1st clean Trad or wfp

I’m still very new to the trade and did a 1st clean on a house today. The house has been under complete renovation so the windows were really dirty, especially the ground floor! 
I started with WFP and it was ok ish but still needed a scraper to get stubborn marks off. At the front the brush just wasn’t doing the job! I wet the windows first, used no nonsense degreaser diluted at 5L - 1 cap, agitated it, rinsed then pure water cleaned. Results weren’t great so switched to traditional as it was the only thing that seemed to work. The brush I used On the job was the gardiner Xtreme medium soft sill brush, I’m thinking this may be the wrong brush for such a job!
 

Is trad a better way to go when 1st cleans are really dirty? or where was I going wrong with the wfp? Or are first cleans generally tricky. advice would be great

cheers 

What you did sounds perfect mate, sometimes you have to use different "tools" from your toolbox. 100% use the wfp with the degreaser on first cleans to get the frames and glass actually clean but never rule out the need to maybe get the bronze wool and scraper out and finish it off trad to make sure it's perfect. 

I hate the this or that debate its pointless. If you used trad only you would have loads of muck potentially still round the frames and wouldnt of been able to scrub any grit/ dust off the glass. If you only wfp it you may of missed bits that your customer may not of had you back for, meaning your customer becomes another of the "I dont want that water brush thing" charge double for your first clean to give you the time to be thorough and always check your work off, that's what adds value 

Good luck ??

All depends what customer wants and  is willing to pay, This customer asked if he could pay me my date rate, back tomorrow to finish it, so 2 days it’s took , every bit of the unit cleaned, couple photos from the job I done the day , they wanted best finish possible, so I used WFP and TRAD  And my steam cleaner and hoover , 

Wind o kleen said:

All depends what customer wants and  is willing to pay, This customer asked if he could pay me my date rate, back tomorrow to finish it, so 2 days it’s took , every bit of the unit cleaned, couple photos from the job I done the day , they wanted best finish possible, so I used WFP and TRAD  And my steam cleaner and hoover , 

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Flipin hec, lovely job !

Wind o kleen said:

All depends what customer wants and  is willing to pay, This customer asked if he could pay me my date rate, back tomorrow to finish it, so 2 days it’s took , every bit of the unit cleaned, couple photos from the job I done the day , they wanted best finish possible, so I used WFP and TRAD  And my steam cleaner and hoover , 

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Did you ask for £200 as a day rate or higher? Always very wary of people asking what my day rate would be, much prefer to give them a price for the job.

Did a job in London the other week and the Property Manager asked how long it took, it paid £800. He thought it might have took us 2 days, it took 6 hours, so I said we did it a bit quicker than what he thought ?

Nice job by the way. 

I would say do what works but on a job such as sparkle clean after a house renovation even if the windows are fairly new but covered in grime then I have found it can be a pain with wfp there is no right or wrong brush some sparkle cleans are just a pain to get up to standard,

I avoid them like the plague but got talked around to do one last year  @THL4KEL knows all about it the owner got a good deal on the first clean it was a right P.I.A but now an easy clean every 4 weeks at £50 for an hours work. 

Wind o kleen said:

All depends what customer wants and  is willing to pay, This customer asked if he could pay me my date rate, back tomorrow to finish it, so 2 days it’s took , every bit of the unit cleaned, couple photos from the job I done the day , they wanted best finish possible, so I used WFP and TRAD  And my steam cleaner and hoover , 

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That’s a nice job done there yer few people can get a clean as good as that in the window shuts 

Part Timer said:

Did you ask for £200 as a day rate or higher? Always very wary of people asking what my day rate would be, much prefer to give them a price for the job.

Did a job in London the other week and the Property Manager asked how long it took, it paid £800. He thought it might have took us 2 days, it took 6 hours, so I said we did it a bit quicker than what he thought ?

Nice job by the way. 

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I normally average between £150-200 doing normal windows , I told him £250, he wanted all the tracks cleaned and I didn’t have a clue how long it would take so just went with the safe option,

Perryb91 said:

What you did sounds perfect mate, sometimes you have to use different "tools" from your toolbox. 100% use the wfp with the degreaser on first cleans to get the frames and glass actually clean but never rule out the need to maybe get the bronze wool and scraper out and finish it off trad to make sure it's perfect. 

I hate the this or that debate its pointless. If you used trad only you would have loads of muck potentially still round the frames and wouldnt of been able to scrub any grit/ dust off the glass. If you only wfp it you may of missed bits that your customer may not of had you back for, meaning your customer becomes another of the "I dont want that water brush thing" charge double for your first clean to give you the time to be thorough and always check your work off, that's what adds value 

Good luck ??

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Thanks, I spoke to a mate who is more experienced and he said it sounds like i did what he calls a builders clean! Should’ve charged x3 what a regular clean would’ve been but I only charged a first clean. 
It took me longer but the customer was really happy with the result and got a regular clean every 4 weeks out of it ??
Cheers for the replies guys

For first cleans for me it totally depends on the state of the windows and how long it's been since they've been cleaned. If they are dirty then I personally wouldn't use an Xtreme brush. I'd switch to my Ultimate flocked it's more 'heavy duty' to bring them up and get the grime and whatever else off. I also have a DA Components bronze wool pad on my brush which gets rid of the stubborn stuff. Thing is even if you do the first clean Trad and get it to an 'acceptable' cleanliness, as soon as you put the WFP on the next clean it's still gonna flush out a lot of dirt from all the nooks and crannies but granted it won't be as bad or take as long had you done it WFP from the start if you choose to do it Trad for the first clean. 

Saying that I've still done plenty of first cleans lately with my Xtreme 35cm Tapertec and it's worked great. Again, depends on the state of them when you rock up. Trad can defo be quicker for first cleans especially the sills. I don't use ladders anymore so if they're really bad the Screwfix Degreaser comes out. 

a dirty first clean would see me spray the  windows and frames with a weak mix of virosol in a backpack or a spray bottle on my brush and then scrub and rinse a lot with very hot pure water.....never trad!....i also might scrape the odd ground floor window if needed and a cloth for any dodgy rubber seals/sills,etc.....thats it......

sometimes what i do if its a place that hasnt been done for ages, explain that it wont be perfect till 2nd or 3rd clean. (although it usually is pretty damn good) I do a lot of houses of people I already knew and a lot of them prefer this to paying lots for the initial clean. Could give the choice I guess, especially if they aren't particularly loaded.