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How much quicker is cleaning with hot water?

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Re the dirty shammy comment, a customer said to me a couple of weeks ago that in his opinion the trouble with window cleaners is that they try to work with dirty cloths instead of ensuring they changed it often enough.

 
getting off the topic  how many o you young   lads no how to clean a window  with only a shammy  ?     and I mean a dirty one no  chemicals  
I meant dirty windows not dirty shammy  ya no what I was having a banter with you youngns and ya have all took it   wrong    sad   ya ?        

 
Hot water is definitely the way to go, I have a secondhand reach & wash system, definitely speeds things up, I am based in Sidmouth Devon, the seagulls eat all sorts and it’s a nightmare to shift

 
i use hot water all day every day......i dont see the point in spending £4.5k on a hot water system and hardly using it.....i used to use gas heaters but i had a leak and an explosion in my van,took it out straight away and took it down to the tip the next day......i then used cold water for 6 months or so but missed the hot water so decided to get a professionally fitted diesel  hot system fitted (with frost stat) by grippatank....

diesel heaters are a lot more reliable,less faff and safer than gas heaters for sure.....i love mine....plus i dont have to worry about unscrewing the little drain screw on the gas heaters on cold nights(or remembering to bung a heater in the back!)......

the real benefit of hot water is in the warmer months IMO because the waters hotter......snail trails,yellow spots,birdstrikes,birdmuck on frames and leaves stuck to windows all come off much easier and theres a lot of this on the windows i clean during the spring/summer months.....and of course dirty first cleans,add jobs etc are easier to clean.....

 
I use hot water all day. I wouldn’t be without it now. 

Hoses are easier to manage, no matter what dirt is on the glass, just a quick scrub and it’s gone. 

I do feel that over time it gives a deeper clean also. 

 
I agree Jonny, don't get me wrong, cold does a great job and I only used cold for 9 years but I would hate to go back to it now. I find that I am much quicker with hot also.

 
none both do same job.
This is not true. Birds poops and fly shits explode with 60 degrees Celsius which is not the case with cold water.

When I was cleaning with cold water and with a Reach-it Window Weapon brush with Bronze Wool on it, i needed a lot of agitation to destroy the excretions.

It's not the case anymore now with hot water... i don't need to agitate so much anymore and i don't even need any pad. My window weapon brush with bronze wool stays actually in the van.

 
I use cold water with Gardiners Universal - the red hot water brush. Never had a problem getting anything off with it, even managed to get old masking tape that the builders had left on, on a new build property I first cleaned a few days back. It got all the residue off. Probably been on there a while.

 
I use cold water with Gardiners Universal - the red hot water brush. Never had a problem getting anything off with it, even managed to get old masking tape that the builders had left on, on a new build property I first cleaned a few days back. It got all the residue off. Probably been on there a while.
I use Gardiner Universal Sill brush (with red and blue bristles : see pic) and what i can say is that I work faster with this brush with hot water (60 degrees Celsius than with cold water.

brush_universal_sill_stiff_with_jet_capsules_fitted_1200.jpg


 
Definitely a lot quicker , I am down in Devon, the seagulls are a nightmare, it eats through the dirt, definitely noticed a difference when using cold water 

 
No offence, but why would the younger ones need or want to know?
I started in ‘92 and never really used shammys   . another window cleaner gave me a chamois leather mop. We didn’t know what it was called so called it the Ruud Gullit cos it looked like his hair. Couldn’t get away with it though on french panes. Just used scrim. 

Rickadoo said:
I started in ‘92 and never really used shammys   . another window cleaner gave me a chamois leather mop. We didn’t know what it was called so called it the Ruud Gullit cos it looked like his hair. Couldn’t get away with it though on french panes. Just used scrim. 
Sorry just realised this post is ancient. 

 
I wouldn’t go back to cold water myself, I only use a cheap propane water heater but it does a great job and a 19kg gas bottle costs me £25-£30 once a month.

nothing worse than when it runs out while I’m working though I instantly feel it in the pole my fingers start to feel colder, the hose gets all stiff and a pain to wind in and the brush feels stiffer on the glass to me, I cant confirm if that’s true but when it’s hot it definitely feels like scrubbing and rinsing is easier whether hot water is less viscious I don’t know?

hot helps with dirty first cleans, bird muck, egg and the little yellow fly stuff we get in summer!!

sometimes in winter I wonder how I worked with cold, I tend to heat it at around 45-50 degrees max and I reckon by time its coming out the brush I’m looking at 20-30 degrees with heat loss through the reel, I wouldn’t go much hotter as I’ve done that when I first started and cracked a small window but that was about 60-70 degrees and the weather was minus 2-3 a few years ago I’d just started using it!!
Tryin to justify upgrading to a pure freedom hot water setup from cold...most my work is on a 4 weekly cycle, quite a few 8 weekly, sometimes do first cleans, quite a handful of con roofs etc. I do remember the past couple of winters having to go home about 1-2 hours of starting because the hoses will just freeze up on the ground, a day lost. But ive heard if u have a hot water setup to use it year round, not just a winter thing. I had a really big issue last year from spring to early autumn with fly poo/mess, i was working twice as hard/longer to get it all off the windows, it seemed most my round had it, how does the hot water deal with that - much scrubbing? That alone to me is worth the upgrade...i dont really want to have other nik naks attached to my brush/pole to scrape things off, adding weight. I use visionV2 stuff to put in my tank which seems to work well,but if i upgraded i guess i wouldnt need it? Looking to speed up with less effort too, would love to know how much time it would save on an average day - one man band gotta look after myself, and maximising profit.

 

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