A touch of community service never hurts....

[Trev81]

This has gone down with the general public in a big way in my area! Hundreds of likes and shares on FB, lots of kind words and brought in loads of brand awareness, new quotes and some new regular window customers just in a matter of a few days, goes to show give something back that people appreciate and the rewards pay far bigger dividends than following the masses ways of advertising....

Also rather satisfying hunting down the odd minger and cleaning it up.....

 

[TJTOPCAT]

Good on you, I've often thought about it and I think it's a great service for the local community .[emoji106][emoji106].[emoji122][emoji122]. Your not far from me, so maybe we can clean the villages up. [emoji3]

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[Iron Giant]

Nice one, I only clean the my own street signs when their getting green

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[SPCleaning]

Good for you mate.

I do the signage in my parish too. In most cases now, the cleaning of these things comes down to the Parish/Town Council and they have to tender out the work.

It can be costly for the Parish to pay for such a service, so as I'm the Parish Council Chairman, and I have the gear, I just do it myself and save the parish a few quid.

I did get a guy ring up complaining that I cleaned a sign but further down the road I had not cleaned the next one and I therefore was not doing my job properly. He wouldn't accept that I would be crossing into another parish and that Council would or should be making their own arrangements.

 

[Clisty1989]

On a similar note, I have a no entry sign at the bottom of my road that's so filthy you can barely see it (one way street) and people go up it the wrong way. Is there any law about doing it myself as it does my head in?

 

[Adams0211]

I like this and think I'll give it a go. Giving back something to the community and good publicity. It's a win-win.

 

[Bucko Jr]

I drive by loads and think they would come up lovely. Might have to give it a go. [emoji4]

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[PDixon cvs]

Good for you mate.
I do the signage in my parish too. In most cases now, the cleaning of these things comes down to the Parish/Town Council and they have to tender out the work.

It can be costly for the Parish to pay for such a service, so as I'm the Parish Council Chairman, and I have the gear, I just do it myself and save the parish a few quid.

I did get a guy ring up complaining that I cleaned a sign but further down the road I had not cleaned the next one and I therefore was not doing my job properly. He wouldn't accept that I would be crossing into another parish and that Council would or should be making their own arrangements.

It's funny I'm on the parish council in my village allways wondered if any other window cleaners did things like parish council etc

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[Neilmnwc]

On a similar note, I have a no entry sign at the bottom of my road that's so filthy you can barely see it (one way street) and people go up it the wrong way. Is there any law about doing it myself as it does my head in?

No law against improving the condition of it Clisty1989, only damaging or destroying.

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[Cghwindowcleaning]

I have seen the council starting to clean them round my way over the last of months.

I would say be very careful if you chose to do this the council or highways agency don't want you doing it as you should have full PPE on and the van should have a warning light on any accident caused by you on there signs won't look good.

 

[Trev81]

I have seen the council starting to clean them round my way over the last of months.
I would say be very careful if you chose to do this the council or highways agency don't want you doing it as you should have full PPE on and the van should have a warning light on any accident caused by you on there signs won't look good.

Actually incorrect, the signs you as a member of the public cannot touch are any within the area of dual carriageways & motorways.

Sign cleaning on A/B roads, villages etc is totally acceptable and many members of parish councils etc regularly clean easy to reach ones and village signs, the ones I clean are mostly the forgotten ones a bit further out.

Obviously using your loaf when parking the van is wise, but certainly nothing illegal about cleaning them.

 

[Clisty1989]

Actually incorrect, the signs you as a member of the public cannot touch are any within the area of dual carriageways & motorways.
Sign cleaning on A/B roads, villages etc is totally acceptable and many members of parish councils etc regularly clean easy to reach ones and village signs, the ones I clean are mostly the forgotten ones a bit further out.

Obviously using your loaf when parking the van is wise, but certainly nothing illegal about cleaning them.

Im gonna take my backpack down the road (50m from my house) late at night so nobody's around

 

[Tuffers]

We've got an old red phone box in our village. On the parish website it states that they have taken it over from BT and that they've painted it. God knows when it was painted as it looks manky as hell. I said to the Mrs that I could give it a clean. Problem is I couldn't get me pole in it to do the insides, so I've deffed that idea /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[TJTOPCAT]

We've got an old red phone box in our village. On the parish website it states that they have taken it over from BT and that they've painted it. God knows when it was painted as it looks manky as hell. I said to the Mrs that I could give it a clean. Problem is I couldn't get me pole in it to do the insides, so I've deffed that idea /emoticons/biggrin.png

Could just use the gooseneck on insides. Lol. [emoji38].

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[Henry Walters]

This has gone down with the general public in a big way in my area! Hundreds of likes and shares on FB, lots of kind words and brought in loads of brand awareness, new quotes and some new regular window customers just in a matter of a few days, goes to show give something back that people appreciate and the rewards pay far bigger dividends than following the masses ways of advertising....
Also rather satisfying hunting down the odd minger and cleaning it up.....

View attachment 13673 View attachment 13674 View attachment 13675 View attachment 13676 View attachment 13677 View attachment 13678

What did you use, just water?

 

[Adams0211]

I did a few on my travels today. It's strangely satisfying.

 

[Tuffers]

Could just use the gooseneck on insides. Lol. [emoji38].
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And get soaked in the process. Stuff that /emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[luca]

I do quite a lot for my community and have genuinely often thought about this... I love the idea even more now you've shown pics!! I'd like to consider this later in the year when we have some time... how'd you feel about that? Don't wanna nick your idea but you've kind of affirmed how good an idea I had [emoji848]

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[Adams0211]

So I decided to give this a go today and thought I'd share my results.

During the course of today I cleaned four neighbourhood watch signs, one street sign and one parking enforcement sign. Five of the signs were adjacent to properties I was working on (so no additional time spent setting up and packing away) and one I stopped for on the way home. I took a before and after photo of each. Probably added an extra ten mins or so to my day in total.

Once I was home I used an app on my iPhone to create a photo collage of the before and after pics. Took no longer than five minutes.

After that I created a post on my Facebook business page and added the photo. I then shared that post to ten local Facebook groups. Again, took no longer than five minutes.

In the three hours since posting, my post has been viewed by six and a half thousand people and has been shared thirty nine times. I've had loads of nice comments and seven people have contacted me asking for quotes for various bits and pieces.

To sum up, ten minutes of unpaid work plus ten minutes of making the collage and posting on Facebook has so far created seven quotes, loads of nice comments, new likes on my Facebook page, people sharing my post, local groups singing my praises and has six dirty old signs look nicer.

I'll definitely be keeping this up. It's nice to give something back and it's great advertising.

 

[Adams0211]

 

[Trev81]

Glad to see a few others have had a bash at this, yes weirdly satisfying and really goes down well with the public.!!

I had my local papers chief editor contact me today who is running a feature on me about this, photographer coming out tomorrow.! Very excited, not sure how big a report but very keen on the phone of putting it in the news, looking forward to the bombardment of fb likes if I can plug my page on the report /emoticons/smile.png))