Gearing up to go canvassing next week and there are a couple Dairy Queens in the area who I’ve noticed use staff to clean them and they are not done well at all. How do you go about pricing sunrooms like this.
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Assuming the staff wages is 9 bucks /hr and it takes that person half hour to clean that with a wet rag…
$4.50 per dairy queen?
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Alberta. Minimum wage is $15. But hoping to offer a better service than the minimum wager
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Please don’t try and compete with Dairy Queen employees with a spray bottle and a rag. You’re a professional and you do a professional job. Just estimate how much time it’s going to take and multiply by your hourly rate.
No i wasnt saying i would try and compete the cost of having them cleaned with employees. Was thinking I would approach the franchisee as being able to complete the job properly and enhance the store image. Pretty sure I can get through the rest of the store in and out in about 60 minutes. Just the sunroom area. Never even tried to clean the horizontal portions before, but i’m assuming it isn’t that hard. keep the water to a minimum on the inside, and get ready to clean up the water dripping off the squeegee. Vertical panes of glass including the bottom ones of the curved area are 71. 16 curved panes along the front. then 16 sloped ones form the ceiling of the sunroom. It really kind of intrigues me as I believe the franchise owner for this one, also owns 3 other restaurants in the area. Pretty sure I can pole all the outside with an angle adapter for the tops.
I mean, there is always a way. Maybe I’m way off on this, in which case please tell me, but at $2 per pane, that is $206, which to me seems high. but I also dont want to be kicking myself in the junk, if they say yes and lets clean them bi weekly, and it is a huge pain in the ass.
I’ve mentioned before that I do mostly residential, so I’m not a whole lot of help on pricing for commercial but I would not go below two dollars per pane. Those horizontal panes though are not terrible to clean. It’s the curved ones that might give you some issue you got to be real good on your straight pull. But they’re not that hard. Try to time it when the sun isn’t beating down on you. Those sunrooms heat up like crazy!
I have one client here in Central Florida that has a similar flat to curved glass sunroom on the back of their house. What I had found is to take a wider channel and cutting it down to the exact width of the pane. This works for this particular situation as all of the panes are uniform in width except for the last one on the outer edge which I climb up on a multi-position ladder to handle. The rest I use a pole with an offset/ledger on the exterior. (Though at this next cleaning I will be using a WFP system I just acquired.)
In one of Luke’s videos he displayed a tool called an Unger Fixi Clamp. This fits on the end of the pole and can hold your folded towel for you to be able to touch up the edges. I typically carry two of these with me, one with my terry cloth “drying” towel and a second with my “buffing” towel. Sometimes the rag will slip out, especially if it is folded up fairly thick, or if the clamps are not tightened to the max. It is a great tool for certain situations, but I try to use it sparingly.
On the inside, the windows are still sloped so gravity will still pull the water to the lower edge. I use a nearly dry mop, just enough water to get a few soap bubbles with agitation. I make my own soap/water mixture, just like everyone else, rather than using any name brand bottled detergent. So I take about two tablespoons of Dawn Platinum and pour it into a 5 gallon bucket as it is filling so it gets an even distribution. This “solution” is the base for my mops rather than plain water. (BTW I have all of my equipment on a trailer so the water goes through a 2-stage sediment/carbon filter, rather than purchasing purified or distilled water for my bucket.) I then fill a 32oz. spray bottle with the solution and carry this with me to re-wet the mop or to mist the glass only when my mop is drying out. (Most of the time I use it to clean the mold/mildew/debris from the corners of the bottom track of the window.) By using as little water as possible it limits the amount of dripping. If your pass is quick enough and your hand/eye coordination is pretty good, you can run the squeegee with your right hand and collect the drips back in your mop with your left. I have the fortunate ability to move the furniture out of the way as it is residential. If you set your commercial cleanings to be done just prior to opening or closing you may be able to move any tables/chairs that are not bolted down and wipe the floor for any drops. Better yet, coordinate with an employee to mop the entire floor clean after your are done since they have to do that anyway.
The interior of the ceiling glass should not need a significant amount of cleaning as it is not normal for dirt or dust to settle upwards. You may be able to skip the interior of the roof section to every few visits. On my monthly, commercial accounts I always clean the exteriors and both sides of any doors. But the interior is only done every even numbered month. If you have a similar schedule the interior roof section could be bypassed every 4 months, if it is still clean maybe push it to once every 6 months. At the absolute most every 6 months no longer.
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Thanks for the comments. I’ll be canvassing the area soon. I have a landscaping job that is going to take up the next three days, and then the full press is on for window cleaning