Crush Your Window Cleaning Competition With Data

Hello, Window Cleaners!

At the beginning of this year, WCR asked 1,000 window cleaners 100 questions.  We cover topics like Marketing, Sales, Money, Operations & Competition. You know all the important stuff!

Download it for Free HERE

This valuable tool helps you to see how you stack up against the competition. It will also help benchmark your progress and see what's possible with your business.

The Window Cleaners Census is the only large-scale survey in the Window Cleaning World. 

Stay tuned in the early winter for the next release.

Survey For 1-14 Standard IWCA

A short survey for US based window cleaners.

I-14 Standard: Why It's Important - The I-14 Committee scope is identifying accepted safe practices for window cleaning and the purpose of the standard is to provide safety to window cleaners and to others such as a passerby, where window cleaning operations are in progress, by specifying equipment with practical and adequate safety factors and features and requiring the safe use, design and maintenance of such equipment. Click here to go to survey.

IWCA I-14 Standard Survey: Please note, this survey is being sent to window cleaning professionals within the IWCA database of all affiliations. Please submit feedback regarding the International Window Cleaning Association's I-14.1-2001 Window Cleaning Safety Standard (I-14 Standard).

The IWCA 1-14.1 Window Cleaning Safety Standard is divided into two parts, which are intended to serve as a guide for window cleaners, regulatory agencies, manufacturers, architects, consultants, designers and building owners. Part A focuses on safety guidelines for the use of window cleaning access equipment. Part B is geared toward those who manufacture, distribute, design, install or maintain the equipment. $50

UK Window Cleaners Down League In Tipping

UK window cleaners, bottom of the league when it comes to tips.

Britons fall out of love with tipping - do you always leave a tip? Millions of Britons do not leave tips and those who do give just 7 per cent on average, according to new research. A survey by uniform provider Simon Jersey found one in 10 people in Britain do not leave tips, with plumbers, window cleaners and beauticians the least likely to be left extra money. Respondents said they are most likely to tip waiters and waitresses, with the most popular reason being polite service (61 per cent). Only 20 per cent of the 2,000 people surveyed said they always leave a tip and 31 per cent said they only do so if they receive 'exceptional' service. Top 10 professions tipped;

1. Waiters/Waitresses

2. Taxi drivers

3. Hairdressers/barbers

4. Takeaway delivery drivers

5. Hotel staff

6. Café/coffee shop workers

7. Bar staff

8. Beauticians

9. Window cleaners

10. Plumbers

A spokesman for Simon Jersey said: "Tipping is something which is customary and not compulsory, but this can make it quite confusing as there are no hard and fast rules. "Some people always leave 10 per cent of the bill, regardless of how much this is, whereas others put down a random amount based on their experience or what they have in their purse or pockets.

"And it seems it's not just the level of service you receive which is the deciding factor in how much money you leave as a tip, or even if one is left at all. "Being polite and friendly is a big factor in whether any extra is left on top of the bill, but even the appearance of the server contributes to the tip left." Top 10 reasons we tip;

1. If they were polite

2. If they had put more effort into their work than they really needed to

3. If they were friendly and chatty

4. If they smiled

5. If they appeared to be extremely busy but still completed my work to a high standard

6. If they had completed the work earlier or quicker than expected

7. If they looked smart and tidy

8. I asked something out of the ordinary of them

9. If they were wearing a nice uniform

10. If they were attractive or I fancied them

Window Cleaning One Step Away From Bomb Squad Technician

From bomb disarming to grave digging: The scariest jobs in America: Just in time for Halloween, CareerBuilder released results of their scariest jobs survey. The survey polled American workers on what they believe to be the scariest professions, and high-school teachers made the list. The list includes a wide range of fear-inducing careers; some are life threatening, while others could lead to serious embarrassment or social shame.

It's no surprise that window washers may have one of the scariest jobs in America, but what about teachers? A new survey from CareerBuilder found teaching is one of the top ten scariest professions. More than 4,300 workers voted in a nationwide survey. A bomb squad technician was voted the scariest job. A high-rise window washer was second.

CareerBuilder Survey Reveals the Scariest Jobs According to American Workers:

· Bomb squad technician tops list; miner, high school teacher, stunt person among the most frightening professions.

· Pay cuts, presentations and high workload are among the things workers are most afraid of at work.

Chicago, Illinois – October 27, 2011 – What makes a job frightening? Imminent danger? Public speaking? Eerie surroundings? As Halloween weekend approaches, American workers voted on the scariest profession, choosing careers ranging from the death-defying (firefighter) to the potentially humiliating (stand-up comedian). The nationwide survey was conducted by Harris Interactive from August 16 to September 8, 2011 with more than 4,300 workers.

Among the scariest jobs are:

1. Bomb Squad Technician

2. High Rise Window Washer

3. Armed Forces

4. Miner

5. Police Officer

6. Alaskan Crab Fishing

7. Mortician

8. Firefighter

9. High School Teacher

10. Cemetery Worker

11. Exterminator

12. Stand-Up Comedian

13. Animal Control

14. Stunt Person

15. Politician

What are employees most afraid of at work?

While most Americans won’t find themselves in any of the above careers, aspects of their own jobs can keep them on edge. More than a third of workers (36 percent) say layoffs are what they are most afraid of at work. Other work-related issues that may keep workers up at night include:

· Pay cuts – 13 percent

· Workload – 9 percent

· Presenting in front of other people – 9 percent

· Forced relocation – 4 percent

· The boss – 3 percent

Get window cleaning jobs now, click here.

Salaries: How they pan out..
1. Bomb Squad Technician
Salary: $54,000

Training: High school degree or equivalent, five years as a police officer, and a training period at a specialized facility, like the six-week course at the FBI Hazardous Devices School in Huntsville, Ala.
Red wire or blue wire? Ten seconds. Red wire or blue wire? Nine seconds. Twenty thousand innocent lives within bomb radius. Seven seconds. Probably at least 500 sleeping babies. Five seconds. Your mom. Four seconds. RED WIRE OR BLUE WIRE? Three seconds. Blue has always been your favorite color. Two seconds. Why did you ever decide to become a bomb squad technician? One second.

2. High-Rise Window Washer
Salary: $28,770

Training: High-rise window washers usually need certification. For International Window Cleaning Association certification, the aspiring window washer must take four correspondence exams, specializing in commercial ground-based window cleaning, rope descent systems, and suspended scaffolds. American high-rise washers need specific training in regional standards. Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say. But when cleaning the 102nd floor windows of the Empire State Building, you are actually next to God. Combining the detail-focus of a custodian with the fearlessness of a circus acrobat, high-rise window washers waltz daily with death to keep our skyscrapers agleam. Peering into all those offices might reveal some pretty scary stuff too.

3. Armed Forces Member Salary: $23,400 plus bonus (private first class).
4. Miner: Salary $25.60 per hour or $53,160 per year.
5. Police Officer Salary: $41,257
6. Alaskan Crab Fishing Salary: $84,930
7. Mortician Salary: $41,440
8. Firefighter Salary: $41,300
9. High School Teacher Salary: $43,800
10. Cemetery Worker Salary: $42,250
11. Exterminator Salary: $32,840
12. Stand-Up Comedian Salary: Whatever you can hustle.
13. Animal Control Salary: $30,940
14. Stunt Person Salary: $70,000 (well-known and experienced)
15. Politician Salary: $174,000 (U.S. House and Senate Members) No experience required, but lying through your teeth for your own selfish benefit & lining your products comes in handy, especially when you have to pay off the funding you took -  to get you there in the first place.

UK Cleaning Trends

More than a third of people pay for a window cleaner on a regular basis, while a similar number clean their own windows, and a quarter of householders admit their windows hardly get cleaned.

4 million Britons go on a domestic blitz: Even Kim Woodburn and Aggie MacKenzie, the stars of television's How Clean is your House? would be impressed by how much Britain's most domestically challenged households are cleaning up their acts. A new survey by market analysts at Mintel has revealed that four million house-proud Britons spend five hours or more each day cleaning their homes and doing other household chores. Just one in six people spend less than an hour each day on domestic duties, according to the survey of 1,500 households.

The survey reveals that mounting domestic duties such as cleaning, washing and ironing mean that nearly one in ten - eight per cent - of people spend a large part of their day on household chores. Only four per cent spend no time at all keeping the house or garden tidy, while just one in 20 people said they used paid help, such as a cleaner, once or twice a week or even more often.

More than a third of people pay for a window cleaner on a regular basis, while a similar number clean their own windows, and a quarter of householders admit their windows hardly get cleaned. The survey also reveals that the most hated jobs around the home are cleaning the oven, washing windows and getting rid of stains on carpets and upholstery. A spokeswoman for Mintel said: "During the current, more challenging economic environment, paying for windows to be cleaned professionally is one expense that people might have been expected to have cut back on in order to save money. "Nevertheless, more than a third of people still say their windows are cleaned regularly by a window cleaner.

"Over three quarters of adults really care about the house being clean and six in ten derive satisfaction from their housework. Retired people are most concerned about the cleanliness of their homes. "Some 33 million adults claim to spend a lot or a fair amount of time cleaning and tidying their homes. "Only 1.6 million adults do not get involved in cleaning at all, and even fewer claim not to tidy up. "Women are more likely to spend two hours or more on an average weekday on household chores, and men an hour or less. "Spending a lot of time on household chores also shows a bias towards over-45s."

Isobel Robertson, the national chairwoman of the Scottish Women's Rural Institutes, admitted she was surprised at the results of the survey. She said: "I would have thought that spending five hours a day on domestic chores would have been quite normal many years ago when there were fewer women in full-time employment and their job was to look after the home. "But with both men and women leading such busy lives these days and with all the modern gadgets available I do find it surprising that so many people can devote that amount of time to housework every day.

"A lot of our members would happily admit that sometimes housework has to go on the back burner simply because they have so many more interesting things to do. "However, I can also see that people really enjoy cleaning and do it because it gives them a sense of satisfaction and fulfilment. "I think it's important that if people are devoting that amount of time to housework, they are doing it because they enjoy doing it and not because they feel pressurised into having a perfectly pristine home." She added: "There is nothing wrong just keeping on top of chores in the kitchen and bathroom every day and giving the rest of the house a blitz once a week. "Household chores are still important to people even in these modern times."

Hidden Chemical Dangers in Homes

New Survey Uncovers the Hidden Dangers Lurking in American Homes: 47 percent of U.S. adults may be by not being able to name even one ingredient in the cleaners they're using throughout their homes or the nearly one in five parents(1) (18%) who do not take steps to safeguard their families from toxic ingredients in some household cleaners. Nearly three in five adults (58%) clean their homes by wiping the surfaces with a cleaning solution/product at least once per week. The lack of consumer awareness about what's in those products, coupled with the fact that the average American home has 63 hazardous chemical products within arm's reach (according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission), makes for this stark reality: the typical American home can be a danger to families.

According to a recent survey conducted by Harris Interactive® and commissioned by Seventh Generation, the world's most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for the living home, nearly one in ten adults (9%) wipe the surfaces of their home with cleaning products several times per day, but more than half (58%) don't always check the labels of cleaning products to determine if they contain ingredients that are harmful to their health. With nearly ten percent (8.7%) of all calls to the U.S. Poison Control Centers involving toxic exposure to household cleaners (American Association of Poison Control Centers), it's more important than ever for parents to be educated on the topic.


As part of its commitment to empowering people with the knowledge of maintaining a healthy, safe home for their family, Seventh Generation -- in collaboration with WebMD, the most trusted brand of health information, and Healthy Child Healthy World, a nonprofit leader that aims to inspire parents to create healthier environments for their children -- is providing a personalized educational platform on WebMD called the Health eHome.

Set up as a virtual tour, Health eHome enables users to visit each room of the home to uncover potential dangers and hazards that are identified as "hot spots." Clicking on the "hot spot" opens an information window which explains the potential hazard and tips on eliminating it to improve both personal and environmental health. The information window also provides documentary-style video with real families confronting these issues in their homes. An expert blog provides trusted information on creating a cleaner, greener lifestyle. Parents can also test the safety of their home by doing a "Health eHome Check," where they can get personalized results and an action plan for their home. According to the Seventh Generation survey, while one third (33%) of parents believe the kitchen is potentially the most harmful area to their children, 75 percent of adults store their cleaning products under the kitchen sink -- with just half (50%) choosing to open windows to release toxic fumes when cleaning. With more than 92 percent of poisonings happening in the home (CDC) and children under six making up more than half (51.2%) of human exposure victims to poisonings in America (American Association of Poison Control Centers), it's important to remember that every room has hidden dangers.

"We live in a society where parents are taking steps to think about their family's health more consciously, like the 37 percent we found in our survey who buy organic produce. However, they might be putting that produce on surfaces that are toxic to their family's health," said Jeffrey Hollender, CEO, Seventh Generation. "The Health eHome educational platform is designed to teach families about the chemical dangers in the home while discovering non-toxic and environmentally-friendly alternatives, providing parents with the peace of mind of knowing that they are doing all they can to maintain a safe and healthy home for their children."

More findings from the survey:
Sixty-seven percent (67%) of adults believe that companies are required to disclose all of the chemical ingredients contained in their products. The truth is, they are not. More than half of adults (58%) don't always check the labels of the cleaning products they purchase to determine if they contain ingredients that are harmful to their health. While more than half of adults believe that household cleaning products (e.g., window cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, kitchen cleaner) cause substantial damage to the environment (53%) and think that if used daily products that contain dyes or fragrances can be harmful to their health (59%), only 21 percent of parents opt for cleaning products with natural ingredients.

Surprisingly, 70 percent of adults with kids under the age of six years that live in their household store their household cleaning products/solutions under the sink. Sixteen percent (16%) of parents do not believe any room in their home poses potential danger to their children. "We are living in a time where environmentally conscious parenting is more possible and necessary than ever before," said Dr. Alan Greene, pediatrician and leading authority for the green baby movement. "The Health eHome offerings enable families to determine the hidden dangers that not only pose harm for their families, but also within the environment, helping to provide effective solutions."

According to the Seventh Generation survey, while one third (33%) of parents believe the kitchen is potentially the most harmful area to their children, 75 percent of adults store their cleaning products under the kitchen sink -- with just half (50%) choosing to open windows to release toxic fumes when cleaning. With more than 92 percent of poisonings happening in the home (CDC) and children under six making up more than half (51.2%) of human exposure victims to poisonings in America (American Association of Poison Control Centers), it's important to remember that every room has hidden dangers.

"We live in a society where parents are taking steps to think about their family's health more consciously, like the 37 percent we found in our survey who buy organic produce. However, they might be putting that produce on surfaces that are toxic to their family's health," said Jeffrey Hollender, CEO, Seventh Generation. "The Health eHome educational platform is designed to teach families about the chemical dangers in the home while discovering non-toxic and environmentally-friendly alternatives, providing parents with the peace of mind of knowing that they are doing all they can to maintain a safe and healthy home for their children."

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Chlorine fumes send 7 to hospital: Seven people were treated at a hospital Tuesday morning after a man created overpowering fumes when he mixed bleach with a cleaner to clear a bathroom drain. About 1 a.m., a man created chlorine gas after mixing Drano and bleach in the 1800 block of Kings Canyon Circle in Fort Worth, said Fort Worth Fire Department Lt. Kent Worley. Three adults and four children had trouble breathing and were taken to the hospital.
Fire officials used fans to clear the home of fumes by about 3:30 a.m. Resident Sykea Davis told KDFW-TV (Channel 4) that everyone in the home was doing OK and will be more careful in the future. "We won't mix anything else, not even peanut butter and jelly," she told the television station.