Swamp Thing

Remember that tv show from the 80s; Swamp Thing? 

Well my customer in co-joined effort with their brilliant lawn company have officially revived or re created the environment exactly.

You should have seen it... imagine trying to wade through that little wonder land while window cleaning. The whole day was slosh slosh, splash, splash, sink hole, etc... Wow people.
In spite of all that, the job went very well. It was a small home with about 25 single hung windows. I had to take my shoes on and off throughout the day to prevent mud being tracked in the house. We usally use the little blue booties that go over our shoes to avoid dragging any dirt or leaves in the customer's home.

Gutter Cleaning and Beautiful Weather Nashville

The best days of the year for me are days like today, when the sun is shining, the temp is a cool 65 and 0% chance of rain. Man, that's the best.

We spent the day cleaning gutters on a few homes in the Nashville, and Brentwood areas of TN.

Gutter Cleaning season hasn't fully come yet, but we had a few customers that did not have theirs serviced at all last year, so to prevent water damage over the next few months during rainy season, it was a smart decision to have them cleaned out now, and again when all the leaves come down at the end of fall.

The leaves should fall by the end of next month, if not by early December. Last year they didn't all come down until mid December, that was weird though.

Window Cleaning French Window Panes

If you are a window washer, or have them, then you know the trouble that it can be to wet and squeegee french pane windows.

Don't get me wrong, they look beautiful! But are almost twice the cost to have cleaned, and take almost twice as long a conventional double hungs.

We start at the top of each window and clean the panes from top to bottom. We use our pro solution and squeegee each pane, then towel the edges dry. If you straight pull each one, then you will want to triple pull or wipe the top edge of each pane before you start window washing. We fan each one most of the time because its actually faster and higher quality if you can pull it off.

Waiting for Gear

If you clean glass, you know the feeling of waiting for window cleaning gear to come in the mail. It has only been a couple days from the time that I placed my order but I still have that Christmas morning feeling of opening a present! It's silly because its just some razors and small gear, but soon I will be ordering a screen cleaning machine.

Washing Windows with Sorbo Products

We use almost exclusively Sorbo products. The durability of their channels and the results they bring to the glass are outstanding! I could complain about the rubber prices though, but ill save that for another post.

If you use the fanning method of window cleaning, or what is sometimes called the "S" method, then Sorbo squeegees are for you. They glide just a little bit better and leave less streaks and phantom streaks when fanning. I have tried many channel and handle brands Ettori, Unger, etc... and use some of their squeegees for special purposes, like Unger's 0-degree angel handle is great for reaching straight out over bushes or small roofs from a ladder. We also use Wagtail from time to time, but don't prefer them.

Window Cleaning In The Rain

Giving Window Cleaning quotes in the rain is no fun. As you can guess Rain days are perfect for doing estimates and scheduling customers.

We always schedule estimate route days but sometimes it just works out great to take a "rain day" and get some of them done; especially the long distance ones because most of the time is driving anyway.

The only problem with it all is trying to write out the forms while keeping them semi dry.
Many times have I re-re wrote estimates before giving them to the customer. Ive always wanted to bring an umbrella or make a better "rain proof" estimate, window cleaning quote system, but have never taken the time yet.

Construction Window Cleaning in Nashville

We have been doing a lot of construction window cleaning lately. Over the years we have become very fast and efficient at getting everything off of the glass while spending less than 10 minutes on each window.

The Razors we use are the Unger ErgoTec Window Cleaning Razor. These have two major benefits that we use often. Unger's ErgoTec Razor will hook on a pole end with the locking clip. The blades are less to buy than other company's blades.

This the best Scraper we have found over the years. We have tried various razor holders from window washing sites and home depot etc.

They work fine for a while, but have down sides;
Most razors won't hook on a pole end, and that in it self is great when working on commercial accounts because now you won't have to take a ladder out to scrape one or two windows, put it back and 20 minutes later go to the next window.

The other problem is the blade replacement cost of most razors is almost double the cost of Unger's.