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Hi all, trad window cleaner from nz

K@OSNZ

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Hi everyone Gavin (K@OS) from Waiheke Island, NZ here.

This is my first post after trawling on here for a couple of weeks.

Thanks to Smurf & H, already some good tips and advise from you two.

I notice in the UK an average house price for you is about 10 quid which equates to around $25-30 NZD

I would be poor and working my butt off if I charged that here due to the size of the houses.

A typical house here would be 30 - 50 panes of glass ranging from 50-100cm diagonal to 350-400cm diagonal and more than likely 2 levels high.

Any help here would be appreciated regarding pricing in NZ or the comparative price for a place like that in UK? Any Kiwi or Ausies here that could help me with residential, retail & commercial pricing? How do you charge here? by time or by pane?

Also any advise on equipment suppliers in NZ would be helpful too.

Thanks to everyone who can help:thumbs:

 
Hi fella and welcome

How do other guys price where you are??

I would work out what i want per hour/day and price according to time

 
Hi Gavin, I am also here in NZ.

I arrived at my prices by deciding how much I wanted to earn per day.

Hypothetically say I want to earn $52,000 per year the calculation goes:

52,000/48 (being annual earnings divided by number of weeks in the year, allowing 4 weeks PAID leave)

=$1085 (rounded up because you should!)

$1085/4 (want to work 4 days because I am like that!)

=$275 per day

I find that I can manage 14 bedrooms (plus the rest of the houses of course) in a day so my minimum is $19.00 per bedroom

3 bed = 57

4 bed =79

5 bed = 95

In fact I add extra to 4 and 5 bedroom houses because they generally have a LOT more floor to ceiling ranch sliders etc.

GST not included! I do inside and outside. No idea if my pricing is good or bad but it works for me. The above ignores costs. I have a vehicle charge which I roll into the price. Worked out my vehicle cost over a period, divided by number of jobs and add the result to each quote. I add $3 to each price to cover clothes tools blades cleaner phone etc.

The above is for ONE story. Add extra for using ladder!

Be very interested in your thoughts.

 
Hi Gavin, welcome to the forums. We've got a great bunch on here with tons of advice and tips, welcome again mate:thumbsup:

 
in the UK we really do have to work our butts off in this job ,to make a decent living. oh theres folk who post that they wont accept any less than £££ but theyre lying /and or have a large family inheritance that is fuelling the fire

be intresting to hear how it is in NZ ,is there a risk of snakebites ?what about spiders? i remember reading that early settlers died of weird diseases

keep on a posting

 
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in the UK we really do have to work our butts off in this job ,to make a decent living. oh theres folk who post that they wont accept any less than £££ but theyre lying /and or have a large family inheritance that is fuelling the fire
be intresting to hear how it is in NZ ,is there a risk of snakebites ?what about spiders? i remember reading that early settlers died of weird diseases

keep on a posting
yeh over here we are working hard for what we get,it seems

if i was getting £10 for every house I would be happy happy laddy

 
in the UK we really do have to work our butts off in this job ,to make a decent living. oh theres folk who post that they wont accept any less than £££ but theyre lying /and or have a large family inheritance that is fuelling the fire
be intresting to hear how it is in NZ ,is there a risk of snakebites ?what about spiders? i remember reading that early settlers died of weird diseases

keep on a posting
Snake bites? Spiders? Not round here mate, that's our cousins across the ditch in Australia!

Our women are more deadly than any spiders in this country! And the only snakes are used for clearing blocked drains! hehe (there is always the occasional shark to look out for at the poker table tho!)

I think I will start a thread with updates of my progress, I am doing gutter clearing & house washing as well.

I have been operating for a couple of months but have been painting my brother in laws house so it has been secondary to the painting.

 
Hi fella and welcome
How do other guys price where you are??

I would work out what i want per hour/day and price according to time
I need to find out what the others are charging round here. The local population on the Island is 9000 which swells to around 35,000 over summer. Lots of holiday homes, accommodation places, expensive vineyard restaurants etc. There is one company which has been here for years and are well equipped for the large multi-story apartments etc with boom lifts, 3 trucks and plenty of staff. and then a couple of 1 man operations that don't advertise bar a small listing in the local classifieds each week and drive unmarked unsigned vehicles. Its an interesting time here, where the old school word of mouth laborers who haven't changed their prices in 20 years are now being overlooked by the new bigger money moving to the Island who tend to go for the branded, well advertised companies.

My plan is to come in branded up to the hilt and tap away at the residential, retail & light commercial and gradually work my way up to bidding the larger commercial against the big guys.

 
Hi Gavin, I am also here in NZ.
I arrived at my prices by deciding how much I wanted to earn per day.

Hypothetically say I want to earn $52,000 per year the calculation goes:

52,000/48 (being annual earnings divided by number of weeks in the year, allowing 4 weeks PAID leave)

=$1085 (rounded up because you should!)

$1085/4 (want to work 4 days because I am like that!)

=$275 per day

I find that I can manage 14 bedrooms (plus the rest of the houses of course) in a day so my minimum is $19.00 per bedroom

3 bed = 57

4 bed =79

5 bed = 95

In fact I add extra to 4 and 5 bedroom houses because they generally have a LOT more floor to ceiling ranch sliders etc.

GST not included! I do inside and outside. No idea if my pricing is good or bad but it works for me. The above ignores costs. I have a vehicle charge which I roll into the price. Worked out my vehicle cost over a period, divided by number of jobs and add the result to each quote. I add $3 to each price to cover clothes tools blades cleaner phone etc.

The above is for ONE story. Add extra for using ladder!

Be very interested in your thoughts.
Thanks for the info KiwiNeil,

Is that $57 inside & out?

How much extra would you charge for multi story? $25?

My plan is to build up the business, train up a couple of guys (at $18-20 per hour) and move into the office while I focus on the next business plan.

I worked out a per pane pricing system that when added up equated to around $50-60 per hour at my current speed which is not that fast, so when I get faster and more efficient, the per hour rate would go up.

I.E.

Measuring diagonally:

0-49cm $0.60c

50-99cm $1.30

100-149cm $2 (this is mainly the average window size and also the median across my pricing)

150-199cm $2.50

200-249cm $3.10

250-300cm $3.70

And so on up to 4.5mtr + $6 Anything over 3mtr is not that common. It so often works out that for example a 1 story 40 pane house exterior clean only, works out to around $65-75 and at the moment that would take me around 1.25 hours (from parking to leaving) that I may just charge $2 per pane and $4 for over 3.5 mtr and see if the price is similar.

I then charge the same price to do inside as well so inside $65 + outside $65 = $130 2.5 hours. $52 per hour.

Bear in mind, these have been 1st cleans and its not common to get monthly or bi-monthly cleans here. Most people talk along the lines of 6 monthly.

Which brings up another question! How often do you Kiwi & Ausie guys do your regular residential & or retail jobs? Is monthly for retail & bi monthly or seasonally reasonable for residential? How do you sell the idea to your customer?

 
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Hi Gavin,

Welcome. I'm in Christchurch. The pricing around here varies enormously - anything from $35 to $135 for a 3-bed single storey house. The few residential customers I have are roughly about 6 monthly cleans.

 
Inside and out BUT add on phone and car costs. The figures were indicative rather than actual, showing you how I arrive at a price. The effort of working out a price based on per window etc means that I would need to see the house before I could quote it. I try to minimise travelling when I am not getting paid! I am working hard to ensure that I stay below the compulsory GST threshold! I suspect that adding GST would see many/most customers do it them self or find some one who charges less.

In my experience 4 to 6 months is usual (although I have one customer who gets 4 weekly) for recleans.

Two story extra starts at $35.00 and goes up with difficulty.

Don't do any commercial.

 
Cool, great advice! I think i will look more at a general pricing although with my prices my quote time and expense is covered IF i get the job. You have given me something to think about after all my house wash prices are based on 3 stages of house size

 
I would think you would be going for more like $500/day on Waiheke. I often earn $300 subcontracting for a not to hard days work in Auckland. I live in Northland most of the time and travel down for a week or two every month or two. PM me if you ever want a hand, I have been doing it a while and have a 35' pole if that would ever come in handy.

 
Hi John thanks for the offer. Yeah aiming for about $500a day eventually. Done a couple of house wash, gutter clean and windows packages for between $800-1000 one day jobs

 

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