[groundhog]

Had a call from a wealthy sounding woman yesterday asking for a quote, but she went into great detail as to why she only wanted her windows cleaned "the traditional way" :  Mainly to do with the fact that she didn't want water running down her newly painted walls, on her mock tudor house. Now I hardly do any trad at all these days apart from a couple of bungalows, and normally I would have just told her that I only use wfp due to health & safety etc etc, but she lives in a very nice area that I reguarly leaflet but have not had a lot of success with getting work in, so I said I would come and have a look, thinking that I would probably be able to talk her around about wfp when I got there.

Anyway I got there and gave her the whole wfp is brill speech that I reserve for sceptical customers, but she was having none of it insisting that her paint would run and the water would leave grooves in the wall!!!!   So I said ok I'll give you a price, but it will be double that of wfp! "Thats fine" she said, So I walked around and priced as normal, it came to £25, so I knocked on her door and told her its £50 for traditional or £25 for wfp!! "traditional please" came the reply!! every other month.   I was a bit stunned by this, and I would never go back to cleaning trad all the time, but if I find a customer who is willing to pay double for this service then why not? In fact I'm quite looking forward to getting the ladders out once every couple of months, it will make a nice change!!

[peter holley]

THATS IT.... im back to trad....im gett-ing fatter anyway....so i could use the exersise

[Elginn]

At that rate, you'll soon be on £500 a day 

[Rob.Hall]

Until another trad boy quotes £25.....

[Sir Squeaky]

I said years ago that once there's a majority of wfp cleaners you'll be able to charge a premium for traditional cleaning.
It'll be a special service soon.

[Xline Systems]

i had a custy the other day ring insisting trad, realy did not want the job so told her £15 for three windows and guess what she took it. result

[Chris Galloway]

Technically if you can do it wfp then thats the way you "should" be doing it. What you have done, if you choose to do it, is to charge extra, to have your ladder secured as per the WAHD.

I also do trad on ladders so long as they pay that bit extra. I have to tie the ladder up to balconies etc use stabilising devices, this all takes time.

I say, im a H&S responsible window cleaner and follow the H&S laws! So i dont want to have an accident and be plastered over the local newspapers should an accident happen if im not following them like i say i am.

[AuRavelling79]

On the original poster's custy (with the mock tudor beams and walls) I reckon she's had wfp which has put grooves in her previously  old painted walls because it cut a cleaner path through the muck and made it look unsightly. (You get this on Georgian/Victorian stone houses in cities like Bath with 100+ yrs of traffic film sometimes)

Now she's had them painted perhaps the painter's banging on about wfp not being as good as trad, takes the putty out the windows blah blah and put a bat up her kilt!

Whereas in reality the newly painted walls won't show up the water lines at all - if he's used decent paint of course!

Gold - The Sceptic Detective (Or is that septic defective? )

Good point about watching out for a cheaper trad boy mind!

[lovewindows]

Do my Mums , [she's got a conservatory nice and new] usualy WFP but that day i had to park miles away , she says you've not done my windows for ages etc etc said i was parked a distance away, excuses she says, so i nipped my van got my trad stuff [ forgot my sill cloth]
Doing her windows shes watching me and chatting away as mothers do "whats all that dirt on the sill ? " i said "it's from your windows " she says "Oh i used to get marks like that from the old window cleaner, cant you do them with that big pole thing instead"
Thats my way of keeping people WFP.  

[groundhog]

Until another trad boy quotes £25.....

Good for them if they want to do that! I am not really making extra money from this job, because I am probably almost double the speed with wfp, so to make it worth my while I really do have to charge double for trad!! I was really shocked that they would pay that much extra for trad, I don't intend on making a habit of it, but it will make a pleasant change to have the odd trad job here and there!!  

[matt]

At that rate, you'll soon be on £500 a day 

 

hadnt you heard, he earns that by lunch time 

[groundhog]

At that rate, you'll soon be on £500 a day 

Who says I'm not already!!