[DASERVICES]

Guys,

Need you help please to try and estimate how many window cleaners are working in an area that has 211,731 houses.

What to divide it by what % of people have their houses cleaned and then divide it by how many houses would a window cleaner have in a round.

So what % of people have their houses cleaned by a window cleaner, I thought around 60%

How many houses do you have in your round for one person, I have around 300.

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Doug

[Moderator David@stives]

i reckon an area that size has 400 window cleaners working it

[Paul Coleman]

Guys,

Need you help please to try and estimate how many window cleaners are working in an area that has 211,731 houses.

What to divide it by what % of people have their houses cleaned and then divide it by how many houses would a window cleaner have in a round.

So what % of people have their houses cleaned by a window cleaner, I thought around 60%

How many houses do you have in your round for one person, I have around 300.

Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Doug

Obviously I have nothing to base it on but 60% sounds like a very high estimate to me.  I don't know what a fairer guess would be though.  Maybe 30%??

[rosskesava]

I would have said lower. Maybe 15%. Maybe lower.

Brighton & Hove, plus surrounding areas, where I live, has 200 000 people and I'd be surprised if there was anything near 40 window cleaners.

We always see the same few window cleaners plus a new one from time to time.

Having said that, I am only guessing based on just personnal experience.

[DASERVICES]

Rosskesava,

There must be a shortage of window cleaners in the Brighton council area then.
You must be in huge demand 

This is based on the amount of houses not population, I cannot see 85% of house owners doing their own windows. Very surprised the area that Brighton council covers has only 40 window cleaners for 114,000 houses.

My small village has 20 window cleaners knocking around, that's it I'm moving down to Brighton

Thanks for your replies but in Scotland it would be hard to find someone that does not have a window cleaner.

Cheers

Doug

[Paul Coleman]

Rosskesava,

There must be a shortage of window cleaners in the Brighton council area then.
You must be in huge demand 

This is based on the amount of houses not population, I cannot see 85% of house owners doing their own windows. Very surprised the area that Brighton council covers has only 40 window cleaners for 114,000 houses.

My small village has 20 window cleaners knocking around, that's it I'm moving down to Brighton

Thanks for your replies but in Scotland it would be hard to find someone that does not have a window cleaner.

Cheers

Doug

 think there is definitely a culture difference between north and south on this.  In the north it seems to be more traditional to have a window cleaner.  When I was up there visiting family, I got chatting to a W/C.  He told me that he could do a number of whole streets with very few people not wanting them cleaned. Of course the price differences may help.  A problem with a lot of council areas is that although you would be able to get lots of work, the access problems can make it very difficult/sometimes impossible to do that work while making reasonable money.  This is especially so in Crawley where I live.  Most of the council houses around this town were built in terraces without even a back alley for access. The only way around it is through the house - which has the added problem of finding the customers in.  I gave that work away after I had been going for a year or so.

[Cleaning Resource]

it`s simple northerners are lazy and employ window cleaners
southerners are tight and do it themselves

 I don`t know what that makes people from the midlands

[Clive McDonald]

So what % of people have their houses cleaned by a window cleaner, I thought around 60%. Quote
You may be right. I would say so that 95% of reasonably affluent people either have or want their windows cleaned. Some may be between window cleaners, so I'll compromise with you at 80%.
I'll go along with 300 for a round (providing this has an average of £10 or £750 a week). This would give a figure of 562 for the area.
211,000*80%/300=562
The factor 80%(expressed as . divided by 300 is 0.00266666, which could be rounded for conservatism to 0.0025. So as a rule of thumb for any area without social problems divide by four, and loose a couple of zero's.

[Clive McDonald]

I've made a mistake. This is not the actual number, this is the potential number.

Even if there were far fewer window cleaners than 562, say a hundred less, then there would still be pockets where there were far too many window cleaners, and other parts where there weren't any at all.

So in a perfect world with all the jobs evenly spread out there would be 562. Otherwise Dave is probably right, 400.

[Clive McDonald]

Furthermore, I though all Scottish window cleaners had to be registered. Aren't any figures available for some or any of the towns? If we had some idea of the housing stock for the area as well we could probably then extrapolate some usefull figures.

Not withstanding the black economy.

If you do know any true figures (registered) for any towns please say.

[DASERVICES]

If you go onto Council websites and search census then you should come up with how many houses are in the council area.

Yes window cleaners in licensed areas need to be licensed , the problem is only around 35% are licensed which leaves us at a disadvantage. We should all be at the same level, insured and licensed. Then the £2.50 pundits will stop, this is our living wheras others use window cleaning as pocket money but do not have the costs we inccur.

Any other trade would be up in arms, so hence the SLWCN was formed to highlight these problems to the councils. So far we have had success with one council who will publicise all licensed window cleaners on their website, hopefully more will follow.

Your figures are near enough to what we will use, we estimated 551 window cleaners and only 193 licensed.

[shammy davis jnr]

lanark pop 22,000  around 15 window cleaners

[Clive McDonald]

If lanark has a population of 22,000 it might have half as many houses, which from the above calculations would mean 25 window cleaners. Assuming some are unknown or unregistered then 15 is line with this.