Bear with me for a minute! I first cleaned windows in 1989. I have done other jobs over the years but always seem to end up coming back to it! Have been full time now for the last 5 years. I work with a good friend of mine on a mixed commercial/domestic round. We have a wfp system which is currently being reinstalled into a trailer, so are using our ladders for the whole round at the moment. We use gg4, microfibres, Rojak stoppers and Unger kit. Records are kept using George and Pocket George. (I mention all this to show that we are not cowboys etc…) I have found the forums to be a very useful aid when sourcing new kit, clearing up concerns over WAHD, wfp and so on. However I have a couple of points that I would like to make…
1. The constant snarking between wfp suppliers/users and those who currently use ladders is really getting me down. Each side makes valid points, can it not just be left there. If people want to use ladders they surely have got enough information to make that decision!? Those who seem to be wfp’s biggest advocates appear to be the ones who will make the most money out of it. I built my own system up (with the help of a local supplier) and with Ionics brushes, 100m of Tricoflex hose, jumbo r/o and d/i, pump, battery and all the gubbins that goes with it, it came at just over £1000. When companies are selling systems for twice that with lesser quality components their concern for window cleaners safety seems to be tinged with something else. I appreciate everyone needs to make a living but could they please temper their incessant wfp proselytising? (As an aside, having switched back to trad methods recently we have noticed that when you get up close to previously wfpd windows they aren’t that hot. There is baked on bug poo and bird business that the brushes just haven’t removed. A number of customers have said they are glad to see us doing the windows by hand. A friend of mine who has also invested heavily in wfp reckons that 90% of his customers would prefer him to switch back! We need to strike a balance between what’s good for us and what’s good for the customer.)
2. At the risk of destroying motivation amongst the window cleaning workforce, it is just window cleaning, for pity’s sake! If we all downed tools tomorrow and no more windows were cleaned would anyone really care? Life would go on (admittedly a little dingier!). My point I guess is just let it go and let’s not get stressed doing what is claimed to be one of the least stressful jobs you can do! I realise this doesn’t sit well when read with my previous point but hey I don’t care!
I sorry if this seems a little negative. I like these forums and have found them very interesting and often entertaining, but just recently I have been less and less inclined to have a look at threads when they just seem to descend in to the same sort of backward and forward arguments that can be found on a million others. Feel free to gun me down, I’m sure you will…
Ken Long
