Friday, 23 July 2010

New Free iphone App' For Window Cleaners: Review



Another review of an iphone app' this time from Torben Østergaard in Denmark. I've been trying this one out for a few days, just to see how useful it could be. It comes under the name "Win-Service" & it's free. Here's the description..

"Win-Service" by "i-Toe Apps."

Win-Service turns your iPhone, iPod or iPad into a Windows Cleaner's handy pocket office. If you need to handle a professional deal in a hurry, then the program will enable you to give a qoute for window cleaning. You won't need an office lady or other administrative staff. You will be able to book your agreements into your calendar, so that you can plan followup, execution and invoicing. It has never been easier to become independent than this App has made it for you.

Here you get both a FREE fully functional version of the App and an up-to-date User Guide.

Features:
  • Enter detailed quote/agreement information.
  • Send quote/agreement to customer.
  • Job/Task planning for a period of time with recurrency option.
  • Job List, basically a booking/calendar list letting you know how often you have to do the job.
  • Job List Sorting.
  • Job List Filtering.
  • Price Calculation.
  • Custom Pricing, Cost Distribution and Tax settings.
  • Custom Logo, take a picture or select photo from picture album.
Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 3.1 or later.



Pro's:
  • It's free - what more do you want!
  • Nice layout & great import of custom logo.
  • Great app' on the go for sending a receipt immediately*
  • Great for adding notes to the job.
  • Good for on the go notes in general.
  • Help menu in-application.
Con's:
  • Doesn't integrate with calendar or phone lists.
  • No computer integration.
  • Not so sure about the pricing per window application.
  • No option to import clients.
  • Phone numbers in-application can't be rung.
  • Sat-Nav integration (OK, but it's worth a try!)
  • Do I really need to import all my contacts manually & then loose it all with an upgrade when it appears?

VERDICT: Go ahead & download. It's free! And if you're like me, then you like to have all your info close at hand, it can be useful. *I'm really impressed with the idea of making receipts & emailing straight away. Nice one. Probably a great app' for the smaller route/round window cleaner. To download this program direct to your iPhone, scan this QRcode barcode link. Don't have a barcode reader ? Click here.


Thursday, 22 July 2010

The MidWest Window Cleaning Show + Other News



One week to go: Take your business to the next level with this once in a life time window cleaning educational seminar. This seminar is jam packed with speakers, information and concepts that will have a serious impact on your business. The 2nd annual Mid West Window Cleaning Convention. Friday July 30 & 31st 2010, in Coralville, Iowa. Located at the: Hampton Inn Iowa City/Coralville. Just 25 minutes from the airport, free shuttles available all day! If you missed this event the first time round, can you really afford to miss it the second time. Around a hundred people have already signed up & are ready to attend - you can come too, for free! Click here & scroll to the bottom to sign up.

Schedule of events:
Friday July 30th -
  • 3pm - 6pm meet and greet / informal round table discussions
  • 6pm - dinner / drinks
  • 8pm - whenever - round tables continue
Saturday July 31st
  • 9am - 9:15 - Opening ceremony / meet and greet
  • 9am - 5pm - Out door pure water water fed pole demos. Get your hands on all of the popular pure water machines and water fed poles.
  • 9:15am - 11am - Key note speaker Kevin Dubrosky - "The window cleaning business coach." This years IWCA Key note speaker! 99% of window cleaning business owners need some serious help with their marketing systems, and are not satisfied with the results they are currently obtaining. Kevin can help! Check out Kevins website.
  • 11am -12pm - Doug MacDonald - From Get On Page 1 of Google - Doug helps window cleaners just like you bring there websites to the front page of Google every day. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is becoming the #1 source for customers to find you. Don't get left behind! Check out Doug's website.
  • 2pm - 1pm - FREE LUNCH - Join us for a western style barbecue meal, yes its free!
  • 1pm - 1:30pm - Fabricating Debris Seminar - Tony Evans from a New View Window Cleaning.
  • 1:30pm - 2pm - Build your business through direct mail - Chris Lambrinides from Window Cleaning Resource, and All County Window Cleaning. Learn how to successfully implement direct mail into your business. Chris will give out his most successful mailers free of charge.
  • 2pm - 2:30pm - Add ons - Increase your revenue through add on services. Chris Lambrinides and Tony Evans discuss add on services to improve your bottom line. Screen repair, power washing, gutter whitening, and gutter protection.
  • 2:30pm - 3pm - Adding scratch removal to your business - Alex from Window Cleaning Resource, shows how you can successfully remove almost any scratch, even those caused by fabricating debris.
  • 3pm - 5pm WFP demos, out door demonstrations, ladder safety.
  • 5pm - The big give away!
Give-a-way's will be given out and raffled off every hour on the hour! GlassRenu are giving away a $2195 machine! Everybody should at least get $100 of goodies for just showing up! The show & seminars are free! The food is free! Just get yourself over to the MidWest Window Cleaning Conference - that's all you have to do.



Window cleaner survives 30,000-volt shock: A window cleaner is recovering in a hospital after he was zapped by a high voltage line yesterday (Weds). The 27-year-old from Wels was thrown out of his work platform after it touched a 30,000-volt power connection running close to the Sattledt company headquarters where he was cleaning the outside second-floor windows. Passers-by said the man was conscious when they found him lying in the grass. He was hospitalised in Wels. Doctors did not give out information about the extent of his injuries.

Quiet and humble in manner, short and plump in stature, Robert Farquharson is a man who seems innocuous and inoffensive. With a worried expression like a little boy lost at his Supreme Court retrial for 11 weeks, the scale of his terrible crime - murdering his three sons - felt incomprehensible. The events of Father's Day five years ago instantly made the then window cleaner from Winchelsea one of the most gossiped about men in Australia. But after deliberating since Monday, a jury has found the 41-year-old guilty of murdering Jai, 10, Tyler, 7, and Bailey, 2.

Environment protection and development with the minimal risk of deleterious impact on our people and their surroundings is our first priority. According to the latest assessment of quarry and crusher activity and their environmental impact by the Ministry of Environment and water (MOEW), the quarries and crushers in Ras Al Khaimah have been graded green, which implies 100 per cent implementation of the recommended protection measures, including ambient air dust levels.
The photographs published in your news report showing the presence of dust on the window glass and in the vacuum cleaner collection bag is a normal and natural outcome of arid atmospheric conditions, which is observed regularly even in the houses located in the city area without any industrial activity in the surroundings.
The complaints about the health problems, particularly asthma and allergy may be due to other well-known causative factors such as bacterial and viral diseases associated with seasonal changes, dust storms, indoor pollution, smoking, exposure to oud fumes and unhygienic living conditions.

Windsor, Ontario parking garage collapse demonstrates need for shoring: The collapse of a Windsor parking garage this month is an object lesson in the need to shore up the roofs of such structures before significant extra weight is placed on the surface above. Dr. Gina Cody, president of Construction Control Inc. of Woodbridge, Ont., said that whenever a heavy vehicle such as an articulated boom truck for maintenance or window washing is wheeled on to the surface, strengthening the roof below should be done as “a rule of thumb, unless the parking garage is really really heavily reinforced and it was designed for excessive loading, which is uncommon.”
Cody was speaking in the wake of a small parking garage collapse in Windsor July 8, apparently caused by excess weight from a zoom boom truck. This was in addition to an extra layer of asphalt applied to the street level surface of the garage at some point in the past, which had weakened it. There were no deaths though the boom operator, who was washing windows on an adjacent building, suffered injuries and was taken to hospital when the surface collapsed below his vehicle and he fell to the garage’s underground parking level. The 140-foot by 109-foot structure near downtown Windsor was a paved surface lot with one underground floor. Initial story here.

$150 Million Multiple Award Task Order Contract: ECC-RMA, LLC was also awarded the first task order under the contract, a $5 million design-build project for the USACE Los Angeles District with four options valued at $996,770. The team will replace roofs on Buildings 1, 2, and 14 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in San Diego, CA with the option to design and build a photovoltaic system and window washing system on Building 1. The project is currently underway and scheduled for completion in September 2011.

Troubled Paul Gascoigne poses with a shopgirl who says he groped her - after falling off the wagon while in rehab. Rowena Ross, 22, said the England football legend smelled of booze when he popped into her chemist's near the clinic where he was having treatment. She added: "He seemed quite merry. He hugged me and then put his hand on my breast. He was giggling. I didn't say anything." Sam Bishop, 24, who lives near the Bournemouth clinic, bought Gazza some lager after bumping into him in the street.
The window cleaner said: "He asked me to buy him two cans of Stella and put them in a bag behind the wall of an empty house. When I'd done it I had to give him a thumbs-up to let him know it was there. I didn't know he was in rehab or I wouldn't have bought them."

Other Semi-related Window Cleaning News..

Medford, Ore. – A new campaign called the Graffiti Eradication Program is cleaning up Medford neighborhoods. The program takes youth offenders from the Jackson County Juvenile Division and volunteer groups from local high schools, to help paint over tagged homes or businesses. Lieutenant Bob Hansen from Medford Police says their just trying to take care of what they call the broken window effect. “If you have a broken window in a house and it stays that way or a business, they tend to more and more broken windows, said Hansen. “People see that and think it’s to go ahead and damage another window.”
Most of the supplies have been donated from local businesses like Ace Hubbard’s Hardware, Rodda Paint and Cleaning Solutions. Community Officer, Todd Sales scouted different neighborhoods to see what areas had the most graffiti. So far, more than thirty properties have been repainted. “We want to make sure that the youth get an opportunity to make restitution when do things they shouldn't,” said Sales.

Boffins develop greenhouse invisible to night-vision goggles: Boffins in the States say they have designed a "glass cloak" which renders objects within it invisible in the infrared spectrum. Prof Elena Semouchkina and her colleagues developed the "cloak", which reportedly bends micron wavelengths around its interior. Micron-length waves are in the near infrared, the part of the electromagnetic spectrum used by ordinary night-vision goggles. Previous invisibility cloak research has tended to focus on metallic "metamaterials", but Semouchkina and her colleagues' design calls for magnetic resonator metamaterial made of chalcogenide dielectric glass.
Regular metallic "cloaks", according to heavyweight invisibility prof Sir John Pendry, are not - or rather, will not be when visible-light versions are developed - actually flexible cloaks. Rather, they would be hefty rigid structures or cladding, more like a shed than any type of garment. It appears that Semouchkina's chalcogenide glass is pretty rigid, too, so in fact here we're talking more about an invisible greenhouse or glass house than a cloak. The invisible glass dwelling - doubtless featuring a glass ceiling of the type known to impede upwardly-mobile lady biz execs - would of course be perfectly perceptible to the naked eye. However it would be an ideal hiding place for people needing to elude enemies wearing regular near-infrared night-vision goggles, whether passive or active.
Sadly more up-to-date opponents using thermal imagers working in longer infrared wavelengths could detect it without too much difficulty: though one should note that human body heat can't normally penetrate glass, so the thermal-imager user would need to distinguish the invisible greenhouse by differentiating it from its background. For now, though, the disappearing glass abode doesn't exist in the real world. Semouchkina and her colleagues verified the theory of in vitro vanishment in silico - that is, they ran some computer simulations rather than actually building their machine.

Chicago hoarding cleanup service: Compassion is the key - Dan Reynolds cringes whenever he watches Hoarders, on A&E, or Hoarding: Buried Alive on TLC. The cleanup crews on those shows have it all wrong, he says. Reynolds should know. He, along with partner Mike Frakes, owns Minooka, Ill.-based Chicago Crime Scene Cleanup. While the company specializes, as its name suggests, in cleaning up crime scenes, it also works with hoarders throughout the Chicago area, helping them clean the mounds of newspapers, trash bags, empty cans, battered furniture and ancient clothes from their houses. Cleanup crews should never throw children's toys from an attic onto a front lawn, something Reynolds has seen happen on both Hoarders and Hoarding. That might make for good TV, Reynolds says, but it's bad for the family living in that house.
"People need their dignity. Throwing their possessions out a window isn't helping them keep their dignity," Reynolds said. "These people are not slobs. They are not lazy. They have a disorder." I'd been thinking about hoarding ever since my wife brought home a book from our local public library, Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things. The book, by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee is filled with interviews of hoarders, people who can only travel from one room to the next by fashioning tunnels that snake between towers of paper, books, magazines and boxes of clothing. Frost and Steketee came to this conclusion: Hoarders assign the same value to every possession they have. They can't separate what's important from what's not. Reynolds has seen this. Not only does he help hoarders throughout the Chicago area clean their homes, he has two family members who struggle with their own hoarding disorders. Chicago Crime Scene Cleanup also cleans some of the several Chicago-area homes that have fallen into foreclosure. Read more..

Wouldn't make a good window cleaner: Wang Jun is addicted to eating light bulbs. The 52-year-old, from China, has munched his way through more than 1,000 of the glass bulbs, since biting into his first one as a child for a dare. He has even made a career out of the strange habit — starring in a circus as the world's only light bulb eating man. So far, his unusual diet hasn't had any serious health side effects. But Wang's family are becoming increasingly alarmed by his bizarre antics, which cost him his marriage. They have asked doctors, at a hospital near Wang's home in Sichuan Province, to help. Medics were sceptical at first, but now admit he has an addiction.
They took Wang in for observation and have watched him munch his way through 18 light bulbs in the last two weeks with no visible side-effects. Wang said he usually gets through about 25 a month and gets nervous and edgy if he can't get his regular light bulb fix. He said: "It's probably like withdrawal symptoms that any addict gets I suppose. "I remember eating my first light bulb when I was 12. I did it as a dare with my friends and actually had quite a nice feeling afterwards. It was very satisfying. "If I don't eat one for several days, I get very nervous.
"My wife actually left me because of it. She said it was too weird. I admit I didn't tell her at first when we got married and I used to munch the light bulbs in secret, but then she caught me and a short while later we separated. "The light bulbs taste best with porridge, but they are also quite nice with bread. I would recommend it to anybody, although I must admit I haven't heard of anybody trying any of my recipes yet." Doctors who examined Wang found no sign of any injuries, but they warned he needs to crack down or all the shattered glass may cause him serious harm in the future.

Unlucky lottery ticket thief wins hearing before judge: Stealing a winning lottery ticket does not make you lucky. That’s what San Mateo County prosecutors said after a suspected serial burglar nabbed four rolls of lottery tickets at a Burlingame store in April and was later caught on camera trying to cash in his winnings. The alleged crook and his buddy carried out multiple window-smashing burglaries in Peninsula cities, mostly snagging cash from registers. But he made the mistake of trying his luck at lottery tickets, prosecutors said.
The “winner” was spotted on camera cashing in the tickets at three different stores, and he and his accomplice were eventually tracked down and caught fleeing a dry cleaning business they burglarized, they said. The accused, Danny Hamilton, 25, and Shawn Reilly, 24, both South San Francisco residents, were set to face a judge on a host of charges Thursday afternoon.

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

"Nigerian Scam" Drags On For Window Cleaner



BANGOR, Maine — A Stockton Springs window cleaner who spent more than a year in federal prison for soliciting funds to invest in an international scam pleaded not guilty Monday in federal court to 13 counts of wire fraud in what prosecutors have called a similar scheme. Todd Denson, 50, originally was indicted in May on two counts of wire fraud. He allegedly was asking people for money that he sent overseas. Denson told people that he needed money to gain access to millions he had in foreign bank accounts, according to court documents.

The first indictment cited two wire transfers totaling $4,700. The new indictment, dated July 13, cited 11 additional wire transfers totaling $20,383, including the amount cited in the original indictment. Information about what led to the additional charges was not available Monday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Margaret Kravchuk ordered that Denson continue to be held without bail, as he has been since his arrest in April. He scheduled to be tried on all 13 counts in September.

Denson appears to be a victim of a well-known Internet monetary fraud as well as someone who has tried to swindle money from people in Hancock, Waldo and Knox counties since he was released from prison in May 2008, according to court documents. He was sentenced on June 7, 2007, in federal court in Portland to 18 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to seven counts of mail and wire fraud. Denson admitted to bilking several Cumberland County residents out of nearly $80,000. His problems apparently began in 2006, when he fell for a fraudulent Internet scheme out of Ghana, according to previously published reports. The owner of a successful window-washing business in Portland, Denson sent $60,000 to the African nation after being told he could get a $9 million inheritance.

After he ran out of his own money in 2006, Denson used a variety of stories to get additional funds from seven so-called investors and wired the money overseas in hopes of getting the millions promised. In all, he bilked seven people out of nearly $80,000, but only four sought restitution, according to court records. He still owes $58,600 to those victims, according to court documents. It was unclear Monday how many people might have been victimized by Denson's most recent alleged activities, although three victims were identified in the original indictment. If convicted on the new charges, Denson faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

A Westbrook man who lost $60,000 of his own money in a fraudulent Internet scheme run out of Africa now faces a federal prison sentence for using $78,600 of other people's money after his funds ran out. Todd Denson, 46, told investigators that he received an e-mail that convinced him he could get an inheritance worth more than $9 million from a murdered man in Ghana by sending $1,000 overseas. Denson sent the money, followed by another $59,000. Eventually he ran out of his own money and told a variety of stories to get money from other "investors." He convinced one victim to invest in patented window-washing inventions and another to invest in an international construction company. On Thursday, Denson pleaded guilty to mail and wire fraud in U.S. District Court in Portland and faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and will owe restitution to his seven victims. His case offers a cautionary tale for people who think they can get rich quickly, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Clark.

In another case, Todd Denson, who ran a Westbrook-based window-washing company, placed a classified ad in the Portland Press Herald seeking investors. Denson said he needed to borrow $40,000 for 48 hours, and promised a $20,000 return on investment. He said he needed the money to release more than $9 million in funds that he kept in an overseas bank account, money he had earned by inventing patented window-washing equipment. Instead, prosecutors say, Denson shipped the money overseas to release what he had become convinced was millions of dollars in assets of a construction company he had acquired.

Prosecutors believe Denson spent $60,000 of his own funds before borrowing $78,000 from five victims. All of it was lost in the scam. He now faces up to 20 years in prison. When he was being questioned by a Secret Service agent last January, Denson reminded the agent that the two had talked before. Denson said he had called the Secret Service office and asked the agent if he thought the overseas investment Denson was involved in was legitimate. The agent said he was familiar with the scheme and warned him to stay away from it. He was told not to send any more money, and not to take anyone else's money to finance it.

Denson was told that "since he was aware of the scam, he could be held criminally liable for enticing other unsuspecting individuals into relinquishing their money," according to a court document written by Assistant U.S. Attorney Donald Clark. Despite the warning, Denson continued looking for "investors" to help him strike it rich. Victims like Denson go through a common psychological phenomenon known as a "social trap" that turns them into accomplices of the same con men who are trying to rob them, said Bill Thornton, a psychology professor at the University of Southern Maine. Victims need to justify their losses, he said. The more they lose in the scam, the more convinced they become of its reality. "We don't think of ourselves as stupid people, so there is some self-deception and rationalization," Thornton said.

Magalski likens it to gambling. "It's like a poker player who knows he's probably going to get beat, but he's got so much in the pot, he has to keep going and feeding it," he said. "You've invested so much." Magalski says it's difficult to say how much money has been lost to the scammers. While cases like those of Denson and Lewis are rare, his office hears almost daily from people who want to check out an e-mail they received, or from a financial institution concerned about a customer who is drawing large amounts of money out of his or her account. People who lose money are often too embarrassed to report it, Magalski said, but he estimates that losses of $10,000 to $25,000 are common.

When the losses are reported, often little can be done. American law firms that purport to represent the scammers turn out to be fakes. So do the addresses on the documents. The con men and the money are typically out of the country, beyond reach. The best Magalski can offer is advice. All of these crimes could have been prevented by ignoring the first e-mail. "The best way to combat this is public education," he said.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

Lesson For All Window Cleaners From A Car Washer



World's most expensive car wash: £7,200: Gurcharn Sahota, 30, takes up to 250 hours to clean each vehicle with an array of 100 cleaning fluids and wax that costs £8,200 per tub. His premier wash includes polishing and buffing every inch of the car inside and out five times. He even uses a computerised microscope – normally used by forensic scientists – to examine the bodywork for the minutest scratch not even visible to the naked eye. Mr Sahota, who drives a clapped-out VW Golf himself, started the business five years ago by washing his neighbour's cars with a bucket and sponge. Pictured - Gurchan Sahota, using the electronic meter to measure the depth of the paintwork on the car.

But he has since cleaned hundreds of supercars and now boasts a string of celebrity clients. He said: ''When I was younger I washed neighbours' cars and my dad's car whenever I could. ''They never paid me, I loved it so much I did it for free. ''Things have built up from there and now I'm cleaning some of the fastest, most powerful sports cars in the world. ''People come to me and they want the best treatment going for their car.



''If you've got a £500,000 car then a few grand for cleaning is worth it. ''Sometimes I'll work through the night to get a car looking absolutely pristine. ''They're world class motors that deserve a world class wash.'' Mr Sahota, who lives with his parents in Derbyshire, has converted their double garage into a hi-tech workshop.

He built a Formula 1-style pit for scrubbing the underneath of cars and layered the entire workshop floor and walls with specialist tiles imported from Italy which help reflect flecks of dirt on the cars. He begins every clean in the same way – washing it with a lambwool mitten and soapy water. He said: ''I treat every car like an individual project, I want them to leave my workshop looking better than they have ever done.



''I have my processes which I go through and I am meticulous about each one. ''If you're paying £150,000 for a car then you're going to want it to be perfect. ''The first time I cleaned a Ferrari Enzo it took a week and when I tried to sleep all I could see was Ferrari red. ''The car has to be free from all contaminants like dust and dirt before you start otherwise it's going to get scratched. ''I just want perfection. Finishing is the best part because you know what it was like when you started. That gives me great satisfaction.''

After spending hundreds of hours cleaning by hand he uses a £5,000 computerised microscope which examines the car for blotches and scratches. A buffer is linked to a highly sensitive paint gauge which scans the car to prevent patching on the bodywork. Finally, he uses a specialist clay which he rubs over the bodywork to remove any imperfections. Mr Sahota, who works alone, started cleaning cars while he studied for a degree in accountancy at Birmingham University.



After graduating he begged a local Aston Martin dealer to let him clean a DB9 for free. The dealer, who reluctantly agreed, was so impressed with the results he passed on his details to clients and began using him on a regular basis. He then established his own firm – Elite Detailing – and has opened a second workshop in Worcester. He said: ''The work just started flying in. My reputation was great and word just spread.''

His parents Gurbinder, 55, and Amarjit, 53, were so impressed with their son's work they converted their double garage into a hi-tech workshop for his business. Since then he has washed hundreds of supercars including Lamborghinis, Ferraris and Porsches. His proudest moment cleaning the world's most expensive car – the McLaren F1 GTR worth up to £3 million. He said: ''The McLaren F1 GTR is without doubt my favourite car. It is so exclusive you hardly see any of them on the roads. ''They are a very attractive car and every inch of them is perfect – they are a work of art.''

He does not disclose the identities of his celebrity clients identities but one of his customers is the lawyer Nick Freeman – known as Mr Loophole – who regularly sends his Aston Martin DBS Volante to him for a clean. His other customers include Premiership footballers, rock stars, actors and stockbrokers.



Mr Sahota's car washing tips:

1. Use warm soapy water.
2. Add warm water mixed with a PH neutral shampoo in one and plain water in the other.
3. Use a lamb's wool wash mitt which only costs £8 and is better than a sponge.
4. Always wash from the top down.
5. Use different cloths on the bodywork and wheels.
6. Avoid acidic and high-alkaline wheel cleaners and any silicone-based products because they stain.
7. Use a towel instead of a chamois leather to dry the car.
8. Always check the cleaning materials regularly to make sure there's no dirt in them.
9. Always dry the bodywork in small circles to prevent streaking.
10. Take your time and enjoy washing the car.



Find this story hard to believe? - £30,000 for 8 windows coming soon.

Monday, 19 July 2010

Window Cleaning News, Fish, Squirrels & Dragons



First impressions always count for window washer Jason Smith: Clean windows are often part of a customers' first impression. That's why many businesses have their windows cleaned professionally by Jason Smith of Fish Window Cleaning. "Some businesses are on a weekly rotation, and others are once a month," said Smith. Smith takes calls and gives free estimates. He charges by the pane to do residential and commercial windows. When he's looking for new business, he will make cold calls by stopping at a strip mall, offering to wash windows and setting them up for future appointments.
Smith starts with a bucket of clean water and dish soap. He uses a window mop that looks like a sponge on a squeegee and washes the window until the mop glides. He changes to a squeegee with a sharp rubber blade and uses the swirl or fanning technique to glide the dirty water down and off the window. The squeegee leaves the window streak free. He finishes the job with a clean, lint-free cloth on the window edges, the sills and the frame. "I don't just wash windows; I clean them," he said.
Smith also works on windows up to three stories with either a pole or a ladder. He does windows inside and out. What's needed: A window washer must like to work and be self-driven for business cold calls. Working in the elements year-round and some ladder work is required. Attention to detail is important. Smith likes to see a positive attitude and punctuality. Employees must be clean cut and in proper uniform.
Smith worked in appliance delivery for 10 years. He's also worked in construction, car detailing and carpet cleaning. Now he's the operation manager. "This is the first time I've been in management, and I really like it," Smith said. In addition to washing windows he handles the phone calls, estimates, paperwork and billing and makes sure the employees get paid.
  • Highlights: The best part of the job for Smith is the drive time and seeing all different types of businesses.
  • Lowlights: The worst part of the job is filling up the gas tank.
  • Advice: There's no such thing as a stupid question.
  • Future: Smith would like to someday own part of the company.
  • Facts: No special formulas are used in professional window cleaning — plain old dish soap and water and elbow grease.
Local business owner witnesses OSHA and IWCA alliance: Local business owner, Victor Munson, traveled to Washington, D.C. this past month to be part of a long awaited event. The International Window Cleaning Association (IWCA) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced their alliance to promote safe and healthful working conditions for professionals who work within the window cleaning industry. “We pursued the alliance with OSHA to promote the importance of on-going safety education in our industry,” said Victor Munson, IWCA President and owner of Erlanger Window Cleaning in NKY. “With representatives of both organizations working together, we should be able to achieve our goal of increasing safe and healthful working conditions.”
The new alliance will concentrate on educating members by providing them with information and guidance to help them protect their employees. It is IWCA’s intention to focus on (i) improving fall protection education (ii.) reducing other job site hazards and (iii) addressing the challenges of small business owners and low literacy and limited English of employees in the window cleaning industry. In addition to member education, IWCA and OSHA will work together to promote workplace safety and health on a national level. “We want our members, and everyone in our industry, to know we take workplace safety very seriously,” said Debra Nemec, Executive Director for IWCA. “Together, SWRI and OSHA will be able to utilize their combined resources to maximize job site safety and awareness.” Both groups formalized their alliance during a meeting at 3 p.m., June 10 at OSHA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. For more information about the alliance, please contact Vic Munson at 859.371.4210

Michael Portillo (smug picture) has been staring out of a lot of windows lately, exploring Britain's rail journeys for the BBC. So he knows a good shine when he sees one, and has taken to evangelising about his window cleaner back home. Residents of Chelsea have received hand-signed letters from the former Tory MP recommending the services of one David Doyle. "When someone works inside and outside the house, I must have complete trust in that person," it reads, "I do place my trust in Mr Doyle." In case you don't believe him the letter provides Portillo's home address, email and even his mobile phone number. He's clearly forgotten what it's like to have constituents.

Answers From a Window Cleaner, Part 3 - have been added to the original questions & answers featured here. Andrew Horton, who has been a window cleaner for more than two decades responds to readers. Andrew Horton knows the secrets of the trade and safety practices.

Friends and family of murdered teenager Ben Lund have marked the first anniversary of his death and collected more than 1,200 signatures in support of a memorial garden. Nineteen-year-old Ben Lund, a popular window cleaner, was murdered in the Funktion Rooms Nightclub on July 11 last year. Nicholas Sitko, 25, repeatedly punched the teenager causing a fatal brain haemorrhage and was sentenced to at least 14 years in prison for his murder. Last Sunday, on the anniversary of Ben's death, sunflowers were placed outside the Funktion Rooms from Ben's family and other flowers, letters and cards were left by his friends.

First case of it's kind: Man told to pay £1,500 after being found guilty of drowning a squirrel - When grey squirrels invaded Raymond Elliott’s garden and targeted his bird feeders, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He bought a cage to trap the pests and, when he did catch one, dropped it into a water butt, killing it ‘almost instantaneously’. But after a neighbour tipped off the RSPCA, he was hauled into court, charged with causing unnecessary suffering to an animal and - in a legal first - forced to pay £1,500.
The 58-year-old window cleaner, who said he believed he had killed the animal in a humane way, will now be lumbered with a criminal record. The case sets an important precedent for killing grey squirrels, which are classified as a non-native invasive species, and could pave the way for hundreds of other prosecutions across the country. The RSPCA, which brought the prosecution, warned that many common methods of killing grey squirrels and other pests could now fall foul of the law. It added that the only humane - and therefore legal - way to kill them would be to have them put down by a qualified vet, which can cost up to £40 a time.
Mr Elliott, from Branston, Staffordshire, was prosecuted under Section Four of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. He pleaded guilty and was given a six-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £1,547 to cover investigation and legal costs incurred by the RSPCA at Burton Magistrates last Friday. Yesterday, he described the fine as an ‘injustice’ and claimed he had been singled out by the charity.
He insisted that the way he killed the grey squirrel was not cruel or inhumane and said he was simply trying to do what homeowners across the country do when the pests invade their homes and gardens. 'This is an injustice. People do it across the country all the time - they are just making an example of me,’ he said. ‘I do not feel what I did was inhumane or cruel and I was shocked by how big the fine was. ‘All along it was going to be guilty because it was a test case and they needed a guilty verdict.’

Dragon helped me spread my wings: Tony Earnshaw was just 18 when he started his first business, buying a rundown burger van for £50. After securing a pitch in his home town of Glebe in Washington, Tyne and Wear, he made £3,000 in two months before selling the van for £6,000. Tony, 25, used the profits to buy a window cleaning round for £300 that he rapidly builtup before selling it for £16,000 six months later. Next he bought two transit vans and a small depot and launched UK Commercial Cleaning Services, offering everything from shampooing office carpets to a specialist operation cleaning up crime scenes.
Last year Tony appeared on the Dragons' Den television show, which began its latest series last week, and secured £100,000 from Dragon judge Duncan Bannatyne in return for 35% of the business. At the time of appearing the company's turnover was £370,000 and it operated only in the North East, but Tony had plans to take the business nationwide, having bought a second depot in Leeds in 2008. Now, nearly a year on, a London depot will open in two weeks' time and a depot in Stirling will open in six months. The firm now employs 40 people, up from 16, and turnover for the year ending April rose to £1.2m, with predicted turnover of £4m for this year.
Tony is also setting up a franchise that he hopes to sell to franchisees in the south of England. Though Tony had to hand over 35% of the business - up from the 20% stake he initially offered - he has no regrets about securing funding through Dragons' Den. 'Appearing on Dragons' Den gave the business a real publicity boost and has helped us to grow rapidly,' he says. 'I have the support and advice I need from Duncan, we speak monthly, but he gives me the freedom to run the business as I know best. As far as I am concerned there were no downsides.'

London's Strata tower: It is the world's first skyscraper with built-in wind turbines. But is London's Strata a green gimmick – or the future?At 147 metres, the newly opened Strata is London's tallest residential building. The plan was first made public six years ago and work is unlikely to be completed before 2020. It's a colossal challenge, as well as an opportunity, and the £113.5m Strata, the first of three skyscrapers planned for here, is a symbol of the dynamism and energy the project demands. And that energy must, of course, be seen to be green. It's early days, but if the turbines work as planned, and aren't too noisy for residents in the pricey penthouses beneath them, they should generate 8% of this 43-storey building's energy needs. This is roughly enough to run its electrical and mechanical services (including three express lifts and automated window-cleaning rigs) as well as the lighting, heating and ventilation of its public spaces, which include an underground car and cycle park. Strata is the first building in the world to incorporate wind turbines into its structure.

Harrisburg, Pa. - A glass panel from a 9th floor tower fell from a downtown Harrisburg building Monday evening. The panel was from a Verizon Tower and fell from the building, landing on the bridge to Capital Park from Strawberry Square. Hassinger said a visual inspection from the ground was conducted by Hershocks and HDC employees following the incident. City and Capitol police were notified and the bridge to Capitol Park remains closed until further notice. Also, the sidewalk corridor along the South side of Walnut Street along Strawberry Square has been closed to pedestrian traffic. Glass from the incident is being swept from the area by a contractor hired by HDC. An inspection of the glass panels on both the Verizon Tower and SO1 (State office tower occupied by Revenue and Attorney General's office) is being scheduled within the next 24-48 hours.

Dr Pepper Snapple Group: "Snapple was founded in 1972 by Arnold Greenberg, Leonard Marsh, and Hyman Golden. Greenberg operated a health food store on the lower east side of Manhattan. His boyhood friend Marsh ran a window-washing service with his brother-in-law, Golden. In the early 1970s, the three founded Unadulterated Food Products, Inc., to sell pure fruit juices in unusual blends to health food stores. Products were bottled at a small plant in the New York metropolitan area. The partners ran the business in their spare time while all three kept their regular jobs, and the enterprise plodded along until the late 1970s. In 1978, Unadulterated Foods began to market carbonated apple juice. The company called the product "Snapple," after purchasing the name for $500."

Sunday, 18 July 2010

Window Cleaning Wimbledons Windows

Seems like Spain are winning all the sporting events at the moment. The country has gone a little mad with the national flag flying high in every town you pass through & displayed in every car window. This next article seems to be a little of a "PR" stunt - hey, so what - it must be great to clean any windows of a place as prestigious as Wimbledon. Rafa' Nadal the tennis genius of Mallorca & Spain won this years mens title with little trouble & what better way than to add a window cleaning story to his remarkable achievement...


Aquamark serves up perfectly cleaned windows and glass at Wimbledon: Via a national contractor, commercial cleaning company Aquamark uses their expertise and specialist equipment to keep Wimbledon's Royal Box and Center Court glass sparkling clean.

Commercial office and window cleaning contractors Aquamark has recently completed a ninth consecutive year as the company in charge of cleaning all the windows and glass at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships. Using their experience of commercial window cleaning, Aquamark reputation and experience in and around Surrey and south west London makes them the perfect company for this prestigious job.

Via a national contractor, Aquamark spends a whole week prior to the championships performing a dedicated "preparation clean" using specialist hard to reach window cleaning to achieve an immaculately clean finish, fit for royalty.



Throughout the two week tournament, Aquamark had three members of staff onsite every morning cleaning areas such as centre court and the royal boxes. Specialists in high level window cleaning services, Aquamark had a water fed pole truck on standby in case of a high level cleaning emergency anywhere around the venue.

Brad Staines, Aquamark's owner, spoke of his pride and enjoyment of the job his company has continually performed for nearly a decade. "To be involved in one of the world's most prestigious sporting competitions is a real honour. We had a great deal of responsibility, making sure glass areas used by members of the Royal family, and this year the Queen herself, were completely flawless."

Aquamark is commercial cleaning specialist with 20 years experience offering office and workplace cleaning, carpet cleaning, window cleaning, and specialist high reach cleaning services. All cleaners are fully vetted, CRB checked and provided with ongoing training. Aquamark covers the entire south east of England and will also take on national contracts.

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