How long to trad a ...

[dazmond]

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. ?

are you for real??

each to their own but i think your mad!....what about if theyve got awkward windows to clean (which lets face it a lot of properties do nowadays)do you climb on customers roofs?get the wfp out just for that window and trad the rest?

i couldnt be arsed with that......also what if you fall off your ladder?

some of you window cleaners are crazy!?

 

[dazmond]

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.   

if your happy with £30 an hour then crack on.....id be very disappointed and id sack the work off or raise prices.....

my time is precious and i only allow so many hours a day/week/month/year for window cleaning so i can keep a good work/life balance and not let work interfere with my hobbies and interests(and holidays!?).......

 

[dazmond]

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.

if you say so mate but always keep trying to push your pricing upwards whenever possible and find ways to speed up jobs,get more compact work and be organised with workloads....

you should never compare your pricing to a JOB(stands for JustOverBroke)working for someone else.....its a classic mistake underpricing(i include myself in this too from 26 years ago!) which sees a lot of self employed people go out of business within a few years because they dont charge enough in the first place.....

ive had some hard financial times years ago because i didnt charge enough for my services.....luckily ive learned from my mistakes these days....

 

[Iron Giant]

if your happy with £30 an hour then crack on.....id be very disappointed and id sack the work off or raise prices.....

my time is precious and i only allow so many hours a day/week/month/year for window cleaning so i can keep a good work/life balance and not let work interfere with my hobbies and interests(and holidays!?).......

I never said how much I earned and never do ? my business is my own and no one else's   

 

[Skxawng]

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.   

I think as window cleaners we are pretty fortunate to be able to achieve the hourly rate we do for relatively unskilled work (before anyone jumps on me, I mean unskilled as in no formal training/college/apprenticeship is required- but there is a big difference between a windy who knows his stuff and someone who doesn't).

The main reason we can earn the hourly rates we do is that the market allows it. 

You could have the same drive, business acumen, motivation and skill in another self employed service industry and not make nearly as much. For instance domestic cleaning and ironing are tough jobs that are analogous to window cleaning in that the are relatively unskilled to get into but difficult to master. And on average around here they earn around £8 or £10-£12 per hour if they're good. The average new window cleaner will earn a lot better rate in their first year with no experience.

Before starting windows in 2006 I was a jewelry repairer and also did watch repairs. And that was a skilled job that required training but I only got £4.90 p/h and worked Monday to Saturday 8:30- 5:30 and basically had no life.

Really, I'm saying I'm happy I stumbled into window cleaning as the hourly rate you can earn gives you a lot better work life balance. A lot of people would be very happy with £30ph.

 

[scottish cleaning service]

I'm making a grand a week and the money is real. I cleared 3 gutters yesterday but had to block where the birds were getting in. Problem is I like working, even 7 days doesn't bother me. Fully booked till November now. I take the Tortoise approach and every penny goes back into the business on new equipment only problem is storage space.

 

[dazmond]

I'm making a grand a week and the money is real. I cleared 3 gutters yesterday but had to block where the birds were getting in. Problem is I like working, even 7 days doesn't bother me. Fully booked till November now. I take the Tortoise approach and every penny goes back into the business on new equipment only problem is storage space.

that will change over time though.........

no one can sustain working 6 or 7 days a week for long .....everything starts to suffer,relationships with partners,kids(if you have any),family,your hobbies go out the window and youll start to hate going to work because you ll be tired all the time.....

the trick is to try and earn that grand(or more)a week in 20-25 hours a week so you can enjoy your hobbies,family and friends too.....also your far less likely to get absolutely fed up with cleaning working less hours....

thats been my experience over the 26 years ive been window cleaning.....

 

[scottish cleaning service]

that will change over time though.........

no one can sustain working 6 or 7 days a week for long .....everything starts to suffer,relationships with partners,kids(if you have any),family,your hobbies go out the window and youll start to hate going to work because you ll be tired all the time.....

the trick is to try and earn that grand(or more)a week in 20-25 hours a week so you can enjoy your hobbies,family and friends too.....also your far less likely to get absolutely fed up with cleaning working less hours....

thats been my experience over the 26 years ive been window cleaning.....

I go quiet in winter but the reason i make so much is because i do nearly everything. Today is a big gutter clear on church and their windows. I have a big PW job on a driveway with a small tree that needs to be removed and then monoblock fitted in where the trunk was. One part of monoblock has sunk so after i PW it, i will need to lift it and lay sand and re-lay it and wack it down. That's what the customer wants, someone who can do it all, no ifs and no buts. Then i clean their windows and collect a grand, hopefully.

 

[Wind o kleen]

That grand a week surely gets cut down somewhere near to £700 if you take running costs , insurance  tax/ni ,

you happy taking home £100 a day after costs ? If your working 7 days a week?

 

[dazmond]

I go quiet in winter but the reason i make so much is because i do nearly everything. Today is a big gutter clear on church and their windows. I have a big PW job on a driveway with a small tree that needs to be removed and then monoblock fitted in where the trunk was. One part of monoblock has sunk so after i PW it, i will need to lift it and lay sand and re-lay it and wack it down. That's what the customer wants, someone who can do it all, no ifs and no buts. Then i clean their windows and collect a grand, hopefully.

fair play if you like doing that kind of work........

i prefer just regular window cleaning these days and the odd add on job.....its less hard work and i make that 1k(and more some weeks)mon-fri doing part time hours all YEAR ROUND......

theres no "quiet" time in winter...my income is the same whether its january or july.......

 

[steve garwood]

I'm making a grand a week and the money is real. I cleared 3 gutters yesterday but had to block where the birds were getting in. Problem is I like working, even 7 days doesn't bother me. Fully booked till November now. I take the Tortoise approach and every penny goes back into the business on new equipment only problem is storage space.

Haven’t you got a wife, friends or social life? 

Why the hell do you want to work 7 days a week? Much more to life