Commercial work - what a pain

Well, ive had a few commercial bits in the past, never really bothered with it.

Anyway i got asked to quote one the other day(family friend)

Its an inside and out job.

I was given a 4 page questionaire to fill out, i need to provide like 10 different documents to them, including references!

I was told i need to cone the area off im working on, ok fair enough....

no you need to cone it off inside as well! 

Aparently when doing the inside windows i have to have safety signs following me round every window and if i want to use a step, not a ladders a 2ft step to reach a few higher windows, i need to have passed a ladder safety course lol

I quoted them a decent price, but jesus christ i didnt realise i would have to jump through all these hoops to clean some windows, i dont think im going to bother and just stick to residential. IT would take me 3 hours to fill in the documents and get everything to send off.

what a farse

I avoid commercial like the plague these days their terms and preferences arranged days and times in some cases. Plus they can be late payers.

I took on board advice @GreenPro was giving out on his videos etc in recent months sacked off schools and jobs I was having to do before 8am on a morning and prearranged dates.

I am up early on a morning but can't be chewed with rushing out the door early and having to drop onto a full day of houses after early commercial.

County Durham Lad

Yeh I dropped the only commercial I had left a couple of months ago as they wanted a 7am start. The hourly rate wasn't much better than residential so I got a bit sick of getting up at half 5.

Think I'll leave it or just email them back with a much higher price.

I'm currently sitting outside The Sailmaiker, in Gosport, having a beer or 3, ready for an 8am start tomorrow. Not all Commercial work is a PITA, once you have got your RAMS organised and Insurances most companies are happy with that. 

Those with the big time Charlie H&S Officers are best avoided as it will take you twice as long to do the job. 

We do some work for a very large national firm once you have rams in place and copies of insurance : payment details sorted ; leased with there h&s officer ist easy Peasy very good money nice work long contracts good working conditions , if there was enough commercial work I wouldn’t touch houses with a barge pole but unfortunately where we are it’s limited so have no choise but to do houses , but if you loose a big contract it does hurt 

adamangler said:

Yeh I dropped the only commercial I had left a couple of months ago as they wanted a 7am start. The hourly rate wasn't much better than residential so I got a bit sick of getting up at half 5.
 
Think I'll leave it or just email them back with a much higher price.

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£40.00 a hour minimum. I did keep one school which I I have a key to the grounds of so can call early on a Saturday morning.

But I am fortunate to have good solid compact residential rounds.

County Durham Lad

Part Timer said:

I'm currently sitting outside The Sailmaiker, in Gosport, having a beer or 3, ready for an 8am start tomorrow. Not all Commercial work is a PITA, once you have got your RAMS organised and Insurances most companies are happy with that. 

Those with the big time Charlie H&S Officers are best avoided as it will take you twice as long to do the job. 

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Hope it goes well Ime sure once you get started you will get into a routine and it will be a cracking job you will have to keep us informed how it goes time wise how long it actually takes to what you thought it would take 

Pjj said:

Hope it goes well Ime sure once you get started you will get into a routine and it will be a cracking job you will have to keep us informed how it goes time wise how long it actually takes to what you thought it would take 

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Already done a quick recce and access round the back might be an issue. Allowing an hour per block so hopefully done midday Thursday. 

I think i quoted it at £50 an hour but when you factor in the faffing about i dont know how long it will take to be honest, i very rarely do internal or trad work in offices, so it was a pure guess time wise.

adamangler said:

I think i quoted it at £50 an hour but when you factor in the faffing about i dont know how long it will take to be honest, i very rarely do internal or trad work in offices, so it was a pure guess time wise.

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Until you've got experience of doing big jobs then it will always be guess work. All I would say is I've flown by the seat of my pants quite a few times and, upto now, always come out smiling, on Windows that is. 

I priced one up through a property management company in Bournemouth 3k job .had to upgrade insurance to there taste . Then they tryed adding extras on .then started to say about cappings on balconies would my softwashing gear ruin them ..alarm bells ringing in my head after 4 months of email s back and throw it ended with me losing it one day and telling them to f off and do one , stick with my little people jobs that's where my bread n butter is

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I adore commercial work. But there are really no hoops to get through here, just talk to the person in charge and you're good to go.

I think less than 25% of my work is domestic, and I wouldn't have it any other way.  :1f609:

It depends on the contract really. The care homes round by me seem to be the most fought for contracts. Normally they are £150-300 and all can be done in one day or less. Obviously every care home is different but it seems to be once a windy gets these contracts they look after them and never lose them.

I'm currently applying for the contract on a local shopping centre. I used to work there so I know they pay £2500 and 2 lads are done in a day! That kind of stuff is worth jumping through hoops for but I can appreciate why people have walked from some commercial work before.

The thing is in care homes the residents won't complain about a bad job, The care home my wife works in which is one of four in the county the window cleaners do a shocking job and have done for years they wfp upper windows and trad the lower level ones so the office staff have no idea or aren't bothered. 

But they also employ the cleaners in the home and have a estate manager in a office so she ain't going to pipe up as they are like little hitler's,  The county council that have the care contract and the homes are owned by a very big private housing firm.

I've had one car home for about 25 years, same owners they pay on time and a joy to do business with.
I also had another one for years and no problems until it changed hands. The company had a few care homes and they put a new manager who was constantly checking on my work and a complete pita.
They also advised me they were going to start paying me every 3months rather than monthly, after that I just walked away.
As a footnote they were in the local paper last year and had been put in special measures one of the contributing factors was "poor management".

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Got a few contracts with facilities management company’s cleaning large blocks of apartments. Never had any bother. Obviously there are more initial formalities in this kind of work due to h+s etc but once thats out of the way they are a breeze and also pay a lot more than most residential work.


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See I reckon you got to have a taste for it...... either you like large commercials or you dont.  

Personally not my bag.....  I will always look at them if asked but any more than a half days graft and not interested. 

Also my RAMS is all they get... I aint faffing about with their B.S. compliance requests etc. 

Green Pro Clean Ltd said:

See I reckon you got to have a taste for it...... either you like large commercials or you dont.  

Personally not my bag.....  I will always look at them if asked but any more than a half days graft and not interested. 

Also my RAMS is all they get... I aint faffing about with their B.S. compliance requests etc. 

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So you haven't got a transgender policy  :1f632:

Green Pro Clean Ltd said:

See I reckon you got to have a taste for it...... either you like large commercials or you dont.  

Personally not my bag.....  I will always look at them if asked but any more than a half days graft and not interested. 

Also my RAMS is all they get... I aint faffing about with their B.S. compliance requests etc. 

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When I wanted to learn I went out with a friends brother. He works for a window cleaning company (Not sure you can call it that anymore as he's down to one van). I had never touched a pole before and had no clue what I was doing but between the two of us we managed a massive office block in 4 hours, he told me the value at £284... I may think differently when i'm full but 8 hours for £35 an hour sounds pretty appealing to me haha  :1f602:

Part Timer said:

So you haven't got a transgender policy  :1f632:

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No ... no policy... just a brother in law!  

P4dstar said:

I may think differently when i'm full but 8 hours for £35 an hour sounds pretty appealing to me

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And I agree. However more appealing to me (with perfect hindsight) Is I would spend the time developing the residential round instead if getting involved with it to start with. 

P4dstar said:

When I wanted to learn I went out with a friends brother. He works for a window cleaning company (Not sure you can call it that anymore as he's down to one van). I had never touched a pole before and had no clue what I was doing but between the two of us we managed a massive office block in 4 hours, he told me the value at £284... I may think differently when i'm full but 8 hours for £35 an hour sounds pretty appealing to me haha  :1f602:

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The chances are as you had never touched a pole or had any clue what you were doing and as it was probably your first day he lost money on you.By the time he showed you what to do watched you and then re cleaned your mistakes he probably could have done the job quicker on his own.

I'm no millionaire residential window cleaner but I don't think £284 for 4 hours work is anything to turn your nose up at.

As for the original post I wish they where all like that it may raise customers expectations on price and some of the low priced commercial window cleaners to put in decent prices.

For me i'm fully commercial one of the main reason is it's the type of work I much prefer to do would rather do one big job a day than 20-30 littles ones.if I had to go in to domestic only window cleaning I would probably stop.