Bill,
Of course you will have problems with wfp. It goes with the territory.
But carrying spares will allways mean you can fix it their and then or at the end of the day. Example, You damage your pole, you cannot use it, You have no spare, Stop work go home and order a new pole. hang around for three days waiting for your pole to be deleiverd cursing wfp because you cant earn any money.
Thats not wfp fault, Its down to the individual who as not had the forsight to carry a spare pole should that sitiuation ever arise.
The poles dont last long, granted. I use an 18' pole mainly. I buy cheap poles. Target time to last is a year then throw it away. If it lasts longer all well and good. I have been wfp for 10 months and all my poles are going strong not had to throw one away yet, I bought 2 new predator 18' poles last week, they only cost £79 plus vat from Brodex. Metal collar and butt on them as well. Hardly an expensive item less then 3 hours work for one.
I use m/bore hose, its never kinked on me. I have got it caught on stuff before but that is something you just except. But if you are aware what you can snag the hose on you can minimize snaging.
I think when you start wfp you allways seam to tinker with your system, trying to improve it wasting your free time. But when you have it set up perfectly and you have been at wfp for a while it does not take a lot more of your free time to get ready for the next days work.
Squeaks may not move to wfp, only he can make that choice but at least he is considering it. I thought about wfp for 2 years, thinking yes I wiil change, No I wiil stay trad. I did not think I would ever switch because I was perfectly content in the main with trad w/c. Wfp seamed an all new ball game.
The turning point for me came when I asked my freind to come round and demonstrate on my house how good it was. He kept telling me I would earn more money with it. In your dreams mate was my reply.
Despite it being a demo and me having a go on few windows, he was about 15 mins faster then me doing it trad, I was impressed with the results when they had dried, but I could not beleive how much quicker and safer it was.
On a personal note I hated it. I did three windows and my arms where wrecked. I thought if I do switch I will be safer I expect I will earn more money but I will never enjoy w/c again to the same degree.
Within 4 months of the demo I had my van set up, Though I waited untill the turn of the year to unleash it in all its raging fury on my customers.
My biggest worry was that my round would be devasted by customers leaving me in there droves and a system that I hated leaving me wanting to return to trad w/c.
But the biggest worry being I got it wrong big time.
10 months on, I love wfp, much more then trad w/c, honestly. I find it very therapeutic for some reason. If wfp got banned for some reason I might leave w/c alltogether as I do not want to go back full time to ladders.
My round is now growing at a massive rate. In the last 2 months I have lost £110.00 of work but gained £750.00 of new work. My average weekly wage as increased over the last 43 weeks by over 50%. But I am still not working any longer hours then when I was trad, and the real positive is I am nowere near as tired as I was this time last year being a trad w/c.
For me its been the right move I only wish I had done it years ago.
I am glad I am not in your position Squeaks, It is really hard to decide what to do and despite what people write none of us can stop you worrying weather its the right thing for you to do. Even if you decide to stay trad it will allways nag you in the back of your mind when you are up a ladder where would I be now if I had gone wfp.
All the best.
Nel
