Winter window cleaning in Dunfermline

Winter window cleaning in Dunfermline

Scotland has a notoriously harsh winter, in fact the last few months have been very troublesome to maintain my round. This isn’t just brought about by the cold weather itself, but when this is coupled with windy conditions and increased snow risks it isn’t much fun. This last week in particular we have been completely snowed in up here, with the shops having no bread or milk for days! It’s been a journey! Anyway, we decided to put our top winter window cleaner Dunfermline tips together for you to read.

PREPARATION OF EQUIPMENT

Until last month we had no diesel boiler in the van at night, which meant that many a morning we woke up with an ice block in our window cleaning tank.Some window cleaners use Isopropanol, this is a chemical that they can put inside their water to combat freezing effects. It is an alcohol based chemical that lowers the point of freezing. However you need a great deal of this to work, and it has to be almost a pure concentration. Now to thaw that would take several hours, and that’s when the ice is only on the water surface. To counter this, we decided to keep all of our equipment indoors this last few months as a starting point. This meant that pole hoses, reels, and poles themselves were the essentials to bring indoors at night. The reason for this is simple, they will still have small amounts of water trapped inside them and this will freeze easier than a large mass of water. Liquid that is cooled can contract until it reaches a few degrees, and the risk would be split hose connections and such like in extreme cold. We didn’t think we would get much Dunfermline window cleaning done in the extreme cold, but preparation turned out to be key.

We also found that the traditional equipment we use was freezing by December onwards. To prevent this we drained the window cleaning bucket completely the night before, and placed the squeegees and applicators inside the house. We then layered the bucket in tarpaulin and made sure it was hanging up rather than being on the cold floor. We had the van flooring fibreglassed not long before this winter, and took that opportunity to have polystyrene packed into the sides of the van as well, simply hoping that this would give us an added layer of insulation from the cold hard winter ahead.

We have a new window cleaning bucket in the back of the van, named “grit box”. After messing around with tyre chains and those Velcro wrap around covers for tyres, we found that in icy conditions there was nothing better for getting out of slippy streets that using a shovel to spread some grit in front and behind our tyres. This has worked every time so far. Floor mats can also work, where you put them in front of the tyres and they help to gain traction-but more often than not they just get churned up by the tyres.

HEATING OF THE VAN OVER NIGHT

There are various ways to supply heat to a van overnight; but having a power supply nearby, we chose to use an oil filled heater. This was set on low and left continuous from 11pm until 6am on the nights we required it. This kept the main tank connections from freezing over and to use it at its optimum we found A having it positioned as close to the tank and B making sure it was at the tank hose connection side, seemed to be best.

ISSUES ON THE MOVE

We had a few occasions where water was freezing up within the pole hose, when we began window cleaning in Fife. This was identified when squeezing the see through piping that splits into where the two water jets come out (assuming you use pencil jets like us); If no bubbles were noticeable then it proved likely this was frozen solid with water inside;  and with everything connected up, if we were getting a reading of DE  (DEAD END) on our pump controllers then this was usually confirming what we thought; that the pole hose was blocked. To rectify this issue was thankfully easy. We would get the heaters on in the van fill blast and position the poles directly facing the hot air. This didn’t take long to unfreeze the hose, however for those with more time and resources available-using a kettle with warm water would have the same effect.

The second main issue we faced when window cleaning in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy this harsh winter, was water freezing on the glass. Now when the temperature is below zero we noticed two separate situations. If the inside room of the window we were working on is heated at this point ie most houses after 8am then until we reached -2 most water rinsed fine and didn’t freeze. If however we were cleaning older windows or ones on a conservatory that wasn’t properly sealed, then the glass often froze more often.

RISK OF WINDOW CLEANING IN WINTER

Obviously winter brings risk for any outdoor job but when you are up a ladder then it can be very dangerous. We decided to invest in a ladder m8trix due to this. This is essentially a board that the ladder feet sits on, on its underside are thousands of metal pins that hold it in position. This thing provided substantial grip, even on sheet ice, as it gripped into the ground. It honestly felt as if a 20 stone man was footing the ladder. We also decided that when using our waterfed pole system we needed slip signs. If you imagine the water we use on windows, this leaves a degree of ice on paths in the coldest of months here. For this reason we used slip signs when working and also carried rock salt in the van. We laid this down on driveways near front doors as and when required basically.

These are just a few of the issues we have faced as winter window cleaners in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy and we at Fife Window Cleaning Services hope this guest blog has been helpful to you.  www.fifewindowcleaningservices.co.uk

Written by Chris Fotheringham
(Fife Window Cleaning Services)

 

Tags: Christmas Window Cleaning Service, Commercial Window Cleaning, Domestic Window Cleaning, w, window cleaning, Winter Window Cleaning