[jinky230]

guys food for thought

with traditional window cleaning you only had to keep your sweeguees cloths and ladder in good nick- maintenance was a doddle and costs were moderate

as we move in to wfp have we really looked at the bigger picture, we all insist that it is safer, but are we really justifying our investment.

I look at the maintenance and the amount of things that could go wrong
and compared to traditional this is scary.

pumps and varistreams can pack in
poles clamps can wear
brushes jets and connectors can have faults
hoses can get damaged
battery and chargers can go wrong
ro and di filters can muckup
renewal of resin
then there is the van the wear and tear on vehicle due to excess weight
what if your van is off the road you are not earning
always easy for a mate to transport a ladder for you for a day or 2

then you are let down with suppliers they cant get the parts to you quick enough
so you miss out on several days work and you say it is ok i stay beside my supplier. but what if they are on holiday or do not have the parts in stock

you have now put yourself in the position of relying on equipment
so what do you do - do you backup with buying excess equipment to cover you
then you employ and they need to be equipped and have backup as well.costs start to escolate again

maybe sweeky has got it right and we cant admit it as we are so rapped up trying to justify our investment.

personnally i went into wfp because I have had too many falls from roofs, and I am in a position after many years to afford the crossover, but I do threat for new lads starting out that they do not realise the costs involved not just starting up but the ongoing cost of resin filters and renewing equipment

I believe if you are just doing domestic you need to think this thru before the profits you made traditional start dwindling keeping up with wfp

also meet someone in your area who is also wfp and you can back each other up- equipment wise

wfp is a great system - but at a cost and you need to be prepared to soak these costs which do not stop when you buy a system, once you introduce this to your customers there is no going back, because you have told then it is the best thing since slice bread,just hopely at a cost you can afford

just my view jinky

[jeff1]

Hi Jinky

That must be one of the first honest postings I have seen regarding wfp,
I'm still Traditional, but I am changing over once I can get my funds right, after spending almost £21,000 on builders.

but what I will say to you is that because of this forum, and reading posts on it over the past few months, I had already come to the same conclusion about added costs and replacment parts.
I had already intended to buy replacment parts for everthing including pumps, ro/di, pipes and joints, even spare poles, and brushes,etc.   so in affect buying two systems.

Just like you said its extra costs, but one we all must bare, so as not to be out of business for a few days or weeks.

How can you justify to your customer, when you turn up with ladders one day, just because a hose or clip has gone, and you cant get a replacment for a while, so like you said I think spares are a must.
I know a lot of wfp guy's on here already carry spares with them, but more spares = less proffit.

[Londoner]

Yes, its all true. The other thing that wasn't mentioned is that when you start out you usually buy a small RO system and cheap poles etc.
Then with time you start to realise that you need to upgrade things.
However, I still think its better with WFP and the potential for earning more is definitely there.

[jinky230]

Jeff vince is right we all go in with the cheap route in mind and end up buying
dearer poles etc for less hassle, so take this in to concideration

One person I know who did it right from day 1 is gary from glr he went the dearer
route from day one and got it right avoiding false economy

however if you do get it wrong then the cheaper stuff can always act as backup

one of the things I got wrong was buying an unger pole, and before any one sticks up for it, it is just my opinion, I personnallly think they are crap and a total waste of money, an extra couple of quid could have got it right, and I have talked to other wfp and they think the same.

I thought I would load this post for newbees as some guys are under the impression that a couple of quid gets you up and running and might not be prepared for the long term costs.

We want to bring lads on in wfp to bring it into the public eye and have it as standard that the public accept.Not have them go so far then throw it in a cupboard and badmouth the system because they did not cater for costs from the beginning.

jinky

[Paul Coleman]

guys food for thought

with traditional window cleaning you only had to keep your sweeguees cloths and ladder in good nick- maintenance was a doddle and costs were moderate

as we move in to wfp have we really looked at the bigger picture, we all insist that it is safer, but are we really justifying our investment.

I look at the maintenance and the amount of things that could go wrong
and compared to traditional this is scary.

pumps and varistreams can pack in
poles clamps can wear
brushes jets and connectors can have faults
hoses can get damaged
battery and chargers can go wrong
ro and di filters can muckup
renewal of resin
then there is the van the wear and tear on vehicle due to excess weight
what if your van is off the road you are not earning
always easy for a mate to transport a ladder for you for a day or 2

then you are let down with suppliers they cant get the parts to you quick enough
so you miss out on several days work and you say it is ok i stay beside my supplier. but what if they are on holiday or do not have the parts in stock

you have now put yourself in the position of relying on equipment
so what do you do - do you backup with buying excess equipment to cover you
then you employ and they need to be equipped and have backup as well.costs start to escolate again

maybe sweeky has got it right and we cant admit it as we are so rapped up trying to justify our investment.

personnally i went into wfp because I have had too many falls from roofs, and I am in a position after many years to afford the crossover, but I do threat for new lads starting out that they do not realise the costs involved not just starting up but the ongoing cost of resin filters and renewing equipment

I believe if you are just doing domestic you need to think this thru before the profits you made traditional start dwindling keeping up with wfp

also meet someone in your area who is also wfp and you can back each other up- equipment wise

wfp is a great system - but at a cost and you need to be prepared to soak these costs which do not stop when you buy a system, once you introduce this to your customers there is no going back, because you have told then it is the best thing since slice bread,just hopely at a cost you can afford

just my view jinky

Sure thing.  The ongoing costs of WFP are higher .  Earning a higher hourly rate and getting more customers can help compensate for that but as I have been doing mainly domestic, I now feel that getting a few larger jobs to add to my business will help offset costs.  It's a good idea to carry spares.  I have spares of some things but not others.  I bought a spare battery for my trolley recently and I alternate them when one runs down.  It saves unnecessary charging as I couldn't tell at what point to remove the lone battery to charge it.  It got me out of jail recently because I left my van lights on and ran the van battery too low to start.  I did the jump start from the spare trolley battery.
Although I feel that a fair bit of my existing work is a bit low priced, anything I have taken on in the last year/18 months has been priced more suitably.  I get declined on some jobs because of it but hey, that's business - not personal.

[Jeff Brimble]

Jinky wrote " guys food for thought

with traditional window cleaning you only had to keep your sweeguees cloths and ladder in good nick- maintenance was a doddle and costs were moderate

as we move in to wfp have we really looked at the bigger picture, we all insist that it is safer, but are we really justifying our investment.

[)color=Blue] (I dont think you can put a price on a life and wfp is an investement in yourself[/color]

I look at the maintenance and the amount of things that could go wrong
and compared to traditional this is scary.
 [color=Blue]Scary ? no way 8 years on and it becomes common place, just like a car or ladders they need servicing.[/color]
pumps and varistreams can pack in
[color=Blue] 1 spare pump on my Second pole system) Not everyone needs a varistream. [/color]
poles clamps can wear  (I dont use them)brushes jets and connectors can have faults[color=Blue]Jets £3 pack of 6) Connectors John Guest havent needed to relace any.[/color]hoses can get damaged$ years on my current one)
battery and chargers can go wrong
(Battery £14 charger 4 years)
ro and di filters can muckup RO £80/2.5 Yrs)
renewal of resin
then there is the van the wear and tear on vehicle due to excess weight
I use same car/van and carry max 200kg What wear and tear.what if your van is off the road you are not earning
always easy for a mate to transport a ladder for you for a day or 2
Equipement can be moved to another car in 20Min.)
then you are let down with suppliers they cant get the parts to you quick enough
so you miss out on several days work and you say it is ok i stay beside my supplier. but what if they are on holiday or do not have the parts in stock

you have now put yourself in the position of relying on equipmen
[color=Blue]t My 2 suppliers are available 24hr delivery or I can buy local.)
so what do you do - do you backup with buying excess equipment to cover you
then you employ and they need to be equipped and have backup as well.costs start to escolate again

maybe sweeky has got it right and we cant admit it as we are so rapped up trying to justify our investment
. DIY say £600 max.

personnally i went into wfp because I have had too many falls from roofs, and I am in a position after many years to afford the crossover, but I do threat for new lads starting out that they do not realise the costs involved not just starting up but the ongoing cost of resin filters and renewing equipment

I believe if you are just doing domestic you need to think this thru before the profits you made traditional start dwindling keeping up with wfp

also meet someone in your area who is also wfp and you can back each other up- equipment wise

wfp is a great system - but at a cost and you need to be prepared to soak these costs which do not stop when you buy a system, once you introduce this to your customers there is no going back, because you have told then it is the best thing since slice bread,just hopely at a cost you can afford[
color=Blue] (I just told mine it would save my life. Its not a "monster", just a brush on a stick with a pump and power scource )[/color]
just my view jinky

Sorry the blue colour attempt failed.- Jeff

[Sir Squeaky]

Nice one Jinky.
All good points, and exactly why I can't be bothered.

As I said on another thread just now, I come home, sit down, and don't think about work until I'm in the car in the morning.

I couldn't be doing with this un-paid messing about with kit.
With that and the maintainance, it's eaten any extra I would make anyway, as it wouldn't speed me up much.

I just spent £30 on a new bucket, rubbers and microfibres.
It hurt, because that's the first money I've spent on equipment this year.....

Rog.

[Jack Avery]

I`ve cleaned windows for 28 years. February this year I had a fall it broke my fifth vertebrae  11 weeks off work.  I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to be back at work. It is a life altering experience. I`m sure the lads that have died this year few they may be would have without doubt preferred to "feed the monster".

Safe window cleaning wishes to you all.

kind regards

Jack Avery

[jinky230]

Jeff good points made and money can be saved if you know about wfp

but look at the newbees , there is one guy on this forum who bought an andrew mc cann trolley and now finds he gets on better with the backpack and the trolley is left in a cupboard.how many guys have bought trailer systems to find that they have bought the wrong thing for the work they want to do, then there is the wrong poles for the wrong heights, you say john guest connectors we had them on our brushes and had to fit release connectors which cost £80 as the brushes would not release from the john guest connectors and we spent more time trying to get the brush of the pole than anything else

the battery charger for my backpack packed in after 6 weeks I  contacted  the supplier to be told that he does not have a spare, he was very good and sent me an alternative charger , which I have to cut the wires rejoin them to get the charger working

wfp is safer ,
is it quicker on domestic that is debatable
does it cost more - yes
if I was starting again would I go wfp - yes

the post was not put up to say wfp is a monster, but to inform neebees if they do not research it correctly it could turn into a monster, and a drain on their pocket

jinky

[macc]

Hi Jinky. Good post mate, i agree with what your saying.

Before jumping in to wfp you have to look at your work to see if its compatable. Mine is, so its worth while but then you have guys like Squeaky who have good work too but wfp is a waste of time & money because it wont suit there work.

Thers a lot to condider with wfp, loads more than i thought, buying the kit is only the start of parting with your cash. I didnt think about the on going cost but im lucky because my work is suited to wfp it can carry the costs.

Macc

[P @ F]

I MUST BE ONE OF THE LUCKY ONES , oops  , all i carry is a couple of jubilee clips , and 2 screwdrivers , if anything goes wrong with any thing i have its a 5 mile drive to my supplier , and he is never out of stock of anything !

 Rich   P @ F

[Chris A]

  Debt /investment is the way forward

[jinky230]

jeff no problem you will need to unlock you email so I can contact for a telephone nos, I look forward to a gab

jinky

[pjulk]

This is a good thread which i shall watch with interest.

For me i changed over for two reasons.

The safety aspect of WFP
and i have had a back operation and carring ladders on my shoulder used to play my back up.

Since changing over to WFP this has been a lot less and since getting a tank in my van and not having to lift those 25ltr water containers up i have had no problem.

I think if i stayed on ladders my days as a window cleaner would have been numbered due to my bad problems i have had.

The thing i have noticed once you get your first WFP system thats when the spending starts as you want to add things to make it work better for you.
So the cost just rises you got your system then you find you need a bigger van/car and will we every be happy with what we have got there is always that little something else.

I have no regrets though i am better off financially and enjoy my work more.

Paul

[JM123]

no doubt about it, it does cost more to work wfp - but not much.  Most of the money guys spend on wfp is 'novelty' money, what I mean is, they mght fancy trying a different type of hose/pole/pump etc.  The real running costs are quite low comparitively.  However, wfp is so much quicker and literally the difference in maintainance is 1 average house per month, now consider that most wcs will do twice the work with wfp over trad and the true value of wfp becomes apparent.

For example

Costs are - 1 merlin sed filter per 3 months (£30), 11ltr resin (£45) plus extra fuel (say extra £10 per week)
Over three months that equals £195 more than traditional.

Now factor in that I can do around £250 per day compared to about £130 traditional (ok so you need to get the extra work but it does build up).  Not hard to see that it doesn't take long to make up the extra.

Plus the extra safety and my legs are not killing me when I get home.

For me personally theres no way I'd go back trad but everyone is different and have different rounds - but I bet if squeeky spent an afternoon with a wfp'er he'd change his mind.

[jinky230]

jeff you have mail

[Ian_Giles]

The points made are valid, on going running costs with WFP are far higher than with trad, as of course is your initial investment, even if you go the DIY route you are still going to part with something like £500 to a £1000.

And of course you will be upgrading as you go along, I've recently spent £180 on a new hose reel and 100m of hose, I've replaced my battery once, and my battery charger twice, and I've had one pump burn out on me...

I started out with a trolley system, but I upgraded to a full van mount...more costs to factor in!

But you don't need a load of comercial work to make WFP pay for itself, apart from a handfull of medium size offices, my best earning money is domestic, and a lot of that is on estates, but I don't go in cheap...and this is the important bit....


WFP allows you to work much faster, you WILL get more work done and the biggest problem with this is that just because you are working faster, some will think that means they can charge less money, be more competitive and get more work...
Well you can...but they haven't factored in all those costs have they...they have spent all this money, have much higher on going running costs and they go and charge less money.
For instance; A georgian house you might charge £25 for if working trad (45-60 mimutes hard graft)
Well with WFP that same property will be knocked out in an easy 20 minutes, so cos you are that much faster you only charge the customer a tenner, after all, you can knock out 3 of these in an hour, thats a fiver more per hour than you were gettig prior to WFP....innit?

so all that investment and all you are doing is earning £20-£30 a day more, or maybe not even that...at the end of the year you may have turned over more money, and you'll probably pay less tax too! Great eh? LESS TAX!!!
Less taxx merely means you have earned less money, your income (as against your turnover) will in real terms have dropped.

The single biggest mistake you can do with regards WFP is to start slashing prices and going in cheap because you are now faster at what you do.

And it is happening...in some areas competition as a result of WFP is seeing prices fall.
And it is no good the ladder monkeys gloating over it either...it effects them too, effectively rulling them out of leaded and georgian work (yeah I know...who wants that work anyway!)
But also those slightly larger accounts, the bigger the account, the bigger the difference in the time taken to clean the windows between the two methods.

And then as you realise that because you have gone in cheap, you have to crack the work out at a more and more rapid rate, unfortunately if you start to rush with WFP your standards will really begin to drop, corners start to get cut (and that does play into the hands of the ladder monkeys as they can quickly point out that WFP is rubbish, windows are covered in spots!)

So it is right and proper that those wishing to come into the WFP arena are made aware of that it isn't just the initial high investment in your new system, and you have to cover that cost, but there is also the ongoing extra costs to be made aware of.

Ian

[Alex Gardiner]

One of the biggest mistakes that people make is by starting with a trolley and then having to upgrade to a vehicle mount after a few months (who wants to lug heavy jerry cans around?)

I know because  years ago I did the same thing and I reckon this was my biggest wasted money spent, as not only did I buy an expensive trolley but then I had to equip my vehicle out as well , fortunately I had also fitted up a trailer system as well as the trolley so I did have an intermediate to use.

 My other mistake was purchasing a sectional aluminium pole with twist clamps (very pricey), such a bad pole to use that after 2 months I threw it in the garage until I managed to sell it on.

I bought from one of the established firms (not the industry changing one!) and including trailer costs spent about £6500 on my set up costs, if I did this now I would have not wasted as much money on 'dead ends' and could probably have setup with a similar system for about £2000 (trailer, vehicle, 45ft pole, 30ft pole, 12ft pole, 15ft pole) because costs have come down since then.

If in doubt try someone else system out, work with them for free, and listen to those who have been doing it 'seriously' for at least 3 years, any one who has done it for less time is still learning themselves.

Alex

[Paul Coleman]

One of the biggest mistakes that people make is by starting with a trolley and then having to upgrade to a vehicle mount after a few months (who wants to lug heavy jerry cans around?)

I know because  years ago I did the same thing and I reckon this was my biggest wasted money spent, as not only did I buy an expensive trolley but then I had to equip my vehicle out as well , fortunately I had also fitted up a trailer system as well as the trolley so I did have an intermediate to use.

 My other mistake was purchasing a sectional aluminium pole with twist clamps (very pricey), such a bad pole to use that after 2 months I threw it in the garage until I managed to sell it on.

I bought from one of the established firms (not the industry changing one!) and including trailer costs spent about £6500 on my set up costs, if I did this now I would have not wasted as much money on 'dead ends' and could probably have setup with a similar system for about £2000 (trailer, vehicle, 45ft pole, 30ft pole, 12ft pole, 15ft pole) because costs have come down since then.

If in doubt try someone else system out, work with them for free, and listen to those who have been doing it 'seriously' for at least 3 years, any one who has done it for less time is still learning themselves.

Alex

Agreed that buying the wrong stuff for the way you wish to work can be a pricey mistake.  However, I have never regretted having a trolley even though I soon bought a van mount system afterwards.  I find that the trolley still earns its keep very well - though I suppose it depends on what sort of work you do.  Knowing what I now know, I would have bought a trolley with attached hosereel though as it would save moving it around so much.

[pjulk]

Im the same started out with the trolley and now gone a van mount.
But i could not be without the trolley i still need this on some of my work just because of the distance from the van i need to work.

Im glad i started with the trolley and if i had to start afresh again.
I would start with a trolley again but with an attached hosereel.
But i would have a tank fitted for water as it does not do your back any good lifting those water barrels.

Paul