Hey Everyone,
Today I quoted my first hotel and counted 214 double hung windows. For commercial jobs would I charge per pane making it 428 panes? Or how I count residential which is per double hung window? Also however you think I should count them what would you price per window or per pane? Thank you for any help you guys can provide and if you need any more details I’d be happy to reply.
First, I am going to be that guy on this forum that every time I reply to a post about quoting for the first time, I am going to tell you to figure out your minimum per hour. What is the minimum you need to make per hour to cover your overhead for the month, plus a basic payroll. For me, I own all of my equipment outright so I don’t have lease payments or credit card debt so my overhead is low. My price per hour is decent for my area, we don’t have state income taxes either. So, once you have that figured out and can then estimate how long it will take you to clean a single window in a residential setting vs a commercial setting, you can begin to easily calculate a minimum price and time for the job to be completed. This is your starting number.
As far as your job site is concerned, is this all ground level? If not, are they all accessible by a ladder? The price for your second floor windows should be higher than any ground floor ones to account for the additional labor and time to move your ladders. 3rd story windows should cost even more to account for the additional risk factor and the fact that you may need a lift of some sort. Do you need a man lift for the hotel? Are you equipped with a water fed pole system? Would it be beneficial for you to get a cheap water fed pole system for safety and efficiency, but you lose out on any profit from this job’s first visit? Are you doing in and out? If so, on the inside how are you going to access windows if the rooms are occupied? Are you going to deduct off of your price if you are unable to clean specific interior windows?
What do you charge for your residential cleanings per window? Most of the time the prices do not interchange between residential and commercial even with double hung. For example, my first 20 windows on a house are priced at a minimum of $150. So they are $7.50 per window and this accounts for my drive time, fuel, etc. Just enough for me to see a profit on my regular cleanings. It also includes the cleaning of the screens, and the sill track, which some cleaners charge extra for, but in my area it is an expected inclusion. Now, beyond those first 20 windows I charge $5 per window regardless of size, if it has it’s own frame, it is a window, it is $5. I had a house recently that had 4 separate quad slider doors. So 16 individual glass doors. Each set was $20. I didn’t have to clean any screens and they took about 3 minutes to clean both sides instead of my average 5 minutes per window which ended up saving me nearly 30 minutes of labor so I profited $25 in that situation.
One of my larger commercial jobs is 272 pieces of interior glass and 105 exterior panes of hydrophobic glass. The exterior and some of the interior are 20+ feet high but I clean everything with a WFP including the interior I use a mist and pad system that runs off of a camelbak type bladder and pump. I charge the company $450 for each cleaning. I don’t have to wipe sills or detail any glass edges. The initial cleaning took me 8.4 hours and subsequent cleanings are taking less time. My minimum per hour charge gave me 9 hours to complete the job without losing money and I was able to do that. I charged them an average of $1.20 per pane, which is significantly lower than a residential cleaning quote per window, but do you think they would pay me 377x$5? That’s $1,885 per month.
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