[dazmond]

as most of u know ive been trad for 16 years now and i felt every bit of my 38 years today!first time ive climbed a ladder in a month this week! ::)and itll take me a few weeks to get into my stride.the windows are filthy as most of my round 3-4 weeks late like a lot of other windys!

i would like an honest summary of u wfpolers who have switched from trad as to the difference its made to ur worklife.eg. work completed/earnings versus higher overheads etc esp those that have changed over in the last year or so.all aspects of the changeover to wfp good and bad would be appreciated.

best wishes

dazmond

[prestige cleaners]

well i was lucky as i started  straight away wfp, but i know if i had to do windows the old way it would take me a lot longer. its also safer which is a bonus, i can clean external gutters easier, which is a nice earner, the windows stay cleaner for longer so i can do 8 week cleans and charge more, ie £20 for a run of the mill house, which normally you would charge £10-£12 a month so that doubles your hourly rate,

1st time cleans are quicker with wfp

kinder on your knees

only cons ive seen is freezing pipes, but even trad have their failings in winter.. so try and get a heated system if you can afford it,

oh and im always untangling my hoses, my only overheads so far is filters about £80 a year

oh and if you need to buy a wfp system the cheapest is about £1000 inc all poles etc

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

I was trad for 9 years before wfp and have now been wfp for 3 years.

Disadvantages are basically the change over from trad to wfp, customers in general don't like change so you shed a few.  It's also very hard to get good results on the first clean especially for a wfp newby.  Lots give up wfp in the first 3 months for this very reason, the body also needs to adjust.  Another disadvantage is the cost of equipment, gone are the days of spending no more than a few hundred on gear each year, it's more likely to be thousands.  And as time passes you realise that it's worth buying the more expensive stuff, like carbon poles.

Advantages, people in the long run prefer wfp to trad, they realise it does a complete job with no risk.  You can get through much more work, about 40% more at least.  New customers like it as well, your much more likely to pick up new customers wfp than trad, just the fact that your seen more with hoses running all over the place.

As for freezing pipes and tangled hoses, these are things that are eliminated with a good working method.  I've only taken 1 day off this winter due to snow and that was because I didn't know if the roads would be clear.  I've had overnight temperatures down to -7ish but have heated the water before work and also keep in mind not to leave the hoses or poles out in the cold doing nothing.

I think nowadays that a professional wc needs both tools in the bag trad and wfp, especially for commercial.

Simon.

[gary mallett]

ok honest opinion .joking aside . been wfp over 4 years now .lost 1% of work in first 12 months.cos of it . but picked up 10% extra cos of it . not tired , flying through work it really is a revelation. yor concer about cost . after initial set up  i have spent 700£ in that time on filters resin bits etc not much over 4 years.takes me 5 minutes to turn my filter on put hose in van easy . nothing frozen this year bring bits in house for 9 nights . and that is a first,. last 3 years not once.do it you can change for £1500 and thats van mount and full set up

[ccmids]

go wfp you wont look back  cant say how much you can earn you never knows who's looking at the forum ,given them ideas.
go for it.

[gewindows]

You will be rocketed into the fourth dimension 

[gewindows]

Thats because trad poling is 4 times slower than WFP.

[daz1977]

to be honest wfp kills ur arms till you get use to it, so buy a light pole,  the hose is annoying as hell till you get use to it snagging on things,

i find my self thinking that i am going to fast on some houses as they seem to be cleaned really quickly,

but over all   i only do trad when i really have to, and i have dropped custys, who want trad only,  as i dont want to fall off a ladders, just because some one wont wait 30 mins for there windows to dry

[leapstallbuildings]

Much higher outlay as I went straight in with largish van and system while converting from trad.  Was slower at first while I got used to it and did first cleans.  Once I speeded up, on a few jobs there is no or little speed gain.  On most jobs I gained a fair bit.  On some jobs I cut the time by well over half.  Generally, the larger the job or the more awkward the job is from a ladder, the better the speed gain.  I lost a few customers.  Some as direct result of disliking WFP, a few mysteriously but possibly due to WFP, and some because I dropped them as they were linked detached and they were underpriced anyway.  The latter weren't so bad when I had to get a ladder ofanyway but were a pain once I no longer wanted to use a ladder.  Total initial loss of custom around 5%.
The work I've gained through having WFP makes that original 5% loss look like a miniscule drop in the ocean.  On the third year of WFP the turnover was nearly double my last year trad.  However, first year WFP only equalled last year trad while I was sorting myself out - also needed time off for personal reasons.  At first, I had a lot of time off while my workload slowly rose to fill the gaps that occurred in my round.
I even get work referred to me by other (trad) window cleaners if they are unable to do a particular job - including the job that is my largest yearly earner.  The larger turnover was achieved without any canvassing.  I just advertised more and it slowly came to me.  Plus I subbed some work too.
In spite of recent snow and ice, over all I feel there is less down timwe with WFP as I now have the confidence to work in moderate rain - something I would never have done before.

[amayze]

ok honest opinion .joking aside . been wfp over 4 years now .lost 1% of work in first 12 months.cos of it . but picked up 10% extra cos of it . not tired , flying through work it really is a revelation. yor concer about cost . after initial set up  i have spent 700£ in that time on filters resin bits etc not much over 4 years.takes me 5 minutes to turn my filter on put hose in van easy . nothing frozen this year bring bits in house for 9 nights . and that is a first,. last 3 years not once.do it you can change for £1500 and thats van mount and full set up

**** STOP PRESS *****

Gary Mallett has finally posted a sensible comment.
AND managed to not have a pop at trad w/c's

**** STOP PRESS ****

[Ian Lancaster]

Dazmond:

Only38?? and you're feeling the strain?  I only changed to WFP when I was 61.  At first I thought I'd been conned because I could trad faster than I could WFP, and that's still true on ground floors - I can squeegee faster than I can rinse.

For a short time I went back to trad, because I actually missed running up and down ladders!!

For me the biggest advantage of WFP was the ability to clean all the frames/sills/doors in the same time it used to take me to do just the glass with a quick wipe round the frames.

There is obviously a time saving by not climbing ladders, but I find this is offset to some extent by the extra time involved in setting up WFP, moving the van etc (in terms of moving it's far quicker to sling the ladder on your shoulder, pick up your bucket and walk to the next job).

As to more earnings, of course there is an increase in the amount of work that I can do but it isn't that great - in my youth (up to 60 :) I reckon I could do perhaps 20% more in the same time by WFP than trad.

Having said that, I learned the job doing schools in central London - we were paid £10 for the whole school so we had to go like stink to make a living - and the habit never wore off!!

[gewindows]

Dazmond:

Only38?? and you're feeling the strain? 

He's had a hard life, dont be too hard on him 

[jonboywalton75]

In the last three months i have changed over to WFP.
Its been hard and you feel like throwing your equipment over a cliff at times but if you persevere it's worth it.
You could get by with just a backpack and di, poles etc at first.
That is what i would reccomend to begin with.
Once you're used to it (it took me about six weeks) you can earn 30% more in a day and not going up ladders has been like a dream come true.
I'm 52 by the way, and do mostly domestic.
Go for it!

[gewindows]

I was told when I went over to WFP that there would be times that I wanted to jack it all in and swear I was going back to ladders.

I can honestly say I never thought that once.

The worse it got for me was my first day when I was unaccustomed to the different method of cleaning physically; so I ached a bit.

Apart from that I dont understand the posts about it being hard or testing or difficult or whatever people find with it when they first go over.

[jonnyald]

i read on here that you can mess ur neck up long term poling. i do a fair bit trad poling  and really hate lookin up cricking my neck.  i guess you wfp guys get used to it?

[dazmond]

thanks guys for all ur comments!i will be getting a van later on this year around july time and i will be putting a 350/400 lt tank in the back and twin DI s.also i will go straight for a c/f pole i think.im used to trad pole work so i dont think the strain will do me in!

my tap water is 65 tds

ive virtually had a month off with the snow and xmas and ive put on a few pounds and had a lot of sloping roofs to climb on yesterday!had 3 days on the ladder and i feel like ive ran a marathon! : : .

cheers all

dazmond

[L.Doubtfire - The Blade Runner]

Jonny,on your avartar,are you `trad`poling that window glass?
How high do ya go when you are `trad`poling.
WFP is just another tool in our armoury.
`Trad`ways can be much quicker than WFP.
I`ve got many jobs where I`ve switched over to WFP from `trad`,
And then gone back to `trad`because of those reasons.


Lewis Doubtfire Gleem Clean ( The Blade Runner )

[JRDEasiReach]

I was lucky i started off with WFP and whilst i can also do trad i cant bring myself to even pole upstairs and trad downstairs, tbh that would involved too much faffing about and id rather just get on with it, with me not having that many customers in the month yet i just stagger them out and whilst doing this it allows me to get quicker whilst doing a good job at the same time, if you have the odd house that has 40 plant pots throughout the garden it will make you cross at the thought of going into it with a hose to get caught up every 2 seconds but when you think of how quick you can get when you are used to the garden etc then it gets easier, i find my repeats far quicker than before, if i have a house with a conny etc it takes me no more than 30 mins to do the lot thats arrive and get set up and do the work reel up close up van and stick a note through door, which is quite fair.

[gary mallett]

ok honest opinion .joking aside . been wfp over 4 years now .lost 1% of work in first 12 months.cos of it . but picked up 10% extra cos of it . not tired , flying through work it really is a revelation. yor concer about cost . after initial set up  i have spent 700£ in that time on filters resin bits etc not much over 4 years.takes me 5 minutes to turn my filter on put hose in van easy . nothing frozen this year bring bits in house for 9 nights . and that is a first,. last 3 years not once.do it you can change for £1500 and thats van mount and full set up

**** STOP PRESS *****

Gary Mallett has finally posted a sensible comment.
AND managed to not have a pop at trad w/c's

**** STOP PRESS ****

[gary mallett]

make the most of it ,cos its only a one off. more trad top tips to follow