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Window Cleaners Ripping People Off

All Round Cleaning

Well-known member
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Had a job to go and price up yesterday from a facebook ad i posted in a for sale group

went and seen it only a little 3 bed house quoted her £17 first clean then £12 every 4 weeks

she was well happy with those prices so she gave me the job .

anyway was talking to her and she told me that she had 2 other quotes from guys on facebook and they quoted her

£40 a month because it was double glazed and apparently double glazing is harder to clean than normal glass ???

£24 a month thats it no explanation .

Now im in Wolverhampton not the best nor the worse place for cleaning prices the average for a 3 bed semi is around £8

But i been pushing lately for £10 & £12 and im picking up say %75 of the work that im quoting so not that bad

as the saying goes if you get every job you quote you are too cheap .

But come on £24 & £40 for normal 3 bed semis i mean that takes the biscuit doesn't it ?

or does it ?

 
£40 for a basic 3 bed semi every 4 weeks takes a packet of chocolate digestives Gav, I see those kind of people as bad as cowboy builders.

Charge what you like for commercial but that is ripping people off.

 
You sure she said 40 and not 4?

Am sure there is a lot of £4 brigaders where you live?
No G she said that there was no way on this earth she was willing to pay £40 to have her windows cleaned every month !

if it was £4 why did she have me at £12 ?

 
2 storey 3 bed semi with easy access with no conservatory and/or extensions then £12 is very reasonable I think.

Myself I would quote anything between £15 -£20 depending on size and what's it was like for a first clean then anything between £10-15 thereafter on a monthly clean.

Who charges double for double glazed windows because they are hard to clean... Now I've heard it all :Image3:

 
i picked up a job in paignton 11 windows easy house , funy thing is she also had to quotes frm different guys 1 said £18 the other £20 i charge her £9 got the job sweet :Image3: cant bleve wat some charge crazy thay wont last lng in this trade cos thay will price them selfs out of wrk lol.

 
Some do very well at it charging more for a quality job but I know where you're comming from :Image9:

i picked up a job in paignton 11 windows easy house , funy thing is she also had to quotes frm different guys 1 said £18 the other £20 i charge her £9 got the job sweet :Image3: cant bleve wat some charge crazy thay wont last lng in this trade cos thay will price them selfs out of wrk lol.
 
If the customer is happy to pay it then that's down to the customer.

But yeah from the examples given its not fair.

Last job I came across was a small detached. With like 10 windows.

Takes like 10 mins or less.

We are £12 last firm was £25!

 
There are plenty of splash & dash merchants about too that give the industry a bad name :Image13:

thing is u cant get cleaner than clean m8 im very picky lol :Image13:
 
There are plenty of splash & dash merchants about too that give the industry a bad name :Image13:
gud job i ant 1 of them lol :Image3: i do no a few tho trad an wfp guys slap dash, i pick up wrk all the time thay say the last gud did a bad job or did windows once never came bk hear all da time .
 
I'm in Wolves too and my prices range from 5 to 15 with my average being 6 quid. I was talking to one of my customers the other week and she was telling me she had some guy knock her door wanting 20 quid....I charge her 6. Then last week, I went to quote an house in the same sort of area and although it's only 3 bed, it has a few more windows than normal and so I said £10. 'that's more like it she said' and then went on to tell me how another guy had wanted £46 for first clean, then £26 for the regular clean. She also asked if he could do them every 12 weeks as she would struggle to find 26 quid per month but he told her it would be back to 46 quid for a 12 weekly clean. I asked his name and yes, it was the same guy.

I just can't understand how anyone can ask this sort of price for window cleaning...I just don't know where today's wc's get off, why they suddenly think they should be earning doctors wages at lollipop man hours. I've been disgusted returning to this trade by some of the pricing and hourly rates I've witnessed, it never used to be like this. Window cleaning never payed more than the average wage and while it's nice to see that you can earn a little more than that these days, I get sickened when I read these 40-60 or even 80 quid per hour comments for what still is, an unskilled job.

I can really see this trade becoming subject to one of those rogue trader docs the way it's going, not to mention the potential thugery as more and more oportunitist's jump on the wagon and fight for the little gold mine that is, a 3 bedroom house.

Some people would call me cheap but, if I can clean 3 £6 houses an hour, how on earth can that be cheap when I would struggle to get paid £12ph for factory work ?

This business needs a regulator....

Mart.

 
Window cleaning is not what is used to be.

For a start running a wfp van is not cheap. As I have said before customer can choose a wfp or trad guy.

I would say you are too cheap I was doing £20 a hour over 10 years ago.

 
I picked up a house @ £15 which they were quoted £100 off someone else!!

I picked up a nice £40 house couple months ago, 8 weekly, and she said I was cheap!!

I couldn't care what anyone else makes, as long as I'm earning I'm happy

 
I picked up a house @ £15 which they were quoted £100 off someone else!!

I picked up a nice £40 house couple months ago, 8 weekly, and she said I was cheap!!

I couldn't care what anyone else makes, as long as I'm earning I'm happy
Yeah I understand that but when people are quoting stupid stupid prices for cleaning windows YES " CLEANING WINDOWS " on a 3 bed mews style semi they are taking the pee !
 
Window cleaning is not what is used to be.

For a start running a wfp van is not cheap. As I have said before customer can choose a wfp or trad guy.

I would say you are too cheap I was doing £20 a hour over 10 years ago.
Catch 22 situation really. Not cheap to run a wfp van so a wfp may??? charge more then trad but do it in half the time

 
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