i,ve tried it both ways and imo separate vans works best regards alan
Agree. However it is possible that you can tailor the vast majority of your work to a 2 man operation, although I doubt you will ever do double the work.
When my son and I work together he heads off to the far corner of the house with his back pack and I pull the hose to the other side, usually the side which has the most direct hose pull from the hose reel. We then work toward each other doing tops and then bottoms.
When we work a couple of blocks of flats he knows what his sections to clean are and I know mine. We have got it down to a fine art and generally finish around the same time. We also help each other pack away. We each use a hose reel. He does the main windows and I do the Juilet Balconies. Whilst he does the windows in the front of the block I do the juilet balconies at the back. We leave the hoses where they are and I then move to the front using his hose reel and he uses mine on the back. It saves getting hoses all tangled up.
We do find it helps us with motivation and we get a fair amount done. If his work is getting a little behind I find that for compact work it is better for each of us to work off our own van. He will start at the top of the street and I will start at the bottom and meet up in the middle.
There are two other groups of cleaners that work the same area as I do. One group has 3 and they do trad. The one guy runs around with his ladder raised (never lowers it unless he has to) and does the tops whilst the second guy does the bottoms. None of them do any detailing or clean the frames. The 3rd guy carries a bucket of dirty water and hammers on each door for payment or writes out the slips. They scream and shout and swear at each other, but get through each house like a dose of salts. They don't care what the end results are and have no pride in their work - £2.50 for fronts and £5.00 all windows for a 3 bedroomed semi keeps their customers.
The second group are a little better. There are 2 cleaners and the boss man. They arrive in a Transit carrying a 1000 litre IBC tank in the back with pure water. The boss' responsibility is to keep a couple of 25l plastic containers full for the cleaner who does the tops wfp with a backpack. The other guy does the bottoms trad, usually a little behind to allow the tops to drip off. His job is to open the back gate etc whilst the back packer is cleaning the top fronts. He then does the side and back tops as the second guy trads the bottom. The boss collects or write out tickets.
They do a much better job than the first group.
There is another couple who work the estate I live in. The young lad wfp's the tops using a backpack on a pram, fast but a totally unacceptable job - streeks are ok. He then runs his wet brush over the bottom windows and the trad cleaner just squeeges them off. They have lost tons of work to a couple of other cleaners, but they will eventually find their 'level'.
Spruce
