[Simon Carter]

 Yes

[Moderator David@stives]

no way what about groundfloor windows and insides .
a skill worth learning well and in the right hands there is nothing faster or easier

[24-7 S C Services]

HI Everyone,

I am afraid wfp will not kill the squeegee, so Simon, I have to agree with David on this one.

We will always need the squeegee for internal work.

Andrew

[Moderator David@stives]

i new we would agree on something one day 

[24-7 S C Services]

PMSLOL - David

[brett walker]

The squeegy and wfp are both here to stay and while you have got the advice about wfp from people like Andrew 24-7 and many more on this forum wfp will advance.

Different tools for differrent jobs

Brett.

[24-7 S C Services]

Thanks Brett

I agree, both are here to stay and I am always happy to give advise

 

[Simon Carter]

Ok, maybe not kill it. After all, some still insist that the best thing to clean a window with is a chamois.
David, you say nothing is faster or easier than a squeegee. Is that comming from someone who has genuinely tired both methods?. Unless you have used a water fed pole for a good few months, how can you make such an observation?. I cleaned windows with a squeegee for over ten years & of course I retain it for internal work, but to do external window cleaning I would use a pole now every time. I run a business where my operatives choose their method. All but one have now embraced the wfp approach, two off them having insisted that they would never do so. Both are now total converts.

[Moderator David@stives]

i am like lightning .as for just getting my squeegie out and going around the houses .yes i have tried a pole i have got one ,as i said i would probably use it on upstairs if i had confidence in it .
on a previous post i stated i took over £800 in 3 1/2 days doing traditional total of 25 hours .maybe i could of done the tops a bit quicker but i doubt it and definately not the bottoms. when i clean i can use my left as quick as my right and sometimes both hands together .on one of my jobs there is a wall of patio windows i start by wetting the far right one ,then as i am squeegieing it my left hand is wetting the pane to my left at the same time and can clean the entire row of windows in no time at all with no wiping at all and know i can just walk away straight away without worry

.it fasinates passers by who normally stop to watch.
after 7 years i know nearly every trick in the book .
and my money is not made by chasing my tail all day .it is made by being ruthless with jobs i think i cannot squeeze any more money out of and i am very selective about the new work i take on

if you spend all day  cleaning every thing in sight you will not have enough time to sit back and think outside the box so as to speak

[Moderator David@stives]

simon

well done on employing staff ,how do you find it ,what about bad weather etc, are they paye.i am interested in this side .
i know if i get employees it has to be wfp for them without a doubt as i have said i am not anti wfp .i am just not convinced apart from the safety side.

[Simon Carter]

The day I started thinking " outside the box " was the day I stopped trying to see how much I could earn in a day from my own labour.  When I realised that I had to delegate to progress, I soon discovered that the  amphidextrose or jet propelled were thin on the ground. With ordinary mortals I'm still cleaning six times as many houses as I was before on my own & I rarely turn work down. How can that make sense ?.
I appreciate that there is a lot more skill to using a squuegge than a pole, but that doesn't make it better as long as the result is acceptable, which it is.  When my roof needed retiling I didn't ask to have it thatched so I could admire how skilfull the craftsman was.

[Moderator David@stives]

i know where you are coming from ,i am starting to think along the same lines in regards to employing staff etc .do you do a lot of commercial which is where i think wfp and staff is best suited  ,the jury is still out on domestic .as regards of getting rid of work there are just some areas what bog you down with lower pay and sometimes make you run late on more lucrative work.i rarely run late these days as i have probably doubled my hourly rate in the last 3 years by lateral thinking and work less hours because of it .
in the past to employ staff it just would of not payed due to low prices and staff not being as quick.now my prices are very good and that has now given me the foundation in which to employ staff.
it has taken me 7 years to get where i am now and who knows where i may be in another 7 years.as you have said you have been cleaning a lot longer.in my area which is semi rural with a few small towns dotted about and very low local wages.
any advice on staff matters would be gratefully recieved.

[Simon Carter]

I would like to say it's easy David, but then what is ?. Three things prompted me. I was window cleaning for a while, frankly looking for something better to do, when all of a sudden I realised I wasn't getting any younger & maybe I needed to start taking what I was doing a bit more seriously, having thought the grass may be greener somewhere else. That caused me to start working harder as a one man band. Consequently, in my late thirty's I started to get all sorts of aches & pains. If I had carried on, I think I would have been crippled within five years. Finally,  a new client casually mentioned that his father used to be a window cleaner. When I persued the conversation, he told me that his Dad fell off his ladder & died just the year before after having been a window cleaner for fourty years !
Window cleaning is a good business with plenty of demand.  It's evolving, especially since the wfp arrived, but it won't go away.
I read your posts with interest. You are obviously an excellent window cleaner. So was I, I liked to think. I just didn't want it to be my epitaph. If you believe you will still be in the industry in the long term then I think you have to think beyond your own labour. After all, no matter how good you are, no work, no pay.
How you structure your business if you wish to expand beyond your own efforts is a mindfield with no simple answers, but I wish you luck if you decide that the time is right for you to go down that road. For me, I was running out of options & still cleaning windows, if the arthritus allowed, in twenty years time didn't appeal.

[Rick]

good points simon old chap ya got me thinking now  but if this job has one let down its health if you havent got that your in trouble and maybe a few more of us should be ready for the said day....

[Terry_Burrows]

 ;)Be interesting to see if the wfps last as long as the squee gees!

[Sir Squeaky]

;)Be interesting to see if the wfps last as long as the squee gees!

No chance, there'll be another invention soon.

Like to see them do 3 windows in 9 seconds eh Terry?

[Ian_Giles]

Mmm, some interesting posts and topics have suddenly spouted with regards WFP V Squeegee
As many know, I am a WFP'er, also use trad an awful lot too. Much of my business is shop orientated, there are many areas where WFP either isn't possible or practical.

But on my residential?

No arguements there, WFP all the way.

One chap I know (his wife works alongside him) has a very well thought out system, he has a van mount and 2 trolleys, his work is 95% residential.

The trolley system is the Omni-trolley, his van is a Citroen Relay.
They pull up in a street, roll out their respective trolley's and away they go.

For then they find it quicker than using their van mount setup direct from the van, unloading ad re-loading the van is a moments work, and quicker than ladders too.

There may well be some of you who really are like greased lightning with ladders and squeegee, but I don't care how fast you are, on a house with a dozen or more georgian windows the WFP'er will leave you trailing in his/her wake.

By and large, and even on quite small accounts the WFP will do a better overall job.

Don't kid yourself that it takes little skill to use, it doesn't, as anyone who has started sown the WFP road will tell you, there is a hell of a learning curve.

We don't even need to mention the safety aspect (even though I just have ) and of course health and safety regs will begin to bite more and more, you may even get refused insurance if you are working off ladders for window cleaning.


Trad methods will always be there, remember, 50 years ago who the heck had heard of a squeegee?

WFP isn't a fad, the thing is, it works! And damn well too, and that, combined with all health and safety aspects means it is here to stay.

It's ladders and NOT the squeegee that are going to be marginalised!

Change is in the air me-laddo's, ignore it at your peril!!


Right, Time for me to fire up the barbie and char some meat



Regards,


Ian

[poleman]

Ian

Have to agree, the wind of change is here, dont get left behind, I moved over 3 years ago and have a big team of window cleaners out with WFP earning me a dame good living, tryed doing that with ladders for 16 years and never got any where, if you have not jumped into WFP then do

Andy

[thewindowcleaner1]

Insert Quote 
Quote from: Terry_Burrows on Today at 02:11:04pm
;)Be interesting to see if the wfps last as long as the squee gees!

No chance, there'll be another invention soon.

Like to see them do 3 windows in 9 seconds eh Terry? 

When the other invention comes along then I will embrace it, if it cleans windows, does the job and is easy to use why not?
I read story's that when the motor vehicle first appeared on the road you would have to have a person running in front with a flag, the feeling was that it would never catch on against the horse,
I now employ that person who would have to run infront of me to use a WFP to clean windows, he makes a good living and make a modest amount from him, multiply by 6 and I can run my bussines not work it.

Alan