What's Your Flow Rate?

[Belfastcleaning]

I'm now working with my flow on 45 doing my regular work..

For first cleaning I would bump it up a bit to about 70ish

What's yours?

 

[chip]

Don't have controller so don't really know anymore. Was about 1.2 l per min, just whack the pump up to what feels balanced now!

 

[Knoxy]

I run at 19 or 20 on a first clean I'll put it up to 25

 

[bluemonkey]

full blast, get windows done really quickly

 

[Richard]

You won’t, or shouldn’t be using more water with a higher flow rate; hence the importance of an effective window cleaning brush. You will or should be cleaning the windows quicker. Taking less time but still using the same amount of water. If a dirty window needs 1 litre of water to clean it, whether you have a faster or slower water flow rate it still going to need that amount of water to get the window clean.

You will get through your tank of water quicker, but you will have also completed the work that much sooner.

As a guide 1 litre of water with a depth of 1mm will cover 1 square meter, so with a flow rate of 2.5 litres a minute, if you spend aprox 6 seconds cleaning a pane of glass you will have used about a cupful of water – 250ml. Considering you may be cleaning in excess of 3,000 windows a week, every second will count.

I often clean windows 2-3 seconds or sometimes less, you can’t do this will a water flow rate that is to slow, you have no choice but to wait for the water, but if you are using a ‘slow brush’ it probably wont make much difference as you will need to apply far more brush strokes anyway. So a reduced water flow would be correct for that brush type, it will be ok, costly though!

Richard

 

[Knoxy]

You won’t, or shouldn’t be using more water with a higher flow rate; hence the importance of an effective window cleaning brush. You will or should be cleaning the windows quicker. Taking less time but still using the same amount of water. If a dirty window needs 1 litre of water to clean it, whether you have a faster or slower water flow rate it still going to need that amount of water to get the window clean.
You will get through your tank of water quicker, but you will have also completed the work that much sooner.

As a guide 1 litre of water with a depth of 1mm will cover 1 square meter, so will a flow rate of 2.5 litres a minute, if you spend aprox 6 seconds cleaning a pane of glass you will have use about a cupful of water – 250ml. Considering you may be cleaning in excess of 3,000 windows a week, every second will count.

I often clean windows 2-3 seconds or sometimes less, you can’t do this will a water flow rate that is to slow, you have no choice but to wait for the water, but if you are using a ‘slow brush’ it probably wont make much difference as you will need to apply far more brush strokes anyway. So a reduced water flow would be correct for that brush type, it will be ok, costly though!

Richard

Really 2-3 seconds!! Richard I read your posts and you come across to be very informative but what I'd love to see from you is a couple of demo videos, not to pull you to bits but so I can gain a better working practice.

 

[bluemonkey]

it doesnt take long to clean a window on a manitence clean, right bursh and flow rate and its very quick

 

[harunh]

You won’t, or shouldn’t be using more water with a higher flow rate; hence the importance of an effective window cleaning brush. You will or should be cleaning the windows quicker. Taking less time but still using the same amount of water. If a dirty window needs 1 litre of water to clean it, whether you have a faster or slower water flow rate it still going to need that amount of water to get the window clean.

You will get through your tank of water quicker, but you will have also completed the work that much sooner.

As a guide 1 litre of water with a depth of 1mm will cover 1 square meter, so will a flow rate of 2.5 litres a minute, if you spend aprox 6 seconds cleaning a pane of glass you will have use about a cupful of water – 250ml. Considering you may be cleaning in excess of 3,000 windows a week, every second will count.

I often clean windows 2-3 seconds or sometimes less, you can’t do this will a water flow rate that is to slow, you have no choice but to wait for the water, but if you are using a ‘slow brush’ it probably wont make much difference as you will need to apply far more brush strokes anyway. So a reduced water flow would be correct for that brush type, it will be ok, costly though!

Richard

He knowws the score /emoticons/wink.png i work with flow of 40 sometines 60 lol /emoticons/tongue.png first cleans i do 80

 

[Squeak and Bubbles]

I must admit, depending on the pane and size of glass and if it's well maintained, it shouldn't take that long to clean the glass. 8-10 seconds a pane. First dirty cleans were the upvc is black then flip me, it can take a while. I always charge double the rate for the first clean. Don't have any issues with customers saying no. If it takes me not as long as I thought, I will take off a fiver.

 

[Richard]

Hi Knoxy,

Maybe in the future I will find the free time to do some videos.

2-3 seconds cleaning does depend on the type of window frames the window size and the current condition of the glass. Cleaning my customers Georgian windows can takes less time than this for each small window, using a full trim brush is a must for maximum speed on these type windows.

There are many things you can do to refine & speed up your days work, start keeping notes on what works quicker for you. The simple act of turning the water flow rate up should mean you can work faster on a lot of that days work, I can’t emphasise enough how important the brush choice is - it is the key piece of cleaning equipment – (along with the pure water) only using one type of brush (bristle) even if you have several brushes will mean you will be losing some time each day, whether you are aware of this or not.

Richard