starting up ideas

[Belfastcleaning]

If your customers are quite happy paying someone £60 per hour to sSwear word!e dirt out there gutters then fair play. I don't think someone would pay that up here for someone to come up with a ladder and bucket and charge that.

Why is gutter cleaning more dangerous than window cleaning? I am still working with tools on a ladder either way.

but you are not charging £60.. you dont price windows by an hourly rate, ie- when there is 3 of us out i do 3 £30 home window cleans in just over an hour.. would you see that as over pricing?

every job will be different, i was just going on £10 per side.. if you charge £3 per metre then you would charge more than me, and climb up the ladder quicker then you'll be away in 20 mins /emoticons/tongue.png

well, all gutters and downspouts cleared, will block up any drips free with sealer, and report on any other problems if there is..

dangerous as in your are maybe another 8ft higher with a bucket in your hand?

its very dangerous on tripples are you using a ladder safety device at that height

yes i have 2 safety devices, 1 is called raymond and the other david lol.. i just use the ladder stand off at the top of the ladder, b&q charge £40 i got mine on ebay for £20 incl p&p

 

[mr shine]

nice one i wont go near a 3 storey job for less 100 because theres companys that quote huge prices using cherry pickers etc so im saving them a lot also a lot of window cleaners wont go near 3 storey jobs on ladders and as you know they are rare jobs

 

[laddergarder]

Belfast,

If you have three window cleaners out cleaning three houses at £30 and it takes 1.5 hours then no I don't think that is over charging. I wasn't responding to the £10 per side comment, I think that is reasonable, if its a small house. I was responding to charging someone £20 for 20 mins work.

You can price jobs anyway you like, give them a quotation, or give them an estimate. Many trades uses estimates rather than quotations. We always give a quotation for window cleaning as it is easy to accurately estimate the time it may take. However if you are cleaning the gutters of a large building, there can be allot of factors that could make a job take longer or shorter than expected.

Giving an estimate, safe guards you from over or under pricing it. I just give my customers the option, We can price it per meter, or give them an estimate when it comes to gutter cleaning. You can at times get areas that really are not that bad, then on the same building another side that is thick with mud.

Personally I don't think it is fair to charge someone the same price per meter for a side that isn't that bad compared to a side that is. Most of my customers understand this and prefer us to just estimate it for them, then charge them accordingly.


It is kind of hard to say what is a fair price for window cleaning as WFP's cost more to run, some trad cleaners clean fames and windows some dont etc etc. Gutter cleaning is king of the same, if you have allot of expensive equipment, then yes you have to recoup that money in your pricing.

But for a basic clearing job on someone's gutters with a set of ladders, I personally would be quite happy making £20 per hour. I think that is reasonable. Again different areas of the country with have slightly different economics, and I know someone doing the same thing in London would charge more. But if you cleaned my gutters and charge me £20 and where driving away 20 mins later, I wouldn't use you again.

Everyone is en***led to there opinion, and if your opinion differs then fair enough, I respect that.

 

[Belfastcleaning]

So if you completed a gutter cleaning job in 20 mins how much would you charge? Not every job takes 20 mins plus time saying hello getting paid and taking ladders on and off.

I think people would prefer to know the price before work starts, and I wouldn't really want to start with out them being happy with what they are paying. Of course they know any repairs etc will be extra.

 

[laddergarder]

Of course every job does not take 20 mins? if it takes 20 mins though, I think £20 is too high, I would be quite happy to charge £10 for a 20 min job. Which would be respectively £20 per hour roughly, travel etc inc. I was under the impressions you where including racking time, talking to the customer etc. Of course, when we give an estimate, we tell them roughly how long we think it will take, so they know roughly what we are going to charge them.

 

[mr shine]

personally id never start a job without agreeing a price do you take into account travel time and setting up time also as i said earlier i explain to the customer that i clear all debris from the guttering and check all downspouts for blockages otherwise the water has no where to go and the problem still exists and if not checked the customer aint gonna be happy and it could damage your reputation anyway this is my method and the little effort checking the downspouts allows you to charge more

 

[laddergarder]

Yes we build travel time into our estimates, however I have only every worked on customers that use our window cleaning service, so we are already there to clean there windows anyway.

 

[meridion]

In my opinion

 

[Paul]

In your opinion what meridion lol

 

[window washer]

When I started I bought the lot

Remote camera gutter Vac - Professional pressure washer etc

sold the lot -

Noone wants to pay more than £40 for gutter cleaning so get on your ladder and use your hands as it takes a few minutes whereas setting up gutter vac and using it takes ages,

You can make more money in window cleaning an its repetaive business - forget the other ideas.

 

[adrian5139]

well thanks for all the comments, plenty of food for thought cheers lads

 

[mark m]

When I started I bought the lot

Remote camera gutter Vac - Professional pressure washer etc

sold the lot -

Noone wants to pay more than £40 for gutter cleaning so get on your ladder and use your hands as it takes a few minutes whereas setting up gutter vac and using it takes ages,

You can make more money in window cleaning an its repetaive business - forget the other ideas.

Well said and keep to washing windows

 

[adrian5139]

When I started I bought the lot

Remote camera gutter Vac - Professional pressure washer etc

sold the lot -

Noone wants to pay more than £40 for gutter cleaning so get on your ladder and use your hands as it takes a few minutes whereas setting up gutter vac and using it takes ages,

You can make more money in window cleaning an its repetaive business - forget the other ideas.

Well said and keep to washing windows

thanks for advice off all of you all taken in gutter vac idea ditched window cleaning here we come thanks everyone appreciate it adrian