I noticed earlier that someone mentioned they weren’t a fan of weekly cleans, as well as another who said high rise wasn’t as profitable as shop fronts. I worked as a high rise cleaner where the owner made a tonne of cash over many years with consistent and massive contracts in a major city. I always assumed that this was where the big money was.
Maybe my market is a little different to those working in towns or smaller cities. I do live in Australia, maybe things are different over here.
But what do you guys prefer and why?
Employees always think the owners make a ton of cash, not always the case.
Some are just flashy with their money and buy ridiculous things and have zero savings
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I prefer commercial high-rise work, three stories and above. You can work with a small crew get a lot accomplished on one site for multiple days.
Much less downtime than storefront or residential
Less competition
Longer season, starts earlier, lasts longer
Work with contracts, scheduled well in advance
Contracts average $10,000 and up
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when I worked high rise I found it the opposite we were constantly called off a building due to winds that would negate what we just done by dripping dirty water onto glass already cleaned, so we would swap sides then only for the same thing to happen again.
And with competition there was only 2-3 other companies offering the services however they were always undercutting each other to get the work making many jobs worth less than single story or 2 story commercial work, and for the workers the hourly rate is the same, so whats the point in busting your ass lugging ropes and gear up and around then spending all that time making less than the ground guys as they don’t have to mess around with that and are cleaning more glass so making more $$.
As an owner if you started out many years ago in high rise and built a good reputation then you will probably be doing well and have nice contracts, but there is normally only 1 owner and then employees if the owner is making big bucks he probably has 35+ employees with 15-20 large contracts on the go at a time.
However if you are staring out on your own trying to build a high rise business in Australia I would say it would be less profitable than all others for the first few years.
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The amount of down time you have depends on the experience of your crew leader, work smarter.
Being prepared and a plan is your biggest part of being efficient in controlling your down time.
If it’s too windy on one side, odds are you can always work another that’s out of the Wind.
Starting the job with the areas with highest probability of wind delays or before sun gets to it gives the opportunity to work smarter.
If it’s windy, 95% of the time we have other work on the same site to fall back on.
