[brightnclean]

My van has been in for service today so I've had a bit of time to troll through a lot of old posts on here.

I think the site is great with plenty of help and info for everyone and its all free

One big thing that seems to come across is that there are loads of posts saying that the price of this or that is ripping off or words to that effect. I also see a lot of posts stating really big money for getting good paying jobs. It may not be the same people so forgive me for making a generalisation but is it right to make as much as we can then moan about others doing the same?

I paid neary £7k for my Ionics system only 18 months ago and earlier this week took my mate to the Pure Freedom factory (Edit.. who I found out about thanks to this forum)   and he got kitted out to do the same as me for around half of what I paid which is great for him but I don't feel ripped off because of the deal he got. I,ve had good service from my kit and the company and I've made money. So what have I got to complain about?  There is loads of choice out there and in the end as the market grows and more suppliers like Purefreedom and others come along the prices will go down as they compete for our business.

You dont have to be so called  ripped off. Theres plenty of choice. Go DIY. Buy kits and fit them or get the whole lot fitted.

I did a little bit of research earlier and in one recent year Ionics declared a profit of over £400.000 . Well done I say. Its a business and they must be doing a whole lot right to achieve that in what is probably quite a small market. I run a business. OK on a different scale but I want to make as much profit as possible and always charge high enough to do that.

Mind you my mother in Law complains if she finds a tin of beans 1p cheaper in another shop from one she just bought in.  :

[Pj]

I know what you mean!

I showed my Doctor my toenail the other day, he said it might be ingrown.

He offered to rip it off!

Everyones at it!!!

[brightnclean]

I know what you mean!

I showed my Doctor my toenail the other day, he said it might be ingrown.

He offered to rip it off!

Everyones at it!!!

LOL!! PJ.

I,m beginning to like you already!!!   

[macc]

It all depends on your point of view. I run a Tucker, £6000+, worth every pound.  .

If i went the DIY route maybe £2000, i still would buy from Tucker as i'm happy.

Its only a rip off if your not happy, each to there own.

Macc

[steve k]

we are a strange lot aren`t we??

I`m the same...charging a pretty high rate for cleaning windows but always looking at ways of saving.

I could look at that attitude optimistically and say it is an entrepreneurial streak...or I could just be a money grabbing, working class, tight sod

[matt]

we are a strange lot aren`t we??

I`m the same...charging a pretty high rate for cleaning windows but always looking at ways of saving.

I could look at that attitude optimistically and say it is an entrepreneurial streak...or I could just be a money grabbing, working class, tight sod

thats the thing, we charge good money for what we do ( i know i do )

BUT

just because you go cheaper OR build your own, doesnt mean you cannot get the work the "others" do, thats 1 of the selling points i have "issues" with, when you get a demo of a system, the salesman allways spouts the old line " with this system you will get the best work and be earning big money" now this isnt true, i turn up to to comercail customers in my golf car, i give them my brochure and give them the spiel ( speil ) and thats what gets the work, ive NEVER been asked what system i use and NEVER been asked to show them it

[Moderator David@stives]

Do you lot think you are earning more than any other self employed ?

I guess less.

I have a brickie mate who does easily £1500 a week on site

Another mate who is a plumber on £80 k a year

I was watching a tv program the other morning and an employed carpet fitter was on £40 k a year , plus all the luxuries of being employed.

Now as tradesmen there tools are relatively cheap.

Dave

[steve k]

oh yes...that is a salary worth talking about!

I din`t think for one moment that it is beneficial for a WFPer to have a "named" system. It is an engineer or fabricator doing exactly what you could do to install a system -which is a grand name for what a WFP set up is- the end product is exactly the same...pure water coming out of a brush and hitting the glass.

Even at £1500 a week, I think I would absolutely detest being on the bricks all day every day ...but good on him!

[matt]

Do you lot think you are earning more than any other self employed ?

I guess less.

I have a brickie mate who does easily £1500 a week on site

Another mate who is a plumber on £80 k a year

I was watching a tv program the other morning and an employed carpet fitter was on £40 k a year , plus all the luxuries of being employed.

Now as tradesmen there tools are relatively cheap.

Dave

but dave, your taking about TRADESMEN, and i know a few of you think window cleaning is a trade, imho its not, its a semi-skilled job, take away the sqeegee and its not really semi-skilled, afterall it doesnt take much to pick up the "knack" of WFPing

i guess people will be jumping up and down at this post by me, i dont mean to upset / cause offence to any1

[matt]

Now as tradesmen there tools are relatively cheap.

on the flip side, i have thousands of pounds worth or carpentry kit in my garage, i have a router and a set of bits that cost more then my WFP system

BUT i have a set of brickies tools that cost me under 100 quid, so i guess your right in that aspect

[DaveWilkinson]

I always classed a tradesman as someone who has served an apprentiship, but i may be wrong. I'm a time served plumber and City and Guilds qualified Joiner but theres more to life than money, as alot of the guys on here have given up very good jobs just depends on what you want out of life i supose.

Dave

[JM123]

while we're on the subject of whether wcing is a trade, one thing that really gets me annoyed is people calling themselves Engineers, boiler engineers, dishwasher engineers the list goes on, you cannot call yourself an engineer if you are not one, gggrrrr.  Go to Germany or the states, engineers ARE engineers there, sure why don't I buy a doctorate off the net and tell everyone I'm a doctor.

[rosskesava]

but dave, your taking about TRADESMEN, and i know a few of you think window cleaning is a trade, imho its not, its a semi-skilled job, take away the sqeegee and its not really semi-skilled, afterall it doesnt take much to pick up the "knack" of WFPing

I hate to say this but it is true, anyone can learn to clean windows whether trad of wfp or a mixture of both.

It's whether you can make money from it. That's the difference. There is always something more to making money than just simply 'doing the job'.

That 'something' is very hard to explain. That's why windows cleaners come and window cleaners go.

Cheers

[Ian Rochester]

I have just taken on a new lad a fortnight ago and he is already keeping up with the other lads and earning his own using traditional gear, nobody would be able to tell that he has just started, he is clean, fast and professional. 

I have found that not everyone is able to develop the skill of using squeegees, etc, I have had several come and try it and fail.  Others are not comfortable going up ladders or working at height, some do not have the right level of self integrity to ensure that the window is clean before they walk away.  So with Traditional window cleaning there is some need for training, though 1-2 days is normally suffice.

This same lad also uses our WFP system, however, it took him about 5 minutes to pick that up as there is no skill in it, maybe just the need for a bit of care and attention.

Is he now a qualified window cleaning professional, is he a tradesman?  I don't think so!

He has learn some new life skills and is earning a good wage now and hopefully for a long time to come.

[Ian_Giles]

I think that we are only ripped off when you buy an item from a supplier only to find that the same item would have cost you half that much if bought elsewhere.

I'm not talking about a 5 or 10% difference, I'm talking something like a whopping 50% difference, now that annoys me no end
I got caught out buying a submersible pump, forgotten what I paid for it now...was something like £140 and I saw the same pump on another suppliers site for roughly half of that price..and it was a much smaller supplier too!

As for it being a trade...well no, it isn't specifically a trade is it? It is semi-skilled howeever it does take a great deal of skill to do a top job very quickly.

There isn't that much to learn about the craft of window cleaning.

Over the years well over a 100 people have worked for me, some for no more than an hour or two and a few for several years.

Although it generally took a day or two for them to know how to use a squeegee effectively, it still took them at least 3 months before they could fully be trusted to do a decent job consistantly and also to be able to clean at a reasonable speed.
to begin with I would clean the entire upstairs and 3/4 of the downstairs too!! they would probably be just about starting on their 3rd window as I was finishing my tenth or 11th! And I still had to go back over their work picking up mistakes
With WFP it is a simpler process for sure, quite literally anyone can rub a brush over a window but doing the job properly takes some doing, developing an effective technique takes time and getting fast at it also takes some doing, we are constantly hearing on the forum of awful WFP results, and I've seen a fair bit of it myself.
Because it feels so easy to do, so often the job doesn't get done properly, ergo, many don't continue to really develop what they are doing INTO a skill.

The other day i was cleaning the inside of a large and difficult office; over the road was a guy cleaning a house the trad way, this guy was one of the first people I ever emplyed over 22 years ago (the first one is a total twot and he's still going strong by the way).
This guy quickly whipped his ladder of the car, walked briskly up to the house, ladder up in a flash, and him up there after it...
Steeply sloping garden, ladder up against gutters and he's up there and striding up and across a steeply sloping, mossy roof to his first window.
Ok, I was wincing at the health & safety bit, but was impressed at how efficiently he got on with it...until he started to clean the window...
Nothing wrong with the way in which he cleaned it, and I'll bet he did a top job too, but my god, he was so SLOW!!!
I was doing the inside of a BIG georgian window, I went slowly at my window as I was interested in watching him work, I'd finished the window and stood there for a while watching him, then I had to go to the next office as the guy working in the office kept looking up at me wondering what the hell I was doing! (I could see his reflection in the gleaming window I'd just cleaned! )
So I gathered my gear together and went into the next office and did two smaller windows and he was STILL on the same window

This guy has come back into window cleaning after nearly 20 years, but oh boy, is he slow or what
Doing a top quality job in the shortest possible time is where you really need to be skilled, and it isn't about working hard and putting in lots of effort, this guy was doing loads of that.
As Squeaky will tell you, even after several years he is still getting quicker, so it really does take time to develop your skill at the job we do.

Ian

[simon knight]

I think that the actual cleaning part is generally the easiest bit. The 2 things that I still struggle with (and often get wrong) is the pricing of a job and knowing which jobs to swerve completely. I guess these skills will come eventually.

[rhys11]

I think that the actual cleaning part is generally the easiest bit. The 2 things that I still struggle with (and often get wrong) is the pricing of a job and knowing which jobs to swerve completely. I guess these skills will come eventually.

me to

[John Peters]

So you see, its not what you do, but how you do it that counts.

Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity!

Any fool can work for nothing!

Only birds go cheap!

Pay peanuts, get Monkey's!

Buy cheap, pay twice!

Asset rich, cash poor!

Cashflow is King!

Business's make profit, charities don't!

A fool and his money are easily parted!

If you don't make a profit, you're ripping yourself off!

If you buy crap, you've ripped yourself off!

John

[steve k]

David, I had a thought today about your mates salary on the bricks...at that rate, he must be a good bricklayer who can really lay them out so he will have the best labourer working for him. He must pay the labourer £100 a day which makes his wage £1000 a week or £200 a day. That is a window cleaners wage (for a lot of people anyway or at least achievable)

My mates a brickie and he dreams bricks.