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Technique WFP cleaning

P4dstar

Premium Member
Messages
3,956
Location
Gloucestershire
I've been cleaning windows for well over a year now. At first I cleaned friends, family and my own windows for practice. I used Youtube to learn and went out with a friend. Over the last year i've picked up my own technique. I'm interested to see how my technique differs from other peoples and if anyone has any tips or tricks that might help.

First cleans -

I clean all the frames with a flocked brush with 50 fan jets. I get any large bird strikes etc on the first go around. After this is done I just go around and clean the glass as I usually would.

Maintenance cleans -

I clean all the tops first. I clean the frame thank kink the hose to brush the excess water off the top off of the frame and then clean the glass. Top of the glass first getting into the corners, then the sides and the bottom and any middle that has been missed. Rinse slowly and kink the hose between windows. If i'm travelling around the house I shut off the water at the valve. Once the tops are done I go back and do the bottoms. If the house is small and water is still dripping from upstairs sills I give them a wipe with the brush (Flow turned off) before I start on the bottom windows. On the bottom windows I clean the frame and then wipe above each pane of glass with a cloth before I start cleaning the glass.

Conservatories -

As I head round the back of a property I normally clean the conservatory frame before I start on the upstairs windows. Once the upstairs are done I clean the conservatory the same as I would clean a downstairs window, cloth wiping above each pane etc.

 
Sound's like your being very thorough, maybe wasting a little bit of time here and there.

I clean all my windows in a standard routine, if I always clean the same way then I always get the same results.

I think you don't need to wipe the top frames with a cloth, I always start on the top frame and go left to right twice slowly, getting plenty of flow onto the frame. I leave the brush on as it keeps the flow exactly where I want it. I then go around the frame in a clockwise fashion and back up to the top of the glass, go corner to corner a couple of times and then up and down to the bottom of the pane, going from corner to corner at the bottom also. Go back to the top of the pane and depending on the glass I may rinse on or off.

Always check your glass before getting it wet, if there are no stubborn marks then two agitations are sufficient. Anything more than that is a waste of time and water, two very valuable resources.

I am currently training up an employee, firstly I have drilled him with getting the windows spotless. I am now drilling him with getting them cleaned EFFICIENTLY! As efficiency is just as important as quality. My rounds are full and if there is any waste of time or water then the day's work won't be completed, meaning re-scheduling the work for tomorrow which is already full.

It's vital we do enough to achieve perfect results and NO more. If your Quality is great, then you are doing the customer justice, if your efficiency is great, then you are doing yourself justice. You don't want to spend more energy, time, or water than needed as they are all limited resources.

 
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@paul alan, I probably could be a bit quicker but I think explaining it as I have makes it sound slow. Your way sounds slow when you read it back also, I think this is just how it reads. I don't cloth wipe every frame if i'm honest, just the ones that the water sits on, the type where it just runs off I don't bother. The cloth wiping actually came from a post you put I think. You mentioned ''letterbox'' type windows, a couple of days later I was cleaning the insides and spotted a little spotting coming down from the letterbox window.

My biggest time waster is going around the property twice. I start upstairs and work around the building, then I go again around the downstairs. I've taken a couple of customers who cancelled the previous windy because of spotting. They were all from the same windy. The second customer who called me told me he was cleaning the top and then the bottom and he thinks the spotting was from water dripping down. When I went out to do the quote he pointed out spots towards the bottom of the glass as if the drips falling from the top windows hit the sill, bounced up and landed on the window. Not cleaning while the window above is dripping was just a natural thing for me but it certainly does waste time!

 
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Ahh right...I will cloth dry certain frames if I feel it's needed too. But not in general.

I think whilst I am teaching my new guy I am also learning more myself. It's great to have a "system" when cleaning as you can pretty much rely on the results this way.

I do agree though, you need to adapt to certain situations and cloth drying can be a great tool to "make sure".

 
I've had poles for about 15 years.

Once the windows are clean and I'm doing maintenance cleans once a month I find the frames need minimum attention, just a quick brush back and forth along the top then I do the sides while I'm doing the glass.

Always brush ground floor sills with the water off, 1st floor or higher as I cant see them I don't pay much attention and never get any negative comments so they must be ok.

Only exception is town houses where I always brush the 1st floor bay window sills as they can be seen from inside.

I make about ÂŁ40 an hour and I'm happy with that.

 
I don’t really have a certain technique as such as all windows are different. As long as you work with the flow of the water from top to bottom then you can’t go far wrong. I find that most problems stem from not doing a thorough first clean and if you get a bad one and are still getting problems by the 3/4 cleans then it’s time to weigh up weather it’s quicker to methodically clean it or trad it. I’ve know certain houses to take years of methodical cleaning before they can just be done normally and have a few but not many that are just quicker and easier to trad.


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On teq i scrub all frames and go over glass at least twice scrubbing on the rinsing on small to average windows  i move my brush side to side while moving it down, 

My question on large panes like patio doors after scrubbing

do you people still stick to a side to side motion or rinse down the curtain of water about the width of the brush, back to the top and rinse down the next brush width till your covered it.

 
On teq i scrub all frames and go over glass at least twice scrubbing on the rinsing on small to average windows  i move my brush side to side while moving it down, 

My question on large panes like patio doors after scrubbing

do you people still stick to a side to side motion or rinse down the curtain of water about the width of the brush, back to the top and rinse down the next brush width till your covered it.
We rinse the full width of the pain of glass in one go unless  its 10 feet wide then we do it in sections .

 
Everyone’s different I see people rinsing panes for 30 seconds and have a giggle to myself

if the window unit is small say two windows side by side quite thin with little glass I have found you can rinse the whole lot as you would one pane. I do this on thin patio door units that aren’t wide and have 2 extra windows on sides that don’t open. Never had any problems 

 
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