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Water fed pole commercial vs residential

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horatiocarter said:
Thank you for the truthful response it is much appreciated! I am looking to see if I can go out with someone short term to see if it is for me... and I am researching but wondered if asking views on here is helpful also and it has been amazingly so.

thanks to everyone who has given me there time thus far.
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Only way to know ,is get out there n do it. I'm loving it tbh. So good to see real dirty windows, frames etc come up clean. 

 
Your welcome. I hope you can go out with someone, it will help you a lot. 
You will soon know if it’s for you. You will pick up the basics. 
Then you can plan your decisions. You can buy pure water but that will work out much more expensive in the long run. Or you could buy an R O system. If you do go down that route then please ask for advice before buying then you get helped with good stuff hence not buying poor quality then buying again a few months later. 
so have a look at www.Daqua.co.uk

www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk

one you get to poles and brushes etc it’s like a sweet shop so much choice. 
All the best

 
Residential for dough. Commercial for show.

stick to residential work less hassle&. Loyal.

years ago we decided to go down the commercial route ,cut throat so went back to my residential work thank god.still have a good commercial round little shops no big contracts or working for a cleaning firm subbing.

 
Nicky said:
Residential for dough. Commercial for show.

stick to residential work less hassle&. Loyal.

years ago we decided to go down the commercial route ,cut throat so went back to my residential work thank god.still have a good commercial round little shops no big contracts or working for a cleaning firm subbing.
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Also they are a pain for paying up. Constant hounding.

 
Crystalalan said:
Also they are a pain for paying up. Constant hounding.
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The first big commercial job we had went pair shaped. Thankful one of the partners paid me out of his pocket.

It was a days work a month. We found out it left a hole in our pockets for a while. We eventually replaced the time with residential cleans but the income was much less than the job we lost.

I quickly realised how vunerable we were, so focused on residential. We don't get many non payments with residential. Those we do get aren't many so don't impact on our lives.

 
Jango said:
Your welcome. I hope you can go out with someone, it will help you a lot. 
You will soon know if it’s for you. You will pick up the basics. 
Then you can plan your decisions. You can buy pure water but that will work out much more expensive in the long run. Or you could buy an R O system. If you do go down that route then please ask for advice before buying then you get helped with good stuff hence not buying poor quality then buying again a few months later. 
so have a look at www.Daqua.co.uk

www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk

one you get to poles and brushes etc it’s like a sweet shop so much choice. 
All the best
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There do seem to be a hurendious amount of choice for poles. I see iconic seem to do packages but are they expensive?

 
horatiocarter said:
What poles or system did you go for?
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Gardiners. They seem the most popular but ova-8 are supposed to be reasonable and Phantoms are not bad either. 

When looking at poles you need to look at weight, are the clamps any good long term, are spares available, how quick do they wear, customer service etc. Have a search on here for the brand names and you will get a good idea how many people use which and the issues they have.

 
Nicky said:
Residential for dough. Commercial for show.

stick to residential work less hassle&. Loyal.

years ago we decided to go down the commercial route ,cut throat so went back to my residential work thank god.still have a good commercial round little shops no big contracts or working for a cleaning firm subbing.
Click to expand...
We do a lot of large commercial , very good money and never a problem paying , think to depends who you do stuff for and set your stool out before entering any contract , out payment terms into your terms and conditions get them to sight it BEFORE doing any work then you are covered by a legally binding contract and they cannot take there time paying as it’s written in the contract , we have this with all our commercial clients , I dint mean shops hear , but hotels , blocks of flats , nursing homes , etc .

 
We did these today, this is 3 out of the 7 on the site. Bin men stopped us starting till 8.05, pulled off 12.10. Money will be in my bank in 30 days, without fail, and it would take me 2 full days on residential to earn the same money.

There is loads of good commercial and loads of bad. No different to residential except the really good commercial is better then really good residential.

20210218_121154.jpg

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I like commercial for plenty of reasons but there is one reason I don't like them and that's when you lose them. All it takes is a change of manager or HQ is changing things around to justify their job and it can cost you a wedge of your earnings. Got to have a mix of both to provide stability unless you do add-ons then you should always have work coming in. Got a call today to clear gutters and one above a conny. Old guy said the old windy used to do it but new guy won't. I quoted between £60 to a £100 and he nearly had a heart attack because the old windy took £20. ?

 
Pjj said:
We do a lot of large commercial , very good money and never a problem paying , think to depends who you do stuff for and set your stool out before entering any contract , out payment terms into your terms and conditions get them to sight it BEFORE doing any work then you are covered by a legally binding contract and they cannot take there time paying as it’s written in the contract , we have this with all our commercial clients , I dint mean shops hear , but hotels , blocks of flats , nursing homes , etc .
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Part Timer said:
We did these today, this is 3 out of the 7 on the site. Bin men stopped us starting till 8.05, pulled off 12.10. Money will be in my bank in 30 days, without fail, and it would take me 2 full days on residential to earn the same money.

There is loads of good commercial and loads of bad. No different to residential except the really good commercial is better then really good residential.

View attachment 23465
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I agree with both these guys Commercial work Hotels, Resorts and large commercials jobs can and are very profitable.

It's all about terms and conditions. As @Pjjsaid your terms of service and conditions needs to be crystal clear before any work begins.

 
I mainly stick to domestics as a sole trader....however I've been cleaning a few offices,care homes,childrens nurseries for many years now...in fact I've never lost a commercial job in 28 years of window cleaning....these are not massive jobs though.... some might take a few hours at most...I dont take on work that could take a day or 2 to clean.....

 
I do other jobs but the window cleaning gives me a monthly contact with most of my customers. Today I fix a soffit where the lining board has came off and build a timber gate. It makes me £200 which I try to aim for on a daily rate but I can make 2 or 3 times that doing commercial ! ?

 
Ian Docksey said:
I've only just started up. I went for Gardiners SLX poles and brushes.  And had a delivery only system fitted . By 'the cleaning warehouse ' . A lot depends on budget, are you going for RO/DI system,  or getting pure from say Spotless . 
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Ro/di system? Did you look anywhere else other than ‘the cleaning warehouse’?

 
Part Timer said:
We did these today, this is 3 out of the 7 on the site. Bin men stopped us starting till 8.05, pulled off 12.10. Money will be in my bank in 30 days, without fail, and it would take me 2 full days on residential to earn the same money.

There is loads of good commercial and loads of bad. No different to residential except the really good commercial is better then really good residential.

View attachment 23465
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Thanks for sharing this! I see it’s four stores high do you need special poles as I am guessing most residential poles only go up to 3 stores? Do you do the contract on a yearly basis or a number of years? I.e 3 and 5 years is there an industry standard? Is there a place I could get a standard contract.

 
horatiocarter said:
Thanks for sharing this! I see it’s four stores high do you need special poles as I am guessing most residential poles only go up to 3 stores? Do you do the contract on a yearly basis or a number of years? I.e 3 and 5 years is there an industry standard? Is there a place I could get a standard contract.
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We use a 35' pole for this job and it's fully extended. We do a regular 6 storey job and a 5 storey job. We have a 60' pole to do these. They are done on yearly contracts with Property Management Companies.

Fairly certain you could find a standardised ontract online.

 

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