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working in the rain

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4
Location
West Midlands UK
I am always happy to work in light rain.  As well all know, it doesn't make any difference to the clean.  I still get lots of customers who don't seem to want to be educated about cleaning in the rain.  I have however, recorded a short video to explain.  Please feel free to share a link to the video with your customers on your website /  blog / facebook etc.

PS The video is not branded towards my company so don't worry, I am not trying to steal your customers!

I Hope you find it helpful

https://www.windowcleaningsuperhero.com/24-cleaning-windows-in-the-rain

Mark.

 
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Decent enough video Mark BUT i wont be sharing it to my customers as i clean traditionally and i use tap water and i can assure you the windows i clean are not left 'filthy' maybe an edit on the video stating that tap water is ok for cleaning windows as long as they are cleaned traditionally.

 
I am always happy to work in light rain.  As well all know, it doesn't make any difference to the clean.  I still get lots of customers who don't seem to want to be educated about cleaning in the rain.  I have however, recorded a short video to explain.  Please feel free to share a link to the video with your customers on your website /  blog / facebook etc.

PS The video is not branded towards my company so don't worry, I am not trying to steal your customers!

I Hope you find it helpful

https://www.windowcleaningsuperhero.com/24-cleaning-windows-in-the-rain

Mark.
Great video, very well put across ?

 
I’ve been looking for something like this for ages, it’s explains things better than I’ve tried to do with my customers ?

 
When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.

 
If anyone says anything I just say waterproofs were invented so I could work in the rain ? I just crack on in light to medium rain all day no bother, although I did a one off the other week in torrential rain they hadn't been cleaned in years and I managed to blitz the 4 bed detached house in 45 minutes.

When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.
When I was DI only and I was forgetful in checking the highest I went was over 20 without issue, I am currently cleaning with 2-3 ppm as our tap tds has spiked with ongoing works so my R/O is producing at that I ain't going to the trouble of messing about with a small DI canister 

 
When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.
I've had no problems working up to 10ppm ?

 
When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.
I wouldn't have a problem with a tds of 8. Once when I was working away from home my tds, unknowingly,  went to 12. I had no complaints and this was on a residential quarterly clean. I do however change the resin when it gets to 5

When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.
I wouldn't have a problem with a tds of 8. Once when I was working away from home my tds, unknowingly,  went to 12. I had no complaints and this was on a residential quarterly clean. I do however change the resin when it gets to 5

 
This might seem a bit bizarre but it involves human behaviour. I got many complaints and many didn't complain. When i informed the other customers that i wasn't happy with my results from the pole everyone replied. Yes there was streaks down my window but i didn't want to say anything. A lot of my customers would put up with it for a few cleans and then cancel when they had someone else to take over. Humans tend to avoid confrontations until it reaches a tipping point. fwiw

 
When it poured down couple of weeks ago I decided to test the tds of it, and it showed 8!! . I would not wfp if I had that reading in my tank. The reason you get good results using wfp is down to using "pure" water is it not?. The highest I have been before changing the resin is 3. Does anyone get good results with a higher tds reading?.


I always change my filters when they get to 15 ppm, although I've cleaned windows at up to to 20ppm before, without any notable spotting. I walked round a few properties to check but they were fine. A mate runs his up to 30ppm before he changes his filters/resin. And, no, I don't compensate for the slightly higher TDS, just work as normal.

Currently running at 4ppm with no issues at all, so you can go on for a lot longer than you currently are ?

 
This might seem a bit bizarre but it involves human behaviour. I got many complaints and many didn't complain. When i informed the other customers that i wasn't happy with my results from the pole everyone replied. Yes there was streaks down my window but i didn't want to say anything. A lot of my customers would put up with it for a few cleans and then cancel when they had someone else to take over. Humans tend to avoid confrontations until it reaches a tipping point. fwiw


You're correct, people don't like to complain.  I've been in the cleaning industry for over 20 years.  

One thing I've learned is you should try not to draw attention to your work, if you say something like 'are you happy with how clean they are?' the customer will inspect it and find something.  The key to not getting complaints is to inspect your own work and work out yourself whether you are happy, if you're not then don't tell the customer just try and find a solution yourself.

As soon as you start drawing attention to your work then they will be constantly checking your work and saying 'you missed a bit' and as we all know, perfection doesn't exist so once they are in that mentality of spotting anything wrong and telling you then it just ruins the job and you will hate it.

Don't get me wrong, I do tell my customers that 'there may be the 'odd bit' that hasn't come clean but these are likely to be on the upstairs windows and I can only work with what I see from the ground, so if there is anything that you're not happy with then please let me know.'  But I only say this on the first clean, I don't reiterate it after that.  This then helps me as most often it's not dirt but a problem with the window that is the problem but from memory I think I've only had two customers this year point something out and both were problem seals with spotting, solved it by not cleaning the frame above.

If somebody doesn't complain or say anything don't just assume all is ok though, inspect the work with just as much scrutiny as you would at a job that you 'think' might complain.  

There will always be a few whose expectations are unrealistic though, I try and satisfy 95%, the last 5% are impossible to please, I honestly think they just have mental illnesses such as OCD, you can't run a business trying to please 5%.  The 5% are good for keeping you on your toes though and improving your standards even if you can't make them happy.

 
I usually only go up to about 10ppm but I have once or twice gone up to 15, not had any complaints about it. I used to go up to about 20 when I was new but after reading a post on here back in the summer about a similar topic I reduced it to 10 and that was the general number seasoned guys used. 

 
Thanks for all of the comments guys.

I agree that best practice is to change the DI early about 4 ppm even though you may be safe up to 10 or even 20ppm.  I guarantee all of my work. .  When I have been called back to jobs in the past it is usually due to over inspection due to rain, but not linked to the rain.  The last time the problem was actually due to spotting under externally stuck on lead where particles had come from behind the lead during the rinse.

If the same customer keeps cancelling for rain or other silly reasons then they are removed from my list.  The last customer to be removed was due to a cancellation 30 minutes prior to the clean, as they forgot that they were going to be defrosting the freezer in the garage that I had to cut through!

 
This might seem a bit bizarre but it involves human behaviour. I got many complaints and many didn't complain. When i informed the other customers that i wasn't happy with my results from the pole everyone replied. Yes there was streaks down my window but i didn't want to say anything. A lot of my customers would put up with it for a few cleans and then cancel when they had someone else to take over. Humans tend to avoid confrontations until it reaches a tipping point. fwiw
Unfortunately you got complaints because you failed to follow the basics of wfp which have been outlined many times on here in countless posts over the years, when I made mistakes over 11 years ago we were all as clueless as each other and were working through issues ourselves and there wasn't the online help there is now.

You either follow the basics or you don't each choice has it's positives and negatives I have glowing reviews whether I clean in the rain or not and have 100's of happy clients on my rounds, they want a good job done at a fair price and reliability and the odd rainy day or small human error won't matter if everything is right 99% of the time 

 
If your like me on double di then the higher you let the tds creep up before changing then the sooner you'll be cleaning above 0ppm again.

People seem to think they are getting more out of there resin by cleaning up to 10ppm rather than changing at 4 or 5 but that just means when you do change the resin the resin will be spent quicker so you spend most of the time cleaning above 0ppm.

 
Unfortunately you got complaints because you failed to follow the basics of wfp which have been outlined many times on here in countless posts over the years, when I made mistakes over 11 years ago we were all as clueless as each other and were working through issues ourselves and there wasn't the online help there is now.

You either follow the basics or you don't each choice has it's positives and negatives I have glowing reviews whether I clean in the rain or not and have 100's of happy clients on my rounds, they want a good job done at a fair price and reliability and the odd rainy day or small human error won't matter if everything is right 99% of the time 
 we owe a lot to those pioneers of the pole. Myself theres no way I would've got started without the wealth of info you get off the people who struck out there in the early days, going where scrim feared to tread.

 
 we owe a lot to those pioneers of the pole. Myself theres no way I would've got started without the wealth of info you get off the people who struck out there in the early days, going where scrim feared to tread.


We sure do, some very determined people out there to keep going and make things work.  I'd have given up after the first go, compared to traditional it must have seemed a lot more difficult.

 
We sure do, some very determined people out there to keep going and make things work.  I'd have given up after the first go, compared to traditional it must have seemed a lot more difficult.
The thing is with Wfp if you listen to good advice on here you cannot go wrong and can successfully implement the changeover, however some people refuse to to take valid advice and make excuses for their shortcomings and will not progress.

 
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