Mmm,
I have a great deal of pride in my own work, and as Roger will confirm, I always work to a good standard.
But now I have made the move to WFP I would say that my standards have, by and large gone up by a marked degree.
But staying with the original point of the topic; I have read very little in the way of WFP users knocking ladder users in a derogatory sense, rarely do they have a pop at trad window cleaners, but the reverse is often the case with the entrenched trad window cleaners often being only to keen to have a go at the WFP user.
Spotting is usually the target for the die hard trad cleaner.
Let’s have a little comparison with the WFP….
The trad window cleaner will often leave smears on the glass, particularly Georgian windows, and if he should use a cut down squeegee there are usually marks left all over the shop, plus smudges and smears from all the detailing he will have had to do.
When he squeegees a window he will often leave lines around the edges, and even when he details there will still be scuff marks from the scrim.
Even a diligent window cleaner may have cleaned several windows before he notices that the squeegee is leaving marks behind and he need to turn or change his rubber because of a minute ‘nick’ somewhere along it.
The less diligent one may well not change his rubber regularly enough and that will lead to an overall poor finish, that really shows up after a day or two has passed.
Then there are the missed ‘kicks’ and ‘jumps’ from the squeegee.
What about the frames? How many trad cleaners even bother with the frames? Many will hardly bother to wipe a wet, dirty scrim over the sill, let alone clean the frames.
How about the front and back doors? Not the patio ones, the ordinary painted or UPVC ones, with maybe just a single pane of glass in, how many trad cleaners wash all of this down?
And how many trad cleaners use a single scrim all day long? Maybe just dry it out and use it the next day for detailing too? Or several days maybe?
Then there is applicator and the water, how many use a single bucket of water all day long?
How many don’t wash their applicator from one month to the next, let alone from one week to the next!
Then there are the ladders to contend with, in my travels I rarely see many window cleaners using ladder mits, and often the end pieces of the ladder have worn and it is just the aluminium scrubbing against the walls of the house leaving dirty marks, or the ladder has rested on the sill, scratching the UPVC sills and damaging the wooden ones.
The rubber marks from many pointer ladders are evident on many window frames too, not easy to get off.
Whereas the WFP user might leave a few spots…um, if he is clumsy he might knock over a flower pot…erm…um, oh, ok, he could spray water though an open window, or a window may be leaky, and we all know that he will struggle to do a good job on windows with oxidised frames.
Now although it is certainly easier to co
ck up a job with WFP, by and large there is less to go wrong, there are fewer elements involved in the actual cleaning of the glass and frames, it is a brush with pure water coming out of it.
Only the bristles of the brush as against, applicator, squeegee and scrim is in contact with the surface it is cleaning.
Now before all you fundamentalist trad cleaners start spluttering into your coffee, I have deliberately highlighted all the possible flaws and problems you can have doing things the trad way (or as many as I could think of while writing this anyway!)
And of course, all the above is negated by any window cleaner who is diligent and prides him or herself on doing a top job day in, day out.
The same applies to the WFP’er!!
And the WFP user is also a trad window cleaner too.
WFP is not a sell out to a machine with £ signs in your eyes, its an investment for the future and a bloody good tool to have in your vehicle…which doesn’t have to be a van either…and doesn’t have to cost anything like a grand to get set up with!!
For the most part it is us poor old WFP’ers who have to defend ourselves against the vitriol of the fundamentalist trad guy, who doesn’t just dog ear his squeegee,
but cunningly files the edges to a razor like blade….and sabotages the poor old WFP’ers hose when he is out of sight around the back of a house!
(I made up that last bit
)
Regards,
Ian