[Granny]

Hi
Just got this enquiry -
Hi
"I have approx 326 Flats in the area approx 5 windows per flat and will require cleaning twice a year including the Upvc  all these flats are new and just in the process of being built."

Would the price be lower than you would quote for each domestic property with individual customers?
Round here for a 5 window flat I would look for about £5-£6.
G.

[Erithwc]

So you would charge £5 - £6 for a flat on the 6th floor 

Have you asked how high the flats are 

Paul

[Carl@Cwc]

So you would charge £5 - £6 for a flat on the 6th floor 

Have you asked how high the flats are 

Paul

thats the big question there m8

exactly what height are you looking at?
then its dead easy to price up.

[Small but perfectley formed]

£10'per flat don't forget 6 months dirt 

[Steve Sed]

£10'per flat don't forget 6 months dirt 

£2 per window on ground floor? You have to be realistic and you can't quote without visiting. Is he expecting a builder's clean? Too many unknowns to quote.

[Granny]

Hi
Front

Back

1 Flat upstairs and 1 down!
5 windows and a door on the ups
4 windows and a door downs
If any are on the 6th floor they won't get done by me!!!
G.

[Spruce]

Where we are in the North East I would aim for £7 upstairs flat and £6 downstairs flat considering the cleaning schedule.

Be prepared to be asked to include the cleaning of the door 'canopies' in with the price. I can't see how they are made but they appear to be flat without a drip edge underneath. Whilst you may be tempted to say ok to get the job they could end up taking longer than you think, and they may need to be done on the top and underneath. Depending on how wide they are you may not be able to do it completely from the ground. If they don't have a drip edge, they will be green underneath in no time. And, because they are flat, birds muck will dry, solidify and bake hard onto it.

I wouldn't be surprised if cleaning these canopies takes longer than the windows.

I would get in there first and in a written quote, probably add a couple of quid for each flat, but that you may need to renegotiate the price of this after the first clean.

Oh, the builders clean and sparklie clean before handover is the builders responsibility, so this is a maintenance clean and you will not be responsible for removing paint and cement that the builders have left behind.

You also need to clarify what he terms the UPVC. If he calls the UPVC the fascias then this will be more, but if he just means the window frames then that's included.

Nice job if you get it!

[richardlingard]

great advice fro Spruce above ^  you won't go far wrong following this guidance, by the way where you from in the North East buddy

[Spruce]

great advice fro Spruce above ^  you won't go far wrong following this guidance, by the way where you from in the North East buddy

Hi Richard,

If the question was for me - Saltburn by the Sea near Redcar - Teesside.    If is wasn't,  Granny appears to be from Huddersfield.

Spruce

[Blue Frog Systems]

is look at the job as 3 bed semis. if they are all like that and on the same estate your laughing.

its about 160 houses at £10 a pop easily done in a week. just make sure that you can get access to the backs and as spruce said its the windows only. thats a nice weeks work if it is only once every 6months. also id get a contract in place if you can

[richardlingard]

hey, not too far away from us, were in Newcastle (ish) :-)

[William McCafferty]

Hi Granny

I do a lot of apartment cleans from all the windows to just the communals, the biggest factors to look at is how many times will you need to move you van, how long will it take to do and who else is quoting.

The van moves shows on how much each property is worth, the more moves the higher the price, How long will it take, well you have 160 propertys to do, how many staff are you going to take with you and what methods will you use, personally I would use 3 members of staff, 2 on wfp for the upper windows and 1 on the bottoms using trad methods, set the wfp guys go first with the trad guy following, but this depends on the setup of the estate.

and finally who else is quoting, if its sole traders then you can get a higher price, but if its companies that employ then the price will drop.

I would take the canopy out of the clean, it might be cheaper to replace every 2 -3 years rather than pay say £1 every 6 months to clean, point this out, they will not have thought about it.

Pricewise, well it depends on how bad you want it, but I would not be surprised if it went for £4 to £5 per property.

[AJ]

if its any help, today two of us cleaned 331 flats spread over varied height blocks some grd - 2nd & some grd - 3rd floor. this doesn't include the internal commons.
two vans, two men, four moves each van, used approx 1400L of water in 9 hours.
goes a lot less than £5 per flat.

[Dean Taberner]

Because of the safety in numbers element and it all being wfp I'd go for £3.50 a flat and probably get the job based on other peoples quotes so far.

I'd turn up with 2 vans and 4 guys and absolutely hammer it. £1141 in the bag.

Dean.

[Spruce]

Because of the safety in numbers element and it all being wfp I'd go for £3.50 a flat and probably get the job based on other peoples quotes so far.

I'd turn up with 2 vans and 4 guys and absolutely hammer it. £1141 in the bag.

Dean.

Dean,
now you've got me. Personally I think £3.50 a flat is too cheap for a first clean every six months, but there is a big difference between £2119 and your quote of £1141.
How long do You think four guys would take to do 326 flats hammering them out?

If Granny was working on his own, then I would believe the job to last about 7 days bearing in mind that as the days pass you will have less energy. (I did notice Blue Fog would expect to finish that in 5 days, but I would always allow extra.)

I must then go back to motor sales tactics and firstly ask the owner if the tenants/owners pay for window cleaning every month from their levy and what has been budgeted.

I still believe those canopies are going to be a sticking problem.

What ever Granny does, I would suggest he has a price he will not go under and if the price is required to be lower then he must also be prepared to 'happily' walk alway from it - no regrets.

[Londoner]

I smell a scam.  Companies big enough to have that many flats (326!) being built wont usually sent out an unsolicited email to an oik like you  (or me)  that they don't even know.

Is this going to lead to a requirement to send a £150 registration fee to some hooky agency?

Do you actually know of any 326 flat developments in the area? Its not the sort of thing you would miss very easily

[Dean Taberner]

I'd say 4 guys could do it in a day,

Remember they are all on top of each other.

Each flat only has 5 windows and they're very simple windows and would take less than a minute each to clean.

The important factor is the safety in numbers element. No traveling in between jobs etc.

Honestly it can be done.

Dean.

[William McCafferty]

I agree with Dean, this contract is a easy one to complete, personally I could do it in a day with 1 van and 3 cleaners.

The costs involved of say £60 per day per cleaner plus running costs = £200 the rest is profit, I use to run a shop and the profit margin was double plus 20%, so a days work comes to £480

Divide that by the amount of flats and you get a figure of £1.47 a flat

Of course we are window cleaners and don't have shops, or pay rent/rates and all the other costs involved so we round our figures up.

of course I could price the job up at my minimum charge of £12 front and back for my customers, so the quote should be £3912

and I would still do it in 1 day

thats the difference with pricing big jobs, the price does not go up because you are working higher or have loads of propertys to clean, you have to find the fine balance between a daily rate and a acceptable rate for the job