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Second hand or new wfp for a beginner
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Tuffers
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If you buy second hand it will wear out quicker and you'll have no backup if what you buy goes wrong. Buy your poles from Gardiners and all the bits that go with it. If money is tight, buy a CLX to get started and move to a full carbon (SLX) when you can afford one. I bought a 30' Unger fibreglass pole as my first pole as I didn't know any better, it whipped all over the shop and was really hard to control.
Buy new!
Buy new!
cheapncheerful
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now come on kev I gave you my link didnt I ...that pole is only a hundred...okay its bloomin heavy and bloomin bouncy but its great...and second hand poles are worn and the clamps cant tighten up ..
get a banana and think of it as a free gym pass...
me loves my banana and after seeing the video smurfy uploaded of the fat guy in america and that was supposed to be a clx I am not so worried about it anymore.../emoticons/biggrin.png
steer clear of second hand poles unless you want to buy my banana for a ninety quid....hes in good shape ...freshly talced up he flys up and down.../emoticons/biggrin.png
get a banana and think of it as a free gym pass...
me loves my banana and after seeing the video smurfy uploaded of the fat guy in america and that was supposed to be a clx I am not so worried about it anymore.../emoticons/biggrin.png
steer clear of second hand poles unless you want to buy my banana for a ninety quid....hes in good shape ...freshly talced up he flys up and down.../emoticons/biggrin.png
I've seen some very old worn kit going for a nearly new price. There was a used CLX22 on Ebay the other day that fetched more than Gardiners selling price by the time a £10.00 delivery and packing charge was added.
Due Diligence is a term used in business a lot now. It means that the buyer should study the market before he buys. If it is a good deal, in good condition, nearly new and as new with a genuine reason for sale, then it may be worth considering.
If you see that there are a lot of 250 liter wfp kits for sale on Ebay, then you need to ask why. Have the owners discovered that they were too small and that they now need a bigger tank to last the day? Buy bigger than you need, buy right first time and buy the best. It will save you money in the long run.
If you buy a second hand r/o, then the price you pay must include the price of new prefilters and membranes. Despite what a seller says, you will need to replace them within a short time. In many cases it will be better to buy a new one.
Due Diligence is a term used in business a lot now. It means that the buyer should study the market before he buys. If it is a good deal, in good condition, nearly new and as new with a genuine reason for sale, then it may be worth considering.
If you see that there are a lot of 250 liter wfp kits for sale on Ebay, then you need to ask why. Have the owners discovered that they were too small and that they now need a bigger tank to last the day? Buy bigger than you need, buy right first time and buy the best. It will save you money in the long run.
If you buy a second hand r/o, then the price you pay must include the price of new prefilters and membranes. Despite what a seller says, you will need to replace them within a short time. In many cases it will be better to buy a new one.
Sorry guys forgive me!! Duh!! Lol i meant the full system! Sorry again! It's was just that smurf mentioned a second hand tank earlier and it got me thinking would i be better going down that route rather brand new, i'm a novice i dont even know how a pole system works, i mean the actual setup, all i know is there is a tank and a a pole but apart from that.... but i did go through my mind if you are buying new you arent buying wear and tear
Smurf
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I know of a lad on here that bought all new gear and spent a fortune only 3 months later sold it all to another member on here for a 3rd of the price. That guy must have more money than sense as wasted a few grand in the process but the chap that bought it could not believe his luck.
Good advice, i always do thorough research before i buy it's just my nature, the reason i was thinking a 250 litre tank is the site i was on recommended that size for my van, an escort size they said, mine is a vauxhall combo, i dont want to knacker it, it is a good van
Why did he sell it? Ideally i want to get a new van and a nice setup, but cant manage it at the moment, another thing once the system is bolted to the van do you think it will reduce the value of what the vans worth? Is it better to sell it as one the wfp system and van together
Smurf
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It was a while ago an not only did he buy a fully fitted 2man system including gardiner slx poles etc he also bought all new decent guttervac, generator and pressure washer gear.
I'm guessing he could not make any money from it so went back working for the man
I'm guessing he could not make any money from it so went back working for the man
cheapncheerful
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no probs...any questions about this please ask as I use it daily..best money I have spent./emoticons/biggrin.png
.http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Start-a-water-fed-pole-window-cleaning-business-for-only-300-/131002153236?pt=UK_B_I_Business_for_Sale_CV&hash=item1e80563914
Smurf
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People can spend a fortune on kit but if they are not business savvy and don't have the determination to succeed can fall very quite quickly.
cheapncheerful
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is this the one kev.....
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me and daveyboy do that every day....
now okay I er dont think smurfy would have approved of my standing on the top of the ladder on one leg only as there is only one stile of the ladder on the sill
and the other hovering in mid air , well a table was in the way at the bottom and I couldnt be bothered to move it...IMHO you need to buy the right kit so you can do the job. This needs to take future growth into consideration. It also needs to take other things into consideration as well. For example, you may start wfp because you need to safely clean those top windows from the ground but you will continue trading the downstairs windows.
However, you will quickly find that it is quicker to pole all windows but you haven't got enough water capacity to do this. Now your system isn't an asset to you, its throttling you as your growth is being restricted by your equipment.
We have found that to do a good days work you need to have a 500 liter tank on your van as a single operator. Most days you will use between 350 and 400 liters - great, but you have more if you need it.
An Escort van isn't big enough to carry that so its a waste of time getting one. If you have a 600LX Berlingo/Partner van, then you will find that that is also too small. You need an 800 LX Berlingo/Partner or a LWB Transit Connect T220 or T230. If your Combo van doesn't carry the weight its useless to you no matter how good a condition it is in.
When you start wfp the equipment needed and its application seems so complicated. I bought a fully working wfp trailer with r/o and that's how I learnt. But it was a waste of money. I didn't have enough water to last the day and as I processed it directly into the trailer tanks I lost a few hours of work each day even when I carried an extra 100 liters in plastic containers. I ended up upgrading the r/o, processing water into an IBC tank and scrapping the trailer. The trailer prevented me from doing a day's work. Everything was exposed to the elements and there were days when I couldn't work because everything was frozen up. I replaced it with a SWB Citroen Relay. The difference was like chalk and cheese. But today, 7 years on, TBH it's probably too small for the 2 of us with a 650 liter 2 man system on board.
If I was younger and had a lot of working years left, then I would look at a LWB 3500kg van.
However, you will quickly find that it is quicker to pole all windows but you haven't got enough water capacity to do this. Now your system isn't an asset to you, its throttling you as your growth is being restricted by your equipment.
We have found that to do a good days work you need to have a 500 liter tank on your van as a single operator. Most days you will use between 350 and 400 liters - great, but you have more if you need it.
An Escort van isn't big enough to carry that so its a waste of time getting one. If you have a 600LX Berlingo/Partner van, then you will find that that is also too small. You need an 800 LX Berlingo/Partner or a LWB Transit Connect T220 or T230. If your Combo van doesn't carry the weight its useless to you no matter how good a condition it is in.
When you start wfp the equipment needed and its application seems so complicated. I bought a fully working wfp trailer with r/o and that's how I learnt. But it was a waste of money. I didn't have enough water to last the day and as I processed it directly into the trailer tanks I lost a few hours of work each day even when I carried an extra 100 liters in plastic containers. I ended up upgrading the r/o, processing water into an IBC tank and scrapping the trailer. The trailer prevented me from doing a day's work. Everything was exposed to the elements and there were days when I couldn't work because everything was frozen up. I replaced it with a SWB Citroen Relay. The difference was like chalk and cheese. But today, 7 years on, TBH it's probably too small for the 2 of us with a 650 liter 2 man system on board.
If I was younger and had a lot of working years left, then I would look at a LWB 3500kg van.
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Yeah that's it, i've never done wfp cleaning but i've done window cleaning for years and got a fair idea how to go about getting customers which is the main thing, but it wont be easy branching into something new, but then again you never know, i could be lying in the bahamas on my li low with my raybans on and big fat cigar in the mouth yet :laugh: fingers and toes crossed, hey if you dont set your sights high what is the point i say
Smurf
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I've got no chance of that as the wife spend all my dosh /emoticons/biggrin.png
cheapncheerful
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Yeh but you top it up with 25litre barrels also off ebay...I have four...you could have more.....25litres when you get good can do quite a lot of house...and you dump the barrels on route..its the way a lot of us do it as I only have a car and they jam in the footwell for security.../emoticons/biggrin.png
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