Newbie advice please

[Pjj]

Yeah it's not fazing me, just trying to use it as a basis as this is the largest job I've done thus far!

Pricing work like this is always a juggling act , you don’t want to be to expensive  not get it neither do you want to go in to cheap  , get the job and then regret/hate doing it beacause you could be earning more doing houses . Years ago I priced up an 8 storey hotel and three blocks of 5 storey apartments , I took a friend along and I thought it would take us 4-5 days with 4 of us , the first clean did take 3 days with 4 of us after that we did it in 1:5 days with 4 of us , I don’t know how many windows it was but there was several hundred sheets of balustrade glass that had to be cleaned both sides we still did the job in 1:5 days , I cannot post all the pictures on hear but imagine all sides of the appartments like this and pulling hoses aloft to do it . It’s surprising what you can get through when it’s window after window , this job is also lagged in salt and sand on most cleans as well 

 

[StevieWindows]

Pricing work like this is always a juggling act , you don’t want to be to expensive  not get it neither do you want to go in to cheap  , get the job and then regret/hate doing it beacause you could be earning more doing houses . Years ago I priced up an 8 storey hotel and three blocks of 5 storey apartments , I took a friend along and I thought it would take us 4-5 days with 4 of us , the first clean did take 3 days with 4 of us after that we did it in 1:5 days with 4 of us , I don’t know how many windows it was but there was several hundred sheets of balustrade glass that had to be cleaned both sides we still did the job in 1:5 days , I cannot post all the pictures on hear but imagine all sides of the appartments like this and pulling hoses aloft to do it . It’s surprising what you can get through when it’s window after window , this job is also lagged in salt and sand on most cleans as well 

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That looks amazing! Beautiful place! 

 You're right, it is a juggling act. It would be handy knowing what they charge at the mo ?

Yeah, I guess you can lose a lot of time driving between jobs, but we won't have to, so can get a crack on and do a load

How often did you get to do that job? 

 

[Pjj]

That looks amazing! Beautiful place! 

 You're right, it is a juggling act. It would be handy knowing what they charge at the mo ?

Yeah, I guess you can lose a lot of time driving between jobs, but we won't have to, so can get a crack on and do a load

How often did you get to do that job? 

If you can ask them what what they were paying , I quite often do that , I don’t however try and compete on price but if they say they are paying 2k you can be sure that they won’t pay 6k but if it’s the other way round you could earn more than you might expect , we do it every 6 weeks it’s a technically challenging job nothing is simple ???

 

[StevieWindows]

Looks like we have the go-ahead, as long as nothing changes. 

Turns out we are charging more than the company they use at the mo, but we're such damn nice people they couldn't resist. And we do a good job! ?

I do realise though that we could be dropped at any point, so this kinda work isn't something we're relying on.

But it's a nice bonus, and a good experience in dealing with something much larger than your regular residential. 

 

[Iron Giant]

Pricing work like this is always a juggling act , you don’t want to be to expensive  not get it neither do you want to go in to cheap  , get the job and then regret/hate doing it beacause you could be earning more doing houses . Years ago I priced up an 8 storey hotel and three blocks of 5 storey apartments , I took a friend along and I thought it would take us 4-5 days with 4 of us , the first clean did take 3 days with 4 of us after that we did it in 1:5 days with 4 of us , I don’t know how many windows it was but there was several hundred sheets of balustrade glass that had to be cleaned both sides we still did the job in 1:5 days , I cannot post all the pictures on hear but imagine all sides of the appartments like this and pulling hoses aloft to do it . It’s surprising what you can get through when it’s window after window , this job is also lagged in salt and sand on most cleans as well 

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Looks like @Part Timer on that balcony, looking for tips ?

 

[Part Timer]

Looks like we have the go-ahead, as long as nothing changes. 

Turns out we are charging more than the company they use at the mo, but we're such damn nice people they couldn't resist. And we do a good job! ?

I do realise though that we could be dropped at any point, so this kinda work isn't something we're relying on.

But it's a nice bonus, and a good experience in dealing with something much larger than your regular residential. 

Well done, I appreciate you're not going to divulge the exact price but is it closer to the £6k or £4k figure mentioned

 

[KGEC]

If you charge £30 an hour then the company will quickly become bankrupt. The bank charges the NHS £1700 a day for a nurse, the nurse will get about £200. My wee brother is an electrician and gets nearly £20 an hour so a company needs to charge 3 times that just to stay afloat. To remove squirrels from a loft my customer got a quote of £300 minimum for one cage and then £100 per extra cage. I thought everyone who was running a vat or limited company would charge nothing less than £600 a day, obviously a sole trader will be looking for £300 a day.

Disagree with this. I charge £450 plus VAT a day for two men in a van working in grounds maintenance and would happily do this every day and for every van. I also charge £300 for single man teams. I make enough from it. Currently employ 5 people plus myself but It’s all relative to over heads. If you are suggesting £600 per day for a one man team and you are achieving this I’ll be setting up my second depot in your area! No two businesses are the same and everyone has their own goals 

 

[Iron Giant]

Disagree with this. I charge £450 plus VAT a day for two men in a van working in grounds maintenance and would happily do this every day and for every van. I also charge £300 for single man teams. I make enough from it. Currently employ 5 people plus myself but It’s all relative to over heads. If you are suggesting £600 per day for a one man team and you are achieving this I’ll be setting up my second depot in your area! No two businesses are the same and everyone has their own goals 

@scottish cleaning service needs ignoring sometimes, pretty sure he plucks stuff out of the air 

 

[KGEC]

@scottish cleaning service needs ignoring sometimes, pretty sure he plucks stuff out of the air 

Like I said it’s all down to the business and the individual overheads. A van on the road in grounds maintenance is £40-50k with all the kit we need or roughly £1000-1200 pcm in finance. Which is the route I take and at £450 per day I make what I feel is enough, but we all have different desires and needs so His situation will be completely different. That was the point I was trying to make.... I hope I wasn’t offensive in anyway. 

 

[Iron Giant]

Like I said it’s all down to the business and the individual overheads. A van on the road in grounds maintenance is £40-50k with all the kit we need or roughly £1000-1200 pcm in finance. Which is the route I take and at £450 per day I make what I feel is enough, but we all have different desires and needs so His situation will be completely different. That was the point I was trying to make.... I hope I wasn’t offensive in anyway. 

I don't think you were at all, with respect to Scottish no one would do what he has done spent in excess of 10k on a 2 man hot water 650ltr system with twin electric reels and poles and brushes, to service 100 mostly residential houses half of which he does trad as a sole operator, because they don't like wfp, my opinion of course, but  take some things with a pinch of salt. 

 

[Pjj]

Glad to hear you have the job , keep us posted with how long you thought it would take and how long it did take to do , the first clean will always be the worst , get it up to speed and the next one will take a lot less time . 

 

[scottish cleaning service]

@scottish cleaning service needs ignoring sometimes, pretty sure he plucks stuff out of the air 

That's how owners of companies up here are rich until the work dries up. ?

 

[Stevieboy]

Like I said it’s all down to the business and the individual overheads. A van on the road in grounds maintenance is £40-50k with all the kit we need or roughly £1000-1200 pcm in finance. Which is the route I take and at £450 per day I make what I feel is enough, but we all have different desires and needs so His situation will be completely different. That was the point I was trying to make.... I hope I wasn’t offensive in anyway. 

Jesus Christ. Parker from Gold Rush is only on $620,000 per week. 

 

[scottish cleaning service]

£600 a day works out at £500 plus vat makes £600. So you have 500 for one staff member. After you pay their wages, tax, pension, Nat Ins and all the rest then you may have 250 profit. I just thought it was common sense to ask for 600 a day or the moment there is a downturn you go bust. I applaud folk who run small companies because its a headache. All it takes is for someone to call in sick and the diary goes up in the air. My dad owned a hotel and my mum ran it, you are on duty 24/7. In the end you need good honest staff or you will eventually go under. My mum employed a lot of relatives and friends which helped enormously. Good luck Kgec. ? 

 

[StevieWindows]

Hey guys, I'm back from the dead!
Just realised I never updated you on this College clean...

Well, we started in Feb 2020, and 4 years later we're still going with it. They haven't dumped us yet!

Over these years there has been a load of work going on during the school holidays when we clean, which has been a bit annoying at times as it meant we couldn't get access to some areas due to scaffolding etc. But we just get on with what we can and charge for what we can do!
New buildings have been built, and more windows added etc

I've been itemising the areas/buildings individually as best I can, so if we cant do a whole building I know how much to knock off.

At the start, there was just 2 of us cleaning, with a 3rd person helping a day or 2. But now 3 of us hit it every day, and I'd say all in all it takes about 4, maybe creeping into 5 days. When we first did the job, it was so overwhelming as it was the biggest job we had ever taken on. It took us a while to figure it all out and get use to the lay out. Now we're like a well oiled machine

With our on board r/o we can plug in and fill up as we clean, so the van literally moves once or twice a day.

Although the job has gotten easier, it's still a killer on our old knackered bodies!

 

[Part Timer]

Thanks for the update, as you're in West Sussex I actually do 2 big jobs near to you, one just outside Horsham and another outside Crawley. They take us 3 days to do both and we stay in Horsham when doing them.
If your price is the upper end of the numbers quoted then in my experience definitely achievable down there.