[Glyn H]

She seemed to think the quote was astronomical.This place is near Biggin Hill which is northwest Kent near Sevenoaks.Anybody else work this area?

We clean many ordinary detached  houses in that area for £40.00 - £60.00
If it really is that big then £200.00 is very cheap
If its a 10 bed mansion then the cost to buy would probably be £5 - 10 million.
 A freind of mine lives  in a slightly above average size 4 bed detached house in Tattesfield which borders Biggin Hill and he has house up for sale at 1.5 million

[simon knight]

So from thinking £200 is astronomical she suddenly wants to spend around £1800 a year getting her windows cleaned?

I'd be asking myself why she suddenly wants this expense...if she's been living there for a long while when were they last cleaned and what happened to her old w/c.

I hope it works out Craig but she's talking big money month in month out. Even the very wealthy are mostly shy about forking out £300(ish) every 2 months for windows.

I've become very cynical in this game :

[windowswashed]

I clean a huge mansion worth 8.6 million (probably a lot less now it's credit crunch time) and I just price like any other place, (combination of windows, access & time involved and add on 10% for good luck. Don't underprice....you'll regret it.

[ftp]

Who's going to pay £300 for a window clean? You can have a mote cleaned for nothing.

[ROBERT GEDDES]

i do an old stately home in cumbra ,it takes me half a day to do the outsides,water fed pole, these are leaded and 3/4 hundred year old windows ,and a day and a half to do the insides you only learn by experence and charge nearly £400 for the privalage  all the best and stick to your price

[leapstallbuildings]

Morning all.I wondered if anybody could give me some advice.One of my customers mentioned to me that her sister wanted her place cleaned so I've phoned her up and gone round for a quote.When I've turned up my jaw nearly hit the floor as she lived in the biggest mansion I've ever seen.I'm reasonably new to this and to date my biggest clean is an annexe on a church which takes me a couple of hours or so.She wants this place cleaned inside and out including huge conservatory.10 bedrooms and all rooms with old fashioned style leaded windows.I don't know if wfp is going to do a good job on these windows,so I worked out that it would realistically take me 10-12 hours doing it traditionally (and I always seem to underestimate).I quoted her £100 for the outside and same again for the inside.She seemed to think the quote was astronomical.This place is near Biggin Hill which is northwest Kent near Sevenoaks.Anybody else work this area?She seemed like a decent person so I think she'll be up for negotiations but is my quote ridiculously high or about right?

I currently go out as far as Caterham and have done work in Westrham area before.  Some quite plush places around there.  If it's going to take you 10-12 hours then the £200 you've quoted sounds a bit low.  However, if it's only going to take 10-12 hours because of your relative newness, then she may have a point.  Certainly you ought to take at least £25 an hour as a start point and hopefully rather more.  The trouble is that what you can take when cleaning for a number of customers in a day, sounds an awful lot more when it's coming from one budget.  If they were to have it done say, quarterly, £800 a year for clean windows on a place of that size sounds pretty reasonable to me.
If price is such an issue for her, I think you should use WFP on the outside especially as you can clear up any leaks when you do inside.

[mark dew]

The price does seem low for the picture i have in my head, but if (and that's a big if) it is a monthly account you might come close to cutting that time in half within the year.

I made the mistake of pricing up the hall that gordon brown stayed in last summer too low when i 1st started.
I happily walked away from the job after i was finally finished. Lesson learnt.

[krave]

One of my friends has a very good round out in the surrounding villages by us, Ayot st peter/ ayot st lawrence and charges up to £400 on some monthly/6 weekly cleans.

Some very nice manor houses and old houses that used to belong to kings ex wives etc etc.

All trad.

[Craig 72]

Thanks for all your support and advice everyone.£200 might be on the low side but I feel that if I'd charged more I risked losing her custom and I'm not in a position to do that at the mo.I think I will go with wfp for the outside and conservatory as some of you have mentioned and that might take some of the physical hard work out of it.I think I'll consider stretching it out over two days,for the first clean,outsides one day and insides the next to try and gauge how it's going to go.Being a blind optimist it might go much easier and quicker than I've estimated but in my limited experience of being a window cleaner that won't be the case.

[Rob.Hall]

All the best Craig.

You dont know where it might lead........another 10 mansions!

[Craig 72]

Lol,yeah.I wouldn't know whether to laugh or cry.

[leapstallbuildings]

One suggestion for you as a relative newbie to this.  Get the inside of the conervatory done before things warm up too much.

[Craig 72]

That sounds like good advice.When I went in there to price up it was literally like a sauna in there.

[macmac]

Tip-

Get yourself some microfiber cloths for the inside leaded windows!

[Craig 72]

Finished this job today.Took about 11 hours all in all.Pretty damn hard work but I'm hoping subsequent cleans become easier and quicker.I asked her how much other people quoted and she said £200 just for the outside!Ouch.Looks like I undercharged but at the end of the day it's money that I need at the moment and couldn't turn it down.Hopefully I'm doing the next door neighbour who has a similar size house so I'll charge more.Being a relative newbie I'm starting to realise why cleaners don't do the insides of houses.What a pain in the arse with the old style leaded windows.

[Sunshine/Cleaning]

So it should have been in the region of £350-£400 for 11 hours work.

One of the problems with newbies is they set a price then rush to get a good hourly rate. Wrong way round. You know how long it takes to do one window, count them and multiply. Dont be afraid of high figures.

[scud]

  You will get that down to 8 hrs max, so 200 quid for a normaldays work is pretty good going in my book.

  Always remember 3% of something is better than 10% of nothing.

  It seems to me that people on here go for the big prices, whether they do really I am not sure, but if you can earn 200 pounds a day that is good money.

  If you get to quote for a neighbour, remember they will have discussed prices, so be carefull.

  You may end up with  a full weeks work out of 5 customers, so be careful and don't get too greedy.

[R W C]

Finished this job today.Took about 11 hours all in all.Pretty damn hard work but I'm hoping subsequent cleans become easier and quicker.I asked her how much other people quoted and she said £200 just for the outside!Ouch.Looks like I undercharged but at the end of the day it's money that I need at the moment and couldn't turn it down.Hopefully I'm doing the next door neighbour who has a similar size house so I'll charge more.Being a relative newbie I'm starting to realise why cleaners don't do the insides of houses.What a pain in the arse with the old style leaded windows.

Did you start this at 6 this morning or do it in 2 days.

Chris

[Sapphire Window Cleaning]

Craig I would do the conservatory first ask her to open all the windows as you set up as this will cool the conservatory down somewhat.
How many windows are you looking at?
I have had people ask me to quote them on 5/6 bed detached and when I give them the final figure they almost have a heart attack.
People who have big houses dont realise that the maintenance of their homes will be alot higher. heating a 6 bed detached will be more than heating a 2 bed semi etc.   



Matt

[Craig 72]

I did most of the work on Monday and finished off today.Yeah I'm hoping I can get it down to a normal days work and then £200 is very acceptable,in my book anyway.If I'd quoted more then I sensed I ran the risk of her telling me to sling my hook.To be perfectly honest,I didn't actually note the number of windows.I went round and estimated how long each window would take me and added them all up.There's a bloody lot though!The old style leaded is what took the time.At the end of the day she's my best customer financially by a country mile so I'm pleased I got her.Especially if I can nab a neighbour or two.