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P @ F

  • Posts: 6319
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #20 on: June 05, 2006, 09:56:15 pm »
I was only kiddin Dave !
Im sure they will come good , it does always seem to be this time of year though , i think the prob is that you get so used to doing it in the colder temps you can get away with murder , when the hot stuff comes it does take a bit more flow or a longer rinse to cool the glass , only my opinion though .
Thats what always scares me with taking on staff , most of my custom has come from one man bands who took on workers and the quality suffered .

 Rich   P @ F

 P.S . DAVE , Pay me £30 ph and i will supply 000tds , diesel and van and man and we are all winners !  ;D  
I'm so lazy I'm getting tired of it !

Moderator David@stives

  • Posts: 8829
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #21 on: June 05, 2006, 10:09:56 pm »
They  use a Truckmount  and use about 2 litres a minute.

I think i will just send the staff out on the cheap work from now on and make sure i do all the cream myself.

Dave

craig jwc

  • Posts: 1076
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #22 on: June 05, 2006, 10:15:19 pm »

 P.S . DAVE , Pay me £30 ph and i will supply 000tds , diesel and van and man and we are all winners !  ;D  

Rich

Dave's trying too sort the problem out not make it worse ;D ;D

Craig

Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #23 on: June 05, 2006, 10:16:46 pm »
I think i will just send the staff out on the cheap work from now on and make sure i do all the cream myself.

Dave

Then your staff will think you consider them second class and they will perform accordingly.


jinky230

Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #24 on: June 05, 2006, 10:22:52 pm »
I thought they might have been using backpacks that why I asked

they are good for aukward situations, but you really need the bigger pumps for rinse


I know what you are going thru as most of us have been there, maybe on a different scale,but you have got to way up the pros and cons with wfp to ladders and this will give you the correct decision to make, going down the route of doing it yourself will only tie up your time, and you will eventually give the work to the operators later down the line.A toolbox talk is required and a review of operators integrity towards  you and your  business  is also ready for a review, remember it is their livelyhood that is at stake as well

jinky

jinky

craig jwc

  • Posts: 1076
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #25 on: June 05, 2006, 10:26:23 pm »
If Dave explains the problems coming from the complaints and tells them he wants to find out what the problem is for himself then they shouldn't really question his decision.
They work from him and if they are getting slack in their work then they need a kick up the backside, or if it is a problem with the way they wfp they obviously need re-training.

Craig

JohnL

  • Posts: 723
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #26 on: June 05, 2006, 10:29:51 pm »
David, you have to do what you consider is correct for the clients, the company and the future, even if that means doing one window trad another WFP to see if the problem could be the windows or the sysytems/operators amongst all the other options you are considering.

As I am only a newbie at this game I will leave you to it and hope all the best as I know you are experienced enough to sort the problem satisfactorily

JohnL
West Somerset. On the edge of the Quantocks and looking at The Exmoor National Park.

Roy Harding

  • Posts: 1973
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #27 on: June 05, 2006, 10:56:41 pm »
Dave

There is a saying " your only as good as your worst employee "

Talk to the customers your self and do the next few cleans your self, if they come up good you know the problem.

Dont ask for feed back from your customers you may open a bigger can of worms. I have used new people using a squeegee and the customers allways check  them to see if they are doing a good job, and if the are good they dont bother again unless you really muff up.

I know if you start checking windows that were done traditional you would fiind some mark.

As I say do them your self and regain the trust of your customers.


Roy

ronaldo

  • Posts: 840
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #28 on: June 05, 2006, 11:05:32 pm »
Go it alone and the houses it suits keep and the ones it doesnt pass them on.

I was down the route of having people working for me and it was a nightmare and as ive said before if your on your own the buck stops with you, you do a bad job you cant blame anybody else.

My round is now 180 houses light to what it used to be and its now more profitable because ive took on work that suits me and at proper prices, and i.m doing it on my lonesome, its all about the quality of work you do and not the quantity of work you have.

I now sit in my chair every night and feel good because i aint a BUSY FOOL anymore.
A bad days fishing is better than a good days work !

P @ F

  • Posts: 6319
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #29 on: June 05, 2006, 11:13:53 pm »
No , your just a FOOL these days  ;D ;D ;D

 Rich   P @ F
I'm so lazy I'm getting tired of it !

DASERVICES

Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #30 on: June 05, 2006, 11:17:39 pm »
  Dave,

  I have a couple of houses which I don't trust the glass, with these ones
  I just do a quick brush and rinse and blade them . I don't wipe the edges
  apart from the top and I find this does the trick, it's about the same time as
  doing a long rinse.

  Works for bottoms but looking into how to do it for tops, I know it sounds
  long winded but it keeps my customers happy.

  Doug

ronaldo

  • Posts: 840
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #31 on: June 05, 2006, 11:18:49 pm »
Thanks Rich.      :'(
A bad days fishing is better than a good days work !

abacus

  • Posts: 229
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #32 on: June 05, 2006, 11:24:45 pm »
Dave when you isolate the problem will you please let us know what it was and the solution you came up with in case we get the same problem thanks
 regards grant
A service you can count on
SAFEcontractor approved

Ian_Giles

  • Posts: 2988
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #33 on: June 06, 2006, 10:58:14 am »
Hiya Dave,

You said that you had read where Jeff thought there might be a 'third' type of glass...I would agree with him, now and again you come across glass that just will not come right.
I've a couple like that myself, on the upstairs yo ujust do the best job you can, on the downstairs I still use WFP, but squeegee the glass, you don't have to worry about detailing and it works out to be only a quick going over with your squeegee.

I have also had windows where I have sprayed a solution of detergent (in my case Unger liquid) onto the brush head, cleaned a handful of windows in this manner and then gone back over them again, making sure they were washed and rinsed properly to get rid of any detergent residue.

If I still used my trolley, or had a backpack I would also try adding a couple of drops of GG3 to a 25l container of pure water.
I think I have read where Justin Ruggles has done this to good effect (my apologies to Justin if I have got that wrong by the way).
A couple of drops in the water shouldn't affect the TDS too much, but may well lower the surface tension of the water and therefore reduce beading.

With this glass, it is like there is a film of silicon over it, it beads up but as David has said, the beads are microscopic, and often follow  precisely the line your bristles make on the glass, and you just know that some of those will dry spotty.

Another option is too use a hand sprayer filled with whatever deterent solution you use and spray you brush head and bristles prior to starting one of these accounts.
scrub the bristles of the brush between your fingers so that you give them a thorough clean, turn on your pump and rinse the detergent off the bristles.
Providing you aren't using washing up liquid in your water this only takes a minute or so to do.

It may well be that the bristles of the brush are picking up some of the sealant the glass was bedded into, or perhaps the rubber seal too.

If your neighbours house is one of these types that always dry spotty, ask if they would mind if you experimented on them.
You could then try such things as I suggested in this reply, one or the other might work.
On one account (my cricket club actually :-\) I had to go back over the windows because they just didn't look right, so I attached my soapy applicator to my pole and gave the windows a good soapy scrub.
It more than doubled the time taken to clean the windows, and it took ages to get them washed and rinsed clean with pure water, but the results were worth it.
This won't be the problem with your windows though as these hadn't been cleaned for a few years and there was a film on the glass that only a detergent would remove.
But you really need to find an account you can experiment on, the time it takes you will be well spent, as you will know in the future who best to tackle a job that dries out in this manner.

Ian
Ian. ISM CLEANING SERVICES

herbiefatboy

  • Posts: 361
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #34 on: June 06, 2006, 06:37:25 pm »
dave i had the same problem on houses near a lorry park as you said the houses are near a railway i would think it is diesil fumes stuck on the window i just spent a little more time on mine and it sorted it out hope this is a  little help

jeff evans

Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #35 on: June 06, 2006, 08:36:23 pm »
Hi Dave.

I just think that we are at that time of of the year when complaints come in, no matter what method you use i,e trad or wfp.

You get that big red thing in the sky and it magnifies every little detail.

But i do agree that i dont think wfp works well on all types of window, i have some that no matter what i try they will not dry without spots or runs.

This means i cant have complete confidence in the system, because i am constantly going back to check work and put right mistakes.

So what i do is find which accounts i can trust to do and walk away from, and anything dodgy i will do trad.

Just my thoughts
Cheers Jeff

dai

  • Posts: 3503
Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #36 on: June 06, 2006, 11:00:55 pm »
Dave, I once had a guy working with me that got paid on the percentage. I ended up sacking him. Human nature comes into it, if the more they do ,the more they get paid, the temptation is always there to rush the work.
Now a lot has been written about having confidence in the system, complacency can creep up on you. I think I may be a bit guilty of this myself. If the customers are not complaining, it's easy to slip into over confident mode. Scrub a little less, rinse a little quicker, all of a sudden you are not doing the job right. It's OK you have every confidence in your system, this WFP is so much quicker. Then! you start getting the complaints and your confidence evaporates. It's not the WFP'S fault, remember what we were told when we started with it. It's not a magic wand. Slow down a bit, get on your ladders to check like we did in the beginning.
I'm expecting it to happen to me at any time, the complaints I mean, I feel that I am getting a bit complacent. Time I got on the ladders again say every 5th house, just to check if I'm doing the job right. With a highly compact round, and the way people talk to each other, I can't afford to mess it up. Dai

carl_foster

Re: Losing faith in wfp, ?
« Reply #37 on: June 06, 2006, 11:10:21 pm »
what you want to do is to wet the window  first with the jet you find in this warm weather the water drys fast so you will need to put a lot of water on the window to stop the water marks at the bottem or double rince..