AI’ve mentioned this before several times, but when I was a paint contractor, a 10% retainer was held back from our final draw for months, sometimes a year. This was to guarantee that we came back for touch ups, but also to cover the expenses of the cleaning crews that had to clean up overspray and other messes.
This is very doable on our part - train your contractors to value the windows and your service. If they don’t value either or both, move on.
My memory isn’t what it used to be I’m sorry. I didn’t know about the 10%. So you used to have to just work in that 10% to make up for it right? If I were the painter and was going to more than likely loose 10% on the bottom, work it back in somewhere for the upper 90% right?
Well, we had no intention of losing it, and rarely did. Mind you, these were larger commercial jobs (Walgreens, nursing homes) and 6-8000 sq ft houses.
To some degree you factored in the 10% but you also kind of forgot about it and viewed it as a bonus when it came back. Reputable GC’s were worth the hassle - money was good and their standards were usually high.
But, they were not going to pay for your mistakes. Any sloppiness on your part was your responsibility.
Now I understand these kind of contractors are the extreme minority. But it taught me about control - control in who I work for and control over the subs. And there is only one way to control the subs and that is by the wallet.
What this is, a new way to control the system. They are going to make millions on plastic window covers. Much more, then they can say they covered the windows and the scratches are the window cleaners fault.
Invest in plastic window cover stock because it seems it’s becoming the next thing. While most of my jobs have used it recently it still is just as much work if not more and they aren’t even covering the tempered windows just the thermal panes lol.
Then when this plastic gets crap on it it sticks right through the plastic to the glass and you have to scrape it off anyway. Especially hard if the plastic stays on the glass too long because instead of peeling it becomes brittle.
Then you still have to detail the edges after peeling and scraping off the plastic and this takes longer then not having to peel and just clean. Then you get down to the first floor and all the pool and lobby tempered windows have mortar and stucco anyway because they were never covered.
The covering of the windows is addressed in the bulletin by GANA/IWCA so should be the tool used to assist our conversation/waiver of what step was skipped and why we are charging more now.
This also applies to homes that are repainted. Here homes get repainted ervery few years, the painting contractors most often leave overspray because they are lazy too, like window cleaners can be and dont want too charge more for the extra step. Like us, the responsible ones already cover ther glass but others will take much longer to do so.
So the question is still unanswered… HOW MUCH are any of you guys charging to cover the glass for contractors? Are you charging by the square foot?
If no one is touching CCU glass that’s not covered per GANA/IWCA standards, then some of you guys have to be offering the service, right?
Because it sounds to me like some guys are pointing to the GANA standard but no one is actually offering the service to be compliant. Shoulda coulda woulda means very little in reality.
I mentioned it earlier, there is a company here who are galled Goop Guys and they will cover the glass with a peel-able film for $10/sq meter, here the product cost $21.50 per liter which will cover 4sq/mt. I have an airless sprayer, I’m planing to set up a cart system where I would just push it around the job each window should take maybe 2 mins to cover, for example a house I would charge $300 to clean the windows the cost to cover 1 side of the glass(normally the outside) would cost $545 and should take less than 1 hour to complete( with a product cost of $290). however this is with the price of the peel-able film at Australian prices, Henry linked a comparable product for $31/gallon which is only $8.37 per liter if the coverage was the same product cost for the same job would only be $112.99 leaving you with $432 for an hours work…
At what stage of the building process would you get to put the stuff on?
For me I don’t get calls for a job until it’s waaay to late. I don’t really pursue CCU either, just take it when it comes my way.
Ideally as soon as the windows are installed.
But what about all the stickers and crap the manufacturers are putting all over glass? How would they suggest we remove them? And do you remove them before putting the film on?
The method that has been banned is the use of scrapers 4" and above used in a way that a large area of the glass is scraped in strokes up or down or side to side, now instead what is advised is the use of a 1" blade to start the edge of the sticker and with some heat or some glue releasing chemical peel the sticker away, sure its not going to always work, if its a paper based sticker you can just soak it off otherwise stickers are generally quite small and in a corner of the glass what you can’t notice doen’t matter HAHA.
And no I would not be doing any cleaning of the glass before I applied the peel-able film, well not for the inclusive price it would be an addition on to the invoice.
The problem is, as Henry explained, you have to clean the glass FIRST, then apply the coating, then peel the coating after construction and clean.
So, if we are to do the job per instructions, that one hour to spray on the coating would not be valid.
That’s why I am asking WHO is applying the coating here, and how much they are charging. If I follow Henry correctly, I would need to charge for window cleaning TWICE in addition to whatever I would need to charge to be profitable to add coating.
AND as TexasRich points out, are we to remove stickers from new windows and how are we supposed to proceed? If we use a citrus product to remove adhesive, will it affect the tack of the coating?
So as you see, there is a lot more to this for me, then just spray/paint on a coating. Just sell the coating to contractors and construction companies…
I at this point, see this coating glass A LOT more labor intensive then it’s being sold as. It seems to me, that I am going to be spending a lot of time at a location cleaning, then coating. Coming back later to PEEL (which I imagine will be very time consuming) and rewashing the glass. Now, having dealt with protected glass only a few times, none of my experiences are really positive. The coating will likely be on the glass for at least 30 days in the sun, heat, and weather. With my limited experience, the longer it’s on the glass, the harder it is to clean up and it requires another element (not yet discovered) to take the sticky crap off the glass from the film…
Are we trading one problem for another?
the peel-able coating will be good on the glass for up to 2 years and still peel straight off or be easily removed with a pressure cleaner, the pee-able films do not leave any sticky residue on the glass they literally peel off as a large sheet by hand.
If the glass has just been installed it should be clean, but if so well there will not be any debris on the glass so its not a CCU just a quick clean and of course add that to the bill.
Not sure what your new windows look like in Australia, but here they are anything but clean when freshly installed. Usually they are filthy from the handling of the installers.
This whole thread is honestly counterproductive, in my opinion. Everyone here is likely going to continue doing things as usual, albeit hopefully a bit more carefully.
It is interesting seeing some of the opinions.
Look up this company http://www.surfacearmor.com
Their films are pretty affordable. I got pricing and a sample from them in the past. Pretty easy to figure out what to charge. Take your cost per sq. Ft. And add on for labor. You don’t need to pre clean. It’s a tacky film and you don’t have to lay it perfectly like tint. Edges just have to be fully laying down, no bubbles, etc. Middle of the glass little bubbles are ok.
The biggest challenge is education. Enough cleaning companies need to be pushing this and letting contractors know that we can’t simply remove anything the trades put on the glass and eventually get to the point where we say, you didn’t have the glass covered I have to pass.
Except for those cases that have silicone from the glazing that needs to be removed. Once the window leaves the factory and handled by multiple hands, or is glazed on site as it sometimes is, then you soon find out that no job is as simple as it is presented to be.
Much of the debris we remove is silicone from the installer or manufacture.
Windows need a factory poly applied
There has been much conversation about scratched glass and new guidelines dealing with modern glass. No matter your feelings on the subject, here is an informative read. It is good to just take the time and read completely through it. (From Jan. 1, 2016)
Proper procedures cleaning glass
Yes, very interesting…
"Glass that is improperly stored or left unprotected during construction may
result in glass that cannot be successfully cleaned using routine cleaning
procedures. In such situations, more aggressive cleaning and
restoration techniques may become necessary, such as the use of razor blades, chemical
cleaning and/or mechanical polishing.
… While members of GANA
neither condone nor recommend scraping of glass surfaces with blades or scrapers for routine cleaning, it is recognized that window cleaners may choose
more aggressive techniques, including the use of razor blades, in non-routine cleaning.
wow
