Old home

SO i was looking at an old home today and was wondering how i would quote this home to wash the windows. IT was a 150 year old home. Each window was made of 6 seperate panes of glass. HOw would you price this...........By the pane or by the side i cant figure it out. I think that i would be lowballing it if i charged the same way that i charge for new windows because these will obviously take a lot longer..................IF you have any suggestions let me know thanks guys.........

I hate doing French Panes. [puke]
They take *forever* and it's hard to price them so that you make money without freaking out the homeowner. I bid them at double my regular per window price, but that's really not enough.
Is there paint on the glass? Look closely to determine how much scraping you will have to do. Paint or lots of buildup will really kill your time.
One tip that I can offer is to cut a squeegee channel the exact width of the frame so that you can squeegee in one stroke.

Take a close look at the outside of the windows regarding the glazing. If the glazing is falling out, RUN from this job!
Seriously though, I charge over twice as much as a regular window and if the customer says it's too much I remind myself of how GAWD-AWFUL old true divided light windows are to clean. If there are storms as well it's even worse.
I will do these jobs, but for a price, and I stick to it. They almost always say so-and-so did it for less and I say... (I know most of you could fill in the blank!)

DrWhipIt said:

I will do these jobs, but for a price, and I stick to it. They almost always say so-and-so did it for less and I say... (I know most of you could fill in the blank!)

Click to expand...

I'm always tempted to say, "Great! Give me his number! I can sub a *ton* of these kinds of windows to him at that price. I'm sure he does great work, right?"

SO what your really trying to say.........

so what your saying is if she doesnt call back, let it go, considering that im kind of a beginer??????? THnskd guys i dont wanna get into something i cant handle thats why i came here first..

They aren't hard to do, just a major PITA.
As a matter of fact, if you're new to the game you could gain alot of experience doing this job. When I came across my first true divided light job I set my price per pane at $.25 per surface ($6 for a 12 pane window inside and out). The bid seemed high but I got the job and timed myself (per window) so I could tweak my pricing to arrive at a rate of approximately $40-$50 per hour. I also fine tuned my techniques for this type of work and chalked up the lower hourly rate in the experince column.
What I'm saying is start "somewhere" and fine tune from there.

Here's an example window:

http://www.worldofstock.com/closeups/ADT1264.php

I would charge between 8-12 dollars to clean that window, provided that very minimal scraping was involved (maybe one or two panes per window), that ladders would not be used extensivly, and that there was more then 10 windows. I would definatly have a squegee channel to fit each pane. If the window was falling apart, I would walk away from it. Remember, do not scrape without a temereped glass waiver!

If you decide to do these in the future, a faster way, buy three or four gallons of distilled water from your local walmart, some serious microfibre rags...spray a d wipe well....turn out pretty darn good. You may need to re-do them once or twice depending on how dirty the are.
I always tucker pole the outside now...and di the indsides.

Dorsky01 said:

SO i was looking at an old home today and was wondering how i would quote this home to wash the windows. IT was a 150 year old home. Each window was made of 6 seperate panes of glass. HOw would you price this...........By the pane or by the side i cant figure it out. I think that i would be lowballing it if i charged the same way that i charge for new windows because these will obviously take a lot longer..................IF you have any suggestions let me know thanks guys.........

Click to expand...

We go by each side. Sounds like a combination window with a old wood framed storm window over that right? It can be quite time consuming if those open hard. You may even have to go hourly. We have in the past.

waiver

Micah said:

Here's an example window:

http://www.worldofstock.com/closeups/ADT1264.php

I would charge between 8-12 dollars to clean that window, provided that very minimal scraping was involved (maybe one or two panes per window), that ladders would not be used extensivly, and that there was more then 10 windows. I would definatly have a squegee channel to fit each pane. If the window was falling apart, I would walk away from it. Remember, do not scrape without a temereped glass waiver!

Click to expand...

What is a temereped glass waiver? It sounds like a good thing to have.