The W/fed pole seems to be taking over this forum, W/cleaning issues? W/fed pole issues more likely.
As I have said before in previous posts i am not against W/fed poles but, myself and a lot of other W/cleaners have got our work down to a fine art without the W/fed pole.
In the begining, a lot of years ago, when I first started cleaning windows, I used to do a contract for the local council. I had to carry a ladder up 2 flights of stairs to clean the inside of the top windows. I thought to myself, there must be an easier way to do this. My grandad had a couple of bamboo poles in his greenhouse and what i did was tie them togetherand probally made the first pole. We were using, at that time spoungees(spelling) for putting the water on the windows. I then stuck my squeeggee on the end of the bamboo stick and poled the window which was about 14 feet from the ground. I just used this pole for this job and never thought any more about it. Looking back, considering this was about 25 years ago, if I had any savy, I could have made a fortune if I thought of making poles, not of bamboo, but some other material.
But that is by the by. Not long after me and my brother were cleaning a garage, and I was using a wooden broom handle to put the water on and take it off.
He said to me "your to slow with that thing" I said to him, I bet you a £5 that I can clean a window quicker than you, he said, your on.
Bearing in mind that the window was 12 foot high and 8 foot wide, he had to use a ladder to get to the top and squeeggee half way down then come off the ladder and do the rest. I used the broom stick to put the water on and take it off to half way down then do the rest. I won the £5 hands down.
When you talk about what is faster , better or what. In my opinion, and what I have gathered over the years in W/cleaning, people just want their windows cleaned, and if they want their frames cleaned, ledges wiped it is all extras or included in the price of the job. Not a problem if you are a Traditional/W/cleaner, we can give the customers a choice. W/fed pole men have no choice nor do the customer, £15 for cleaning your windows and frames ledges etc, no, just clean my windows, I cannot do that, it is all inclusive, they have no choice, either everything or nothing.
I aggree that W/fed poles are useful for hard to reach or get to windows, we just dont do them and the customer understands that.
Along came t-bars, visa versas and the "ultimate" the "B/flip" the best invetion for T/wW/cleaners, your windows that were hard to reach, now you can get them .
Ther is a lot to say about W/fed poles but there is a lot more to say about T/W/cleaners. Hope you enjoyed my little ditty. Tam.