Cleaning Windows For 1 Day Or A Hundred Years?

Post-Tribune columnist Jerry Davich, right, cleans a first-floor window at the Valparaiso campus of Ivy Tech Community College May 25, 2011. Josh Reberg, left and Jacob Hernandez used ladders to get to the second-floor windows. Davich spent the day learning the ropes of window cleaning with the help of employees of Bren-Mark Window Cleaning Service.

Jerry Davich: Five jobs in five days, starting with cleaning windows - Today’s column is the initial installment of my “five jobs in five days” series where I work a few hours at five different occupations to experience the challenges of, ahem, a real job. First up, I join the streak-less ranks of Bren-Mark Window Cleaning service in Valparaiso during a “monster job” at Ivy Tech Community College on the city’s east side.

Jerry Davich

Candy Smith chuckled at my amateur attempts to properly clean a large office “practice window” using a professional mop and squeegee. No matter which technique I used — the horizontal swipe, the vertical swipe or the tricky swirl swipe — I left a streak or two somewhere on the window pane. It was very frustrating. Although I sported an official Bren-Mark T-shirt and tool belt, to hold my sopping-wet mop and bucket, two squeegees and clean-up towels (a white one to clean the sill, a blue one for the pane), washing windows was tougher than it looks from inside an office building. “Sometimes a window just doesn’t like you,” Smith told me sympathetically after I left yet another streak of soapy water on the window near the firm’s Valparaiso office.

Smith, the firm’s operations manager, has been here 11 years after starting as a window cleaner. She knows windows inside and out, and she made it look easy to clean them. Despite popular belief, it doesn’t matter which brand of soap is used, Smith told me. (On this day, we used Palmolive dish soap.) The secret is how to squeegee. “OK, now I’ll show you how we really clean windows” she told me as she swept her squeegee from corner to corner and back around in a swirl motion. “It’s all in the wrist.”

Within five seconds, without lifting her squeegee from the window, she removed every trace of soapy water. Amazing, I told her. “You’ll get the hang of it eventually,” she replied. (I never really did, though.) Some new employees get scared off after the first day, complaining it’s either too hard, too strenuous, too repetitive or too confusing. Others simply don’t return the next day. Still, after a half hour of practice, we headed to the day’s work site, Ivy Tech Community College, on the city’s east side for a “monster job.”

How hard can it be? At Ivy Tech, which is seemingly made from various shapes and sizes of eye-catching glass, I met with Bren-Mark’s owner, Don Markovich. “When an architect draws huge buildings like these, with so much glass, the drawing never has dirty windows,” joked Markovich, a stocky man with thick arms and a no-nonsense attitude. “But it’s our job to make them look like they did in the drawing.” Bren-Mark has experienced a 10 percent growth spurt each of the last two years, an impressive statistic these days for any business. The firm is known for charging top dollar for a high quality job. There are no contracts, per se, just a lot of repeat customers, from both residential and commercial accounts.

“Just about every piece of glass you see will be cleaned at some point by somebody,” Markovich said during a tour of the work site. “Most people think of window cleaners as hanging off high rise buildings or maids on ladders with Windex and paper towels. We are somewhere in the middle.” Some of the firm’s customers get their windows cleaned once a month or even weekly, while others only once a year. But if windows remain dirty for too long, it only makes the job that much harder, especially if the business is located near grimy steel mills.

Josh Reberg cleans windows at the Valparaiso campus of Ivy Tech Community College May 25, 2011. Reberg works for Bren-Mark Window Cleaning Service based in Valparaiso.

 Bren-Mark’s niche is “low-rise” buildings, three stories or below, simply because there aren’t many high-rise buildings in Northwest Indiana. “Once you go over three stories, equipment requirements and cost of insurance jumps dramatically,” he added. Standing outside Ivy Tech’s main building, Markovich handed me a towering “Tucker pole,” a long, heavy extension tool which uses filtered water to clean high-rise windows with a spot-free rinse. Unfiltered water has minerals that leave stains on windows, and steel wool is often used for such stubborn windows, I learned.

He explained that his job takes a certain mix of intelligence, friendliness, persistence, professionalism and good old-fashioned elbow grease. “Cleaning windows is a simple business — it’s not called Bren-Mark Rocket Science — but it is not easy,” Markovich said as I slowly guided the long (and did I say heavy?) pole back and forth across each window. “We have to provide service, without any mistakes or problems, on schedule to hundreds of commercial customers and dozens of residential customers each week. This can total up to thousands of individual windows, even in the extreme cold.”

Not rocket science, but… In addition to using the Tucker pole, I also climbed to the roof of the building to clean outdoor windows overlooking a lobby. With the sun beating down, I worked alongside Josh Reberg, Scott Sliger, and Jacob Hernandez, who showed me the ropes of the job as well as how to use extension ladders to clean second story windows. Bren-Mark workers say they’re often asked, “How hard can it be to clean windows?” “We don’t just spray Windex on a window and wipe it off,” Hernandez told me. “We make it look easier than it is. It took me a few months to get it down.”

Inside the school building, I worked alongside veterans Mary Martin and Marlon Sayles, an older man who’s taught many other professional window cleaners through the years. Together, we stood on a high-lift machine to clean second and third story windows. Sayles didn’t say much so neither did I. My only goal was to not slow him down. Bren-Mark workers routinely begin their work day at 8:30 a.m. and they go home when their list of jobs for the day is done. Some days end earlier than others.

 Post-Tribune columnist Jerry Davich uses a squeegee to clean a window at the Valparaiso campus of Ivy Tech Community College May 25, 2011. Davich spent the day learning the techniques of window cleaning.

They are paid per job, based on a percentage, with new hires earning 31 percent of the total price and more experienced workers earning 35 percent, Reberg said. This averages between $15 to $20 an hour, depending on their speed, experience and quality of work. An agreed perk of their job is the freedom to work at different locations without having a boss always looking over their shoulder in a (windowless) office. The toughest part of the job is often gaining access to clean windows, and I can vouch for that after straddling a tipsy ladder planted in mushy grass.

Another downside of the job is cleaning off more than merely dirt from windows. For instance, bird droppings, rotten eggs and paintball remnants. “You name it, we’ve seen it all on windows,” Markovich told me. As I cleaned yet another dirty window while wondering how much longer until my lunch hour, I had a minor epiphany: I don’t want to be a professional window cleaner. Or, as they say in the trenches, the job is a pane in the glass.

Springfield janitorial service achieves rare century mark: Springfield janitorial service achieves rare century mark. Witenko Enterprises Inc. began a century ago this year when a man who fled the Ukraine in the late 1800s began washing downtown Springfield windows to make money. Dmitri “Jim” Witenko began in 1911 what became a 100-employee company by going door-to-door offering the service. It was a time when dozens of manufacturing facilities, stores and office buildings populated the city center and beyond; the demand for window cleaning was high, according to current and third-generation president Mike Witenko.

Early on, Dmitri Witenko’s window cleaning service weathered such significant events in human history as the Great Depression and World War I before incorporating formally in the 1930s as the Springfield Window Cleaning Company. Few companies can claim such longevity as Witenko Enterprises, and even fewer can claim a fourth-generation family company. Kristina Witenko, Mike Witenko’s daughter, joined the company in 2005 and currently serves as operations manager. She plans to be the family’s fourth-generation president in the future, she said.

A search by the Clark County Historical Society of 1911 business directories resulted in only a handful of companies known to be operating locally in some fashion today. Companies with recognizable names like Littleton & Rue Funeral Home, International Harvester, Chakeres Theatres, James Leffel Co. and Woeber Mustard join a few others in that select club. As demands declined, Witenko Enterprises found it necessary to fold together some operations and cease others. Employment is down significantly from its peak of nearly 100 workers in the 1970s. “As need disappears, you back off,” said Mike Witenko, who joined the company in 1968. “When need goes down, we have to make a decision (to stop operations).” “Business has always been up and down, but this might be the worst,” Mike Witenko said of the current economic climate.

Staffing now is down to 10, but Mike Witenko said things appear to be turning around. “We’re seeing see good signs coming, but it’s going to take a while to build back up,” he said. Tom Kaplan, Ness Chair in Entrepreneurship and associate professor of business at Wittenberg University, said a long-running family business has a different approach than others. “It’s the stewardship mind-set,” Kaplan said. “It’s the way that you run a business. You’re not looking at meeting the next quarter’s goals. You’re thinking ‘I’ve got grandkids and what do I need to do’ ” to get them and the business ready for the company’s future.

As economic times evolved, so did Witenko Enterprises, launching a host of other service businesses and a venetian blind sales and service division. In 1945 it added window blind sales and service to their list of companies. That chance paid off when Levolor blind company named Springfield Venetian Blind Sales & Service a national distributor. Then, in the 1950s, the window cleaning service added an inside and outside wall cleaning service under the leadership of Dmitri Witenko’s son, George Joe Witenko. That same decade, the company took another chance and added Springfield General Maintenance to their list of services. The division tackled jobs like cleaning the facade of the Clark County Courthouse and cleaning ink from the walls and ceiling of the Springfield News and Springfield Sun’s press room.

The next decade George Joe’s son and Mike Witenko’s brother, then president George Louis Witenko, saw more room for expansion and opened Springfield Janitorial Services. In 1960, the company brought its many divisions together under the umbrella Witenko Enterprises Inc., which exists today mainly as a janitorial service. It reached peak staffing levels of close to 100 in the late 1970s. Said Wittenberg’s Kaplan: “A fourth-generation company is unbelievably rare, and it’s not an accident.”

Scissor Lift Death In Indiana

Use of lift in high wind likely safety violation - IOSHA investigating accident at Notre Dame. SOUTH BEND: The accident that claimed the life of a 20-year-old student at the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday could result in safety citations for the university. An investigator from the Indiana Occupational Safety and Health Administration arrived at the university Thursday to begin looking into the accident. Declan Sullivan (pictured) of Long Grove, Ill., died Wednesday night after the scissor lift from which he was reportedly videotaping Notre Dame's football practice toppled over amid wind gusts that reached in excess of 50 mph.

According to government safety regulations, "work on or from scaffolds is prohibited during storms or high winds unless a competent person has determined that it is safe for employees to be on the scaffold and those employees are protected by a personal fall arrest system or wind screens. Wind screens shall not be used unless the scaffold is secured against the anticipated wind forces imposed." The scissor lift used by Sullivan would be included in the regulation. Marc Lotter, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Labor, said Notre Dame hasn't had a major safety violation in his search of records going back 10 years.

Because each investigation is different, Lotter couldn't hazard a guess on how long it might take to issue a report. If IOSHA finds that regulations or safety protocols were not followed, it could attach fines that exceed $100,000, depending on "the severity and the nature of the violations," he said. Though it was initially reported that the scissor lift was leased from United Rentals, a company spokesman said Thursday that the lift does not belong to the company. A sticker attached to the lift might indicate that United Rentals has serviced the device in the past, said Fred Bratman, a spokesman for the company.

"We were saddened to learn of this tragic accident," said Bratman. "We are continuing to investigate the matter, but have determined that the unit was neither owned nor rented by our company." Scissor lifts are often plastered with safety stickers and built with various safety devices. Bill Fish, owner of Fish Window Cleaning of Granger, said he has used scissor lifts quite a bit to reach inside windows. He said the lifts he has used won't go up unless they're on a firm level surface, a warning beeper sounds if there is too much movement in the bucket and the person inside is supposed to be wearing a safety harness. When asked whether he would operate inside a scissor lift in high winds, Fish said, "That would be really scary."

Lotter said worker deaths in Indiana hit a historic low of 123 in 2009. Improved workplace safety as well as fewer jobs because of the recession were likely the reasons for the reduction, he said. Falls, including those from scissor lifts, are the No. 2 cause of workplace deaths in Indiana, said Lotter. From 2003 to 2009, eight workers in Indiana have been killed by falling from a fork lift, scissor lift or bucket truck.

According to government safety regulations, "work on or from scaffolds is prohibited during storms or high winds unless a competent person has determined that it is safe for employees to be on the scaffold and those employees are protected by a personal fall arrest system or wind screens. Wind screens shall not be used unless the scaffold is secured against the anticipated wind forces imposed." The scissor lift used by Sullivan would be included in the regulation.

Nanocrystalline TiO2 Thin Films - A Newer Coating

To create easy-to-clean surfaces, scientists have developed coatings for use on an array of materials, including fabrics, glass, concrete and windshields.

New eco-friendly self-cleaning material tough on stains, light on effort: Cleaning oily smears from kitchen countertops, mirrors, garage floors, and other surfaces with plain water — rather than strong detergents or smelly solvents — may seem like pure fantasy. But scientists in Indiana today describe what they believe to be a simple and effective state-of-the-art oil stain remover. They have developed a new coating for glass, plastics, and a range of other materials that would enable consumers to wipe away those pesky oils with plain water.
Their report at the 238th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) points out that the same coatings can be added to common window cleaning sprays and used to prevent bathroom mirrors, automobile windshields and other surfaces from fogging up. "You add water, and the oil just comes right off like magic," said Jeffrey Youngblood, Ph.D., lead researcher on the project. "These are eco-friendly coatings — environmentally 'green' in the sense that they eliminate the need for harsh detergents and solvents in settings ranging from home kitchens to industrial machine shops that must contend with heavy oil spills."
The materials could be used in a range of consumer and industrial products, Youngblood said. They include household cleaners, easy-to-clean paints, water filters that separate water from oil, sealants for concrete floors and walls that repel oil in home garages and auto repair shops. In addition, anti-fog coatings could be used on windshields or eyewear, including everyday lenses and fog-free scuba masks. The eco-friendly plastics could reduce the need for detergents containing phosphates. "We put out tons of detergents and phosphates each year," said Youngblood, adding that the polymer materials also could reduce the use of detergents for laundering clothes. This would cut down on the release of phosphates, which wash into lakes and streams and stimulate growth of algae, depleting oxygen supplies in ways that cause fish kills in waterways and make swimming unsafe for humans.
"The idea is to use these polymers to clean in situations where it's inconvenient to apply soap or anywhere you would need to have oil cleaned off easily," said Youngblood, a materials engineer at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. "Oil fouling is always a problem. A lot of people overlook the fact that pure water will generally not remove oil from a surface, but using this product transforms water into a super detergent." Youngblood's group spent years in an effort to develop substances with the goal of making a surface that would repel oil more than water. Once successful, their framework for self-cleaning plastics was in place. "With these materials, if you stuck an oil droplet on them you could completely remove it with water. You could basically do soap-free rinsing."
These polymer coatings — about 20,000 times thinner than the width of a human hair — were highly sensitive to water and would break to the touch. Youngblood has built upon these materials to make a new family of ready-to-use polymers that can be easily applied to a variety of surfaces. They have a bottom layer of polyethylene glycol, which attracts water, and an upper layer of a Teflon-like molecule that prevents the passage of oil. The result is a surface that holds a film of water while repelling oil. "Our work is a big step forward toward useable materials as either additives or coatings," he said, "and few others are working in this area. Most research on self-cleaning is done with different surfaces."
Youngblood is currently evaluating self-cleaning and anti-fog capabilities for polymers on different kinds of metals and ceramics. Preliminary tests on the lifetime of anti-fog coatings are especially encouraging. "We have stored these on shelves and use it months afterwards, and we haven't noticed a decrease in performance," he said. "We feel that we can make all our self-cleaning plastics commercially available within a few years."

If you want some in-depth study to this news release - go here.

Window Cleaning News

Tony Evans a.k.a. Mr Squeegee of "A New View" Window Cleaning in Iowa has just followed on from his Winter how-to series: "Weather or not" for the new Summer version. The third episode & fourth episodes are below.

Contractors.com was founded in 1997 as one of the first Internet sites to help homeowners locate, free of charge, reputable contractors in their communities. Contractors.com has the world's most comprehensive, most researched online contractor directory with more than 1.2 million residential and commercial contractors across the USA and Canada, including thousands of registered Members. Having been voted "Best of the Web" by Forbes Magazine two years running, Contractors.com continues to provide top quality service to both homeowners and contractors. We make it easy and quick for householders to find and to get in contact with the nation’s top contractors. We value the contributions of homeowners by posting their reviews of contractors and testimonials about their home improvement experiences.

TORQUAY'S most expensive new-build home has been unveiled at Ilsham Marine Drive — with an asking price of £2.2million. Sunset, the second of two dream properties built by Martin Marine Homes Ltd on the road popularly known as Millionaires' Row, is billed as the Bay's highest-spec home. Chaz Martin, of Martin Marine Homes Ltd, said: "All of the rooms are bristling with cutting-edge technology. "There's no need for a window cleaner as the windows are self-cleaning, and the arctic blue tint stops the house from getting too hot on sunny days, with a type of glass on the inside which retains the heat in the winter." .....we're not taking bets!

A Tennessee window washer was arrested Saturday after he hit a traffic signal control box and a business sign at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and Little Road, and then ran away, police said. When police caught up with Anthony B. Oszaniec, 23, he told them he had taken a Xanax and drunk half a bottle of whiskey. "I get stupid when I drink," he told the Florida Highway Patrol. "At least I didn't hurt anyone." He did damage the box, the sign and his 2008 Hyundai, and he was driving with a suspended license, police said. Oszaniec was taken to the Land O'Lakes jail and will be extradited to Tennessee, where he has three active warrants for charges of burglary and vandalism.

Teen Summer Worker Safety Campaign Kicks Off: The Indiana Department of Labor (IDOL) has launched a Teen Worker Summer Safety Campaign. The campaign, aimed at educating and informing Hoosier employers, teens and parents on occupational safety and health hazards and Indiana’s Child Labor laws includes a series of informative bi-weekly press releases. Prohibited and hazardous occupations for teen workers are discussed in this series of the scheduled releases.
Indiana Child Labor laws regulate the employment of minors ages 17 and younger. These laws, enforced by the IDOL’s Bureau of Child Labor, establish specific requirements applicable to the employment of minors, including restrictions on the hours teenagers are permitted to work, types of establishments in which minors are prohibited from working and the types of jobs they are prohibited from performing.
Including: Outside window washing that involves working from window sills and all work requiring the use of ladders, scaffolds or their substitutes,

Jason Thompson, a 28-year-old Santa Rosa Beach man, is facing a rare and extraordinarily aggressive cancer. After pursuing a diagnosis for more than three months, doctors at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., are still not entirely sure what type of cancer is present. What they do know is that some of the multiple tumors which have been detected in Thompson's body have doubled in size in the past two weeks. Since treating one type of cancer may actually spur the growth of another, informed treatment decisions are critical to Thompson's chances for survival. As a result, a large team of specialists has given his case extensive attention, including daily interaction with doctors at the Mayo Hospital in Rochester, Minn.
Thompson came to Santa Rosa Beach more than four years ago and has been self-employed as a window washer and in the post-construction cleaning business. His mother later joined him, moving from Michigan at his invitation two years ago. She has since assisted her son in the cleaning business, which is now under extreme duress during the busiest season, with both mother and son at the hospital in Jacksonville. Thompson's brother has postponed his wedding and has travelled to Santa Rosa Beach to help out with the business during this time.

Police close in on burglary gang: The net is closing in on a team of bogus window cleaners who burgle Islington homes, Islington Police said this week. But detectives are still looking for witnesses to help their case. DC David Poole, of Islington’s burglary squad, has issued a warning to residents to be vigilant following four similar burglaries in the past couple of months. The most recent theft occurred just after 5.30pm on June 10, in Wallace Road, Canonbury, when three men pretending to be window cleaners targeted the home of a 35-year-old woman. They said they had just finished her neighbour’s windows and offered to give her a quote on work at her house. The victim let them in to the house to see her rear windows, agreed on a price and then one of the men went to the kitchen to fill his bucket.
A little while later the victim, who was in the sitting room, realised the men had left and her purse containing £130 cash and bank cards had been taken. One suspect was described as being in his mid-twenties, tall, with dark cropped brown hair, stubble and wore a royal blue t-shirt and stubble. A second suspect was around 28 to 30 years old, large, with short clipped, light brown hair. The third suspect was about 40, tall, skinny, with wispy brown hair. DC Poole said there were definite links between two of the burglaries but that he believed up to four were connected, adding: “We’re hot on their trail”. He said: “It appears they might actually genuinely clean windows, although not very well, and take the opportunity to take things when they can.”
He added: “I want people to be very careful when they employ people to work in their homes. They need to make sure that people knocking on their doors are VAT registered and give receipts for their work. “Common sense needs to be used. If they are offering to do things cheaply then the chances are they are not likely to be bona fide.” • Anyone with information can call DC David Poole on 0207 421 0371.

A FAMILY has paid tribute to a man whose body was found on a seaside path at Saltburn. Luke Welsh had just marked his 32nd birthday two days before his death - but his family said his heart had been a “time-bomb waiting to go off.” His mum Patricia Welsh, of Darlington, said Luke had a passion for rave music and had a collection of hundreds of records, disks and CDs. She said: “His ambition was to go into the Royal Navy following his grandfather Bob Welsh, of Redcar, with whom he lived for much of the past year. “But he had a hearing defect as well as a heart problem. “He loved life and was popular with a wide circle of friends, many of whom attended last week's funeral at All Saints Church, Skelton.” He met his fiancee Sarah Wood in April, and she said: “I want to remember and I want other people to remember Luke's love for life. “He always wanted to live for the moment and was always happy and smiling.” The former De Brus School pupil gained a retail management diploma in Middlesbrough and worked at a Middlesbrough electrical shop. When he was about 23 his health started to deteriorate, and more recently he took on window-cleaning franchises in Carlin How and Brotton, living most of the time in Saltburn. He leaves two children, Sophie and Stephen.

UK rental company, Blade Access took delivery of its 12th truck mounted platform at the Vertikal Days exhibition last week: a 70 m Wumag WT700 bought from UK dealer Skyking. Mark Bell and Jamie Bairstow co-directors of the company, based in Bradford, Yorkshire, first came into contact with aerial platforms through their industrial window cleaning business, now the company is a thriving access rental business with a fleet which also includes van mounts, self propelled booms and scissors and track mounted platforms. The new Wumag was particularly appealing said Mr Bairstow because of its "far superior technology and the reliability and service are second to none. We also liked the vertical rise which keeps the operator parallel to the face of a building." The Wumag also offers the capacity to narrow the jacking so the machine can be used in more restricted spaces. Click on pictures to enlarge.

Homespun guide to economic survival: REPORTS indicate that members of our community, like communities generally, are altering their lifestyles and adopting various schemes to cope with the economic crisis. There is even talk that bartering is being introduced, with points being given for goods and services. Older folks are exchanging gefilte fish, chicken soup and other popular foods for mowing lawns, window cleaning and a diversity of activities.

In the Good Morning Maryland @ 9 series, Get Back 2 Work, we usually try and give unemployed people the chance to talk about their struggles or help those of you looking for jobs find the best path to a new job. Today, we found a different way to help people either find that new job or make the decision to find a new career. Jamie introduced us to Sean Carr. Sean is a former teacher who probably thought he would retire as one. But he literally looked out his window and found his new career. Sean now does windows and it has been one of the best decisions of his life.