First day with the unger stingray, joys and woes

[Nudel]

So I had my first larger job with the stingray today, and thought I'd give it my first impressions of ups and downs.

Joys:

• As fast as regular cleaning, but without the drying up, so saves time. I did this customer twice as fast as when trad cleaning.
  
• No drips on paperwork or computers (did an office).
  
• No need for lugging a lot of tools and bucket around.
  
• Used less than a pouch of soap for 1.5 hours work.
  

Woes:

• At first glance the results look perfect. But take the flashlight on your cellphone to the window and you'll see a slight trace of the microfiber pad when dried. Could someone with a stingray try this out and see it it's my technique? It's especially visible on internal glass when you clean both sides.
  
• I mostly used the short pole only, but you need to use two hands on it to apply enough pressure, so when rotating the tool around I sometimes hit the button on the head, dispensing more soap than needed.
  

Technique I used:

Hold the pad on window and dispense soap while moving around to wet it. 

Do a single stripe of soap on the window then move around the corners and then the middle to carry the dust and soap with you, much like you would a squeegee.

Everybody says to use only a little soap, so I had to use more than I thought.

 

[Incheck]

Seen these they look good. If you look at things that closely fair play it shows you care but theres got to be a line drawn between acceptedly clean & going OCD. We all want to produce high standards but when you’re spending time looking for microscopic imperfections then you could be there all day, you’ll always find something. In direct sunlight you’ll be surprised what you can see that’s otherwise never visible...any kind of cloth you use is made of material and tiny parts frey off or its just dust, its everywhere, and in the atmosphere. Clean windows start getting dirty again instantly from atmospheric pollution. As a rule of thumb, take a photo of it, if it looks clean on the camera, it is. Anyone can zoom in & nit pick regarding any job. Give yourself a break man its a tool made to save you time and you’ve invested in it [emoji4]


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[Incheck]

Just to add, they’re designed for maintenance cleans, where the windows are done at the very least once a month. First clean if they’re bogging it wont be any good it will need a good tradding


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[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

Sold mine on eBay.  Continually left what can only be described as microfibre residue.  

I would not pay someone to leave my windows in the condition the stingray left them in so I wouldnt expect them to pay me for it. 

You dont need a flas light to see it either.... just the right angle of sun. 

 

[Iron Giant]

Sold mine on eBay.  Continually left what can only be described as microfibre residue.  

I would not pay someone to leave my windows in the condition the stingray left them in so I wouldnt expect them to pay me for it. 

You dont need a flas light to see it either.... just the right angle of sun. 

The one thing they typically never tell you about microfibre cloths of all types is that they can only be washed with laundry liquid and no traces of fabric softener, when i used to valet my truck on a ocd level i would always hand wash them in the sink. 

Otherwise you will get tiny bits of fibre smears on glass, my wife washed one in the washing machine for in her car and cleaned  the inside of the windscreen with it later 2 days later on a bright sunny day she struggled to see out the windscreen whilst driving. 

 

[Nudel]

Anyone can zoom in & nit pick regarding any job. Give yourself a break man its a tool made to save you time and you’ve invested in it

Thanks, very true, and I do use WFP where I know I do miss the odd bird dropping here and there, as its not always visible from the ground.

But then again, I don't feel the stingray does what its supposed to do. I'd get the same result with a bottle of windex and a rag, which is not professional.

I'd rather up my prices and do it right, than buy a subpar (rather expensive) tool that does a subpar job at a subpar price.

I guess I just have to accept I won't get WFP hourly rates when doing insides.

Just to add, they’re designed for maintenance cleans, where the windows are done at the very least once a month. First clean if they’re bogging it wont be any good it will need a good tradding

Sure, and I do the insides here four times a year, and did them trad last time. The windows still looked very good from last time as it's not an office with a lot of traffic, and no children.

Sold mine on eBay.  Continually left what can only be described as microfibre residue.  

I would not pay someone to leave my windows in the condition the stingray left them in so I wouldnt expect them to pay me for it. 

You dont need a flas light to see it either.... just the right angle of sun. 

Yes, good description. I had the same residue when I experimented with the simpler unger pad system and using pure water only. There I could buff the residue off from a slightly wet window with a totally dry pad. The pads only lasted for a few windows though, so you would need a billion of them for a average sized job, but good in a pinch for the odd window.

We aren't troubled with excessive sunlight around here, and when the sun is up everybody pulls their curtains so they can see their monitors, so I doubt anyone would ever notice. And the most troublesome areas on this particular customer were internal glass with very dim lighting. But it does hurt my professional pride, which I suppose is a very good thing.

The one thing they typically never tell you about microfibre cloths of all types is that they can only be washed with laundry liquid and no traces of fabric softener, when i used to valet my truck on a ocd level i would always hand wash them in the sink. 

Otherwise you will get tiny bits of fibre smears on glass, my wife washed one in the washing machine for in her car and cleaned  the inside of the windscreen with it later 2 days later on a bright sunny day she struggled to see out the windscreen whilst driving. 

Just washed the pads at 60C and with vinegar as "softener". Used regular laundry detergent though, so will try liquid next time. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you for the replies guys!

 

[Incheck]

We only do residential & some small shops so dont really have the experience cleaning inside of offices but the stingray is designed to be used by office staff, cleaning inside windows once a week or every two weeks. Why they pay people to come in and do it i dont know as its easy to operate & follow instructions but fair play if its paying you then why not. Vast majority of our custys do their own insides or dont bother cleaning them at all because they know its charged at a premium if someones willing to do it to start with


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[HollasSpecialistCleaningSystems]

I used to use the unger internal pad system, never tried stingray. They are only good for spot cleaning of glass that’s already clean, ideal to give to daily cleaners to try maintain the windows until the next window clean.
You do need loads of pads and need to change them often. You can, if you want, change pads from wet(soapy) pad to dry pad then buffing pad for each window to save pads but you can trad it in half the time so what’s the point? Hence why I don’t use it anymore, I kept it as I thought it might come in handy for detailing or a internal con roof, it hasn’t.


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