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How long to trad a ...

Jones

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Stafford
Newbie here started about 5 months ago only have a small round whilst working my full time job atm.I normally trad all my houses most 3/4 bedrooms which usually takes me between 40mins to 1 hour to do but recently brought a wfp back pack & i know most of you disagree but I find wfp the tops then trad the bottoms has made a massive difference to my time it’s basically half it which I’m pleased with. Was just wondering how long it takes you trad guys to do a 3/4 bedroom house?

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To trad a 3 bed terrace would take under 10 minutes for me

27 years practice though lol

 
You may wfp the fronts,then trad the bottoms and repeat same on rear, or you may wfp all the tops then trad all the bottoms. Just 2 combinations that will make a difference on time perhaps?.

Depends on the property you are working plus experience of doing said property.

Also remember the time is not just doing the actual property. It is also the speed and efficiency of getting your gear in and out of your vehicle to do the job!!!!!!

 
Yeh that’s great I’m sure il speed up the more I do it, just takes me while to set ladder up adjust then move for each windows hence the purchase of the backpack but I still enjoy trading that’s why I only wfp the tops


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The biggest difference I have noticed is when I bought the liquidator channel. Fitted the contour pro plus handle and it saved me detailing. This I believe saves the most time because all you have to do is wipe the sill and maybe the frame.

 
As said above it becomes second nature on the ladder and you fly through them knowing how to set up.... and yes wfp is the next step to helping with speed as it sounds like you’re finding. Keep going and you’ll soon be flying through them like everyone else (and maintaining a standard)


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Newbie here started about 5 months ago only have a small round whilst working my full time job atm.I normally trad all my houses most 3/4 bedrooms which usually takes me between 40mins to 1 hour to do but recently brought a wfp back pack & i know most of you disagree but I find wfp the tops then trad the bottoms has made a massive difference to my time it’s basically half it which I’m pleased with. Was just wondering how long it takes you trad guys to do a 3/4 bedroom house?

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Its fine doing what you are doing as a side job, especially if you enjoy cleaning windows.

When we first started we did trad. An older 1930's 3 bedroom house would take about 20 minutes to begin with. But after a while the same house would take me around 30 minutes. Toward the end of the day it was up to around 45 minutes a house. I was in my early 50's then. Cleaning a house in 45 minutes didn't earn me much. Each of these houses we had in that estate had side wash rooms. To get to the backs we had to climb over the washroom roofs to get to the other side and drag the ladders with us.

Thankfully wfp saved me from falling off my ladder again and allowed me to continue to work and earn a living wage.

When you have to rely on window cleaning as your main source of income then you have to overcome the pleasure you get

from trad and do everything wfp. Its simple. To earn more keeping the same price you have to clean more windows. You have to do that in the quickest, the safest and most efficient way.

The other thing you must not forget is to have regular price increases.

 
Depends on the windows tbf, if theyve gpt georgians itll always slow it up.

Ive got a few awkward 3/4 bed places but once you do them a few times you soon speed up.

 
I did this country house friday, took nearly 3 hours as they wanted it trad. As I dont have full books I didnt mind. 600 odd small french panes roughly. Im not too good with squeegys and blades. id bought some small ones for this job, but as i wanted to get home I just damp scrimmed and dry scrimmed them. it was knackering, but i dont believe i could have done much better with the squeegy and blade, as I still would've needed to detail anyway. Ive seen a vid on utube of a guy squeegying, and i thought I aint got time to spend that long on each window. Have to get some practise in.

 
I did this country house friday, took nearly 3 hours as they wanted it trad. As I dont have full books I didnt mind. 600 odd small french panes roughly. Im not too good with squeegys and blades. id bought some small ones for this job, but as i wanted to get home I just damp scrimmed and dry scrimmed them. it was knackering, but i dont believe i could have done much better with the squeegy and blade, as I still would've needed to detail anyway. Ive seen a vid on utube of a guy squeegying, and i thought I aint got time to spend that long on each window. Have to get some practise in.
Seriously even if you practice, I always found it easier with a damp cloth and and a dry scrim on panes that were smaller than 10" by the time you soap them up, blade them off and detail you could do 2-4 panes with a scrim. 

 
I did this country house friday, took nearly 3 hours as they wanted it trad. As I dont have full books I didnt mind. 600 odd small french panes roughly. Im not too good with squeegys and blades. id bought some small ones for this job, but as i wanted to get home I just damp scrimmed and dry scrimmed them. it was knackering, but i dont believe i could have done much better with the squeegy and blade, as I still would've needed to detail anyway. Ive seen a vid on utube of a guy squeegying, and i thought I aint got time to spend that long on each window. Have to get some practise in.
For a job that size making a custom sized channel to the measurement of the panes may be way to go and do straight pulls, then just detail round edges if not proficient using smaller squeegees.

 
it used to take me around 15 mins to clean a smallish 3 bed semi trad,now its more like 8-10 mins WFP....

im still cleaning a commercial job from my trad days 10 years ago that i priced up at £60...it used to take me 2 HOURS TRAD....so £30 an hour which i thought was good money back then....fast forward 10 years and im still charging the same price but the job takes me 25 MINS WITH A LOT LESS EFFORT!....?

Id be very disappointed if my hourly rate was £30 an hour in 2019....id have to drop that particular work or raise my prices if i couldnt clean the job any faster......

 
it used to take me around 15 mins to clean a smallish 3 bed semi trad,now its more like 8-10 mins WFP....

im still cleaning a commercial job from my trad days 10 years ago that i priced up at £60...it used to take me 2 HOURS TRAD....so £30 an hour which i thought was good money back then....fast forward 10 years and im still charging the same price but the job takes me 25 MINS WITH A LOT LESS EFFORT!....?

Id be very disappointed if my hourly rate was £30 an hour in 2019....id have to drop that particular work or raise my prices if i couldnt clean the job any faster......
I think good return!. £30 an hour for one job may be less than your average it seems...but still not bad at all.

 
I think good return!. £30 an hour for one job may be less than your average it seems...but still not bad at all.
how long have you been window cleaning?you ll soon realise earning £30 an hour is just not enough if you want to earn half decent money self employed(unless of course you work a full 40 hours a week which is not sustainable in the long run for your health/sanity or work/life balance)...im only actually window cleaning "on the glass"(earning money)20-25 hours a week so to earn my target turnover of £45k a year i need to maximise my hourly rate.also holidays need to be taken into account so thats at least 4 weeks with no pay every year.....

my average hourly rate over the course of a day is between £40-£50 an hour..... turning over £45k a year im only left with £30k-£32k in profit after expenses,tax and insurances,not bad(i can live on it quite comfortably)but its not a fortune....

if i was only earning £30 an hour for the same hours id be earning around £33-£35k a year and be left with around £23k profit....£7k-£8k LESS!over the course of 5 years thats £35k-£40k!?

just think of the luxury holidays you could go on in that 5 years with the extra money and nice car you could have on the drive(as well as a nice shiny van with decent hot water system fitted)......

 
how long have you been window cleaning?you ll soon realise earning £30 an hour is just not enough if you want to earn half decent money self employed(unless of course you work a full 40 hours a week which is not sustainable in the long run for your health/sanity or work/life balance)...im only actually window cleaning "on the glass"(earning money)20-25 hours a week so to earn my target turnover of £45k a year i need to maximise my hourly rate.also holidays need to be taken into account so thats at least 4 weeks with no pay every year.....

my average hourly rate over the course of a day is between £40-£50 an hour..... turning over £45k a year im only left with £30k-£32k in profit after expenses,tax and insurances,not bad(i can live on it quite comfortably)but its not a fortune....

if i was only earning £30 an hour for the same hours id be earning around £33-£35k a year and be left with around £23k profit....£7k-£8k LESS!over the course of 5 years thats £35k-£40k!?

just think of the luxury holidays you could go on in that 5 years with the extra money and nice car you could have on the drive(as well as a nice shiny van with decent hot water system fitted)......
I wondered when the holidays would come up ?, yes as a business owner you wanting to earning as much as you can, but £30 an hour is still very good money by a lot of people standards, we are a great deal more fortunate than some doing far more worthy jobs, my wife works as a carer in an old peoples home and earns a lot less than me, but her and many others should be paid more.   

 
how long have you been window cleaning?you ll soon realise earning £30 an hour is just not enough if you want to earn half decent money self employed(unless of course you work a full 40 hours a week which is not sustainable in the long run for your health/sanity or work/life balance)...im only actually window cleaning "on the glass"(earning money)20-25 hours a week so to earn my target turnover of £45k a year i need to maximise my hourly rate.also holidays need to be taken into account so thats at least 4 weeks with no pay every year.....

my average hourly rate over the course of a day is between £40-£50 an hour..... turning over £45k a year im only left with £30k-£32k in profit after expenses,tax and insurances,not bad(i can live on it quite comfortably)but its not a fortune....

if i was only earning £30 an hour for the same hours id be earning around £33-£35k a year and be left with around £23k profit....£7k-£8k LESS!over the course of 5 years thats £35k-£40k!?

just think of the luxury holidays you could go on in that 5 years with the extra money and nice car you could have on the drive(as well as a nice shiny van with decent hot water system fitted)......
3 years this time round,am one man band. I have mates working on national minimum wage or thereabouts due to working for Agencies etc when the firm they worked for folded. Just looked up minimum wage on internet for 2019/2020, over 25 years of age £8.21!!!.And they have to support their family,home etc. As I say you going down to £30 a hour every now and again may be a disapointment to your business model...but still not bad money.

 
I will give you all a tip. The reason i easily get £30 an hour is because of my plan. When i take on a first clean i only do it with ladders, scraper and squeegee. This can take me a minimum of an hour to get them up to my standard. The customer is usually there and see's the amount of work i have put in and will feel good about how little they are paying. The next month i clean them with my hot wfp and the customer is usually working and only witnesses the result but i clean everything even the garage door. If i was to first clean with the hot wfp then there wouldn't be much difference with the time aspect so they might question the cost that's my secret and works everytime. ?

 
I will give you all a tip. The reason i easily get £30 an hour is because of my plan. When i take on a first clean i only do it with ladders, scraper and squeegee. This can take me a minimum of an hour to get them up to my standard. The customer is usually there and see's the amount of work i have put in and will feel good about how little they are paying. The next month i clean them with my hot wfp and the customer is usually working and only witnesses the result but i clean everything even the garage door. If i was to first clean with the hot wfp then there wouldn't be much difference with the time aspect so they might question the cost that's my secret and works everytime. ?
You almost sound like a pro ?

 
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