wfp.

A Topic thread dedicated to them.

Questions & Answers

Of course no segregation suggested.  All can join in, after all, most who use wfp are experienced with a mop and squeegee, and I'm sure some are in the opposite category.

Objections, complaints, criticisms....Fire away.

But be prepared to consider the answers...

A wise saying:  The mind is like a parachute............it's no good unless it's open!

[supernova77]

WFP rules! 

[Morph]

Gotta start somewhere

[Morph]

Hmmm...

Not many objections then?

[rosskesava]

It's really a bit of a worn out topic and the 'fors' and 'against' will go on and on and on.

Personally, I'll use whatever I think is best for the job taking into account the customer and the job being done.

And .... I've yet to see with my own eyes a wfp job that is the perfection I often see posted and I don't just mean from the jobs we do, but jobs done by other companies/wfp's.

I'm not saying it is impossible, it's just that I've yet to see it.

A few weeks back I had a wander into the Grand Hotel in Brighton (the one that got blown up by the IRA) during the afternoon as the windows of the whole building had been done that morning with a huge cherry picker and wfp.

I won't write anymore except to add that if I was the manager, I'd be demanding a refund.

[Morph]

So, was that down to the tools, or the operator, Ross?

[preston powerblast]

My mate and I have this conversation on a daily basis, he is a trad wc and has been for over 20 years.
He has done nothing but rubbish the pole, but about 8 weeks ago his hernia started playing him up and his windows started to suffer, so i went and picked him up and did all his windows on one round in four hours which usually take a day and a bit to do.
He was happy to watch me do all of his windows and him collect the money for two or three cleans.
He then had the cheek to to tell me that his customers didnt like the pole and they wanted them doing the old way.
I picked up 25 new customers on his round and they have since rang me and told me to tell him that they dont want him to do the windows the old way anymore.
When I told him he was furious.
He has since admitted that the pole is the way forward, but he like so many wc in this area have said they are not prepared to spend the money on a set up to clean windows that they can clean for next to nothing using the trad methods.
I think thats how a lot of wc in this area think.
But I am not bothered, I'm still picking up more and more new customers every week because a lot of new houses that are being built in the are three storey and they are not in a position to do them.
Ok its not been easy, I started back in November but I have now got a decent round and charge decent money for it, and I havent bought any work.
Dont get me wrong I used to love doing the windows the trad way, but from a business point of view, its the dogs danglies.

[D.Salkeld_Ltd]

I wan to stand up for SQUEEKS!!!

Good on yer mate.

He's like all these preserved Steam Railways!!!!
I Honestley love the old steam trains. But I can't see GNER going back to them!!

Just like you won't see Offices going back to the typing pools!!!!
But I bet no-one can type as fast as my mum can!!

What about this

THE SQEEKY CLEAN MUSEUM OF TRADITIONAL WINDOW CLEANING.

Sorry if there is a touch of sarcasm but serioslly it would be a shame to see the old traditional methods die out.

I, for 1 wil NOT be throwing away my Squeegee and scrim!!
Even though I am going WFP

David Salkeld

[preston powerblast]

I will be honest I still have the old kit in the van and I do use it still, more so when i do the insides.

[neil100]

Though I do most with wfp I allways carry my ladders on the van, And I still clean a few traditional. This is only on windows that have bad frames or access issues.

I fully intented to do both. But wfp is done on 90% to 95% of my round.

Nel.

[williamx]

Sorry if there is a touch of sarcasm but serioslly it would be a shame to see the old traditional methods die out.

I, for 1 wil NOT be throwing away my Squeegee and scrim!!
Even though I am going WFP

David Salkeld

The old traditional methods of using a squeegie and scrim will not die out, the ladder on the other hand will be used less often, and will to most people be a tool of the past.

At times you will see a ladder being used to clean windows, because there are windows that only a ladder can be used on, but these times will become less and less.

If you look back only 5 years, how many window cleaner did you see using a wfp system, I bet it was none, but if you did see one, it probably being used by a commercial window cleaner.

Now look around today, they are everywere, from big citys down to small hamlets.

What do you think the growth of wfp users will be in the next 5 or 10 years will be.

The wfp system is here, and it's here to stay, the biggest danger to window cleaners will be they waited to long to get one.

[Sir Squeaky]

Thanks Dave Salkeld, nice to see someone realises I'm not blowing hot air on this, I'm genuinely happy with my work and feel no need to change it at great cost.
Glad you can see I'm just quoting people and defending myself, not ranting as some may think.

Ross, speaking the truth from a wfp'ers perspective as usual.
Not biased by the money he's spent.

...and William, why is it I have to have one?
I'm doing better now others are getting it....

I don't get it.(if you know what I mean!)

Rog.(why am I still responding to this?)

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

i'm fanatical about my wfp (quicker and safer)
however i still do bottoms trad method and will never give that up

both have there good points

[rosskesava]

Hi Pj

So, was that down to the tools, or the operator, Ross?

I've also looked at the Metropole, The Brighton Hilton, The Ship Hotel, American Express, Asda's and a lot of offices and quite a few houses.

Each time I've thought the same and I do accept that these places cannot be really be done safely (or probably at anywhere near the same low price) trad style but my point is the quality of the window cleaning is not good.

We now do one house (mansion) which is a recently re furbished Georgian place owned by a bloke who owns a tv station. He'd tried 6 different wfp companies/traders and each time he thought the job was rubbish. He phoned us to do the job originally just once to see if having the job done traditionally would produce a better result.

After we'd been on the job 20 minutes he said to come back every month. The job is a 3 hour job for 3 of us.

He pays double to have it done trad style. ££££'s for us.

We use wfp a lot but I love those type of jobs. We've gained loads of them including a huge prestigious grade 1 listed block of flats which is also worth £££££'s every month because of wfp and bad results.

Not only that the managing agents were livid about wfp not only because of the water everywhere which in winter lays on the walk ways for days and then gets walked all over the nice new marble floors in the indoor common ways, but because where the water runs down the walls, it leaves streaks. Whereas left to nature, it tends to all weather all the at the same time. That may not sound much but £4 500 000 had just been spent doing the place up.

Whether it's the product or the operator, I don't know and in truth, I don't care.

For those customers happy to accept wfp- then we'll use that if we can, but for quite a few, doing it trad has been the biggest money earner yet. So I hope more w/c's go over to wfp and refuse to use trad methods ever again. 

From my point of veiw, we can't loose.

[Sir Squeaky]

See, I wasn't making it up?

[Ian_Giles]

I use trad every day, what I don't use are ladders. Access only and the occasional bit of initial cleaning.

Ross has problems with WFP that are more related to his location than the kind of job it can do, and I can show anyone who cares to look, at least a dozen houses I'll be doing tomorrow that come up absolutely blinding, and I really do mean they will be spotless.

Lets (just for the sake of arguement) skew the viewpoint a little......

Lets just say that for many decades WFP has been the norm for window cleaning, how will customers new to these newfangled ladders and squeegees view the change, what complaints might we see??............

I'm not happy with the way those ladders mark my walls, and you've put the ladder on my new sills and scratched them too

Why is the glass so smeary when the sun shines on them? That WFP used to get  my georgian windows gleaming.

Why are there marks and runs on the glass? The old window cleaner never used to have that.

My windows are getting dirty much quicker now, I wish you'd go back to the old WFP.

I don't like the fact you are now looking in all my upstairs windows off your ladders.

Why aren't you cleaning the frames anymore? They always looked so good when you did it the old way

Trad boys don't need to defend against the above, I've only listed it for the purposes of perspective.

Overall, on the majority of work, WFP will give a better overall finish, if you can't get it right, you are doing something wrong.

Ad the bottom line is the fact you will earn more money, to be perfectly honest, that is why I go to work...to earn money, I'm not doing it for love.

The ladder is soon to be a tool of the past, WFP is here to stay and will replace ladders (apart from access) But WFP will never replace traditional window cleaning, and I don't I've read anything from anybody that suggests it will either.

Ian

[williamx]

...and William, why is it I have to have one?
I'm doing better now others are getting it....

I don't get it.(if you know what I mean!)

Rog.(why am I still responding to this?)

Rog

You have never used a wfp system yet you always rubbish its abilitys, I have done window cleaning the trad method and now I use a wfp.

Yes I have made mistakes and at first some of my work was below standard, but by learning from my mistakes and help from other wfp users, I now can clean windows as good if not better than trad methods, I don't get runs - smears or spots anymore, I know this because I do the inside of a lot of my clients and I can see the results.

I also clean more houses per day than I use too, when I used ladders and I was younger and fitter then.

Yes you will get more customers because you use ladders, because like you, there are a lot of people who don't like change.

If you do a bad job then I don't think that these customers would be loyal and stay with you, they would move onto another cleaner as soon as they could, the same applies to wfp users, if you work is not up to scratch them be prepared to lose your customers.

[rosskesava]

Ladders marks from ladder mits? Nope - none.

Brush bashes against the frames from wfp - yes. Bits of glass missed on the 3rd floor by wfp - yes. Outlines of bird doo's - yes.

'My windows are getting dirty quicker' - that's a feeble arguement. Sorry but it is.

We do a lot of windows monthly that could go 2 monthly or longer. Anyway, profit..... regular work ..... so if you use wfp are you going to change to 2 monthly from 1 monthly because the windows are cleaner for longer?

I could go on. On the example I gave how would you solve the problem of water everywhere?

I do agree with wfp our profit has increased by about 30%. The headaches thought have gone from almost none to a constant background thing.

The ladder is not yet a tool of the past. Saying it will be is like saying a post dated cheque will be paid. We will have to wait and see.

The main thing with wfp is it means no ladders but does that mean a better job? It means a safer one. Better? As I posted above, over 2 years I've yet to see it and that is the truth.

This arguement is hotting up.... I hope.

Cheers

[Ian_Giles]

Good to see you defending what didn't need defending Ross

All of the things I listed from that alternate world where the squeegee and ladder haven't long been invented are easy to defend against.
A good window cleaner will counter all of them easily.

But even so, they are all VALID arguments!!

Windows staying cleaner longer not a valid point?
I disagree with you on that one, I do one particular shop in a local village once a week.
When doing it trad (and using one of the specialist window cleaning detergents too) there wasn't a single week when I came back to reclean it where the glass didn't have a visible film of dust and soiling on them.
It's location is a little unique in that the position of the building in relation to others mean that the wind creates a constand, swirling vortex.

With WFP, most weeks I could get away with doing it 2 weekly instead of weekly.

The glass stays cleaner longer. Fact.

As I said, that shop is unique, but it is the same on houses too, on an awful lot I am turning up and cleaning glass that almost looks like it was cleaned yesterday.

Sigh!
I want to say more but I gotta go!!

Ian

[Paul Coleman]

I think live and let live.

I switched to WFP last November but it took a while to start using it on ALL jobs (except bungalows).  Now I'm thinking about backtracking a bit as I have had more complaints in the last three months than I have had since I started in 1991.  Some (though certainly not all) of the complaints have been valid.
A few of the moans have been about spots.  A couple have been about "streaking".  This means runs.  Annoyingly, most of these issues I could resolve if they would just be a bit more patient.  I had already given warning that it might take as many as three cleans before the job quality was good so I feel that complaining so loudly about the first clean is a bit off.  At a few of the places, water gets through the frames.  They don't seem to understand that the water flow can be turned down after the first clean or two (this would resolve most of it but not all).
I have to be honest here and say that the only reasons I haven't ditched all the moaners are:-

1)  I need to build my work load up again as I allowed things to lapse a bit.
2)  I have concerns about how long Southern Water may allow me to use WFP.

When I get to a position of more work and the threat of a ban has eased (hopefully sometime), then I will have no problems with ditching the moaners - even though the moaning is sometimes justified.
Most of the issues I could resolve.  Even some of the leaky frames I could manage as I would avoid repeatedly doing the top frame.
I'm even considering asking Paul Bass to canvass a grand or so's worth of high end domestic/below 35 feet commercial work for me - though I imagine he's pretty busy right now.  I am needing to get better organised before I start making such decisions though.
Three or four decent sized jobs and I would happily throw in 15% of my work and take the risk because, although some jobs can only be done well by ladder and squeegee, I dislike my customers trying to dictate how I work.  It's my business.  I decide how I want to do a job. The main reason I like being self-employed is so that I don't have people dictating to me.  So I need to get a load of WFP friendly work in order to work more freely.  If Southern Water stop me eventually, I will have to go back on the ladder but not because a customer decides that my life and my health have no value to them.