Window Cleaning in Blackheath

Kerbside traffic film and ridge-top weather on Blackheath glass

Two local things dirty glass here faster than the postcode would suggest. The first is the road. Frontages on the older streets stand a pace or two from the kerb with no garden between, so traffic film and splash land straight onto the ground-floor glass, the cills and the paintwork under them. The second is the shelf the town sits on. A frontage on the ridge side takes weather that a street a few hundred yards down towards the Cradley Heath valley simply never gets, so two identical semis can want genuinely different intervals. We set that interval by the elevation in front of us rather than by the address.

• Ground-floor glass a pace from the kerb on the older streets, taking traffic film and road splash head on
• Shopfront glass on the High Street, which shows marks within days on a busy market street
• Sharply different exposure between ridge-side and valley-side streets only a few hundred yards apart
• uPVC frames and cills on the estate semis, greying and chalking on the weather side long before the sheltered side
• No off-street parking on the terraces, so the van position sets how much of a run we reach in one set-up

Where the van stands decides the reach on a B65 street

Everything comes off a water-fed pole with filtered water, up to three storeys, so nothing leans on a bay, a porch or a shop fascia. The first decision on any Blackheath street is where the van stands, because the hose reach from that point defines the stretch we can work before moving again. No detergent goes on the glass and no squeegee on the outside. Frames, cills and rubbers are brushed by the pole with the glass, since on a frontage this close to the road the cill carries as much of the dirty look as the pane does. Pure water dries without spotting, so nothing is towelled off at height. Shopfront lower panels are finished by hand.

• Water-fed pole from ground level, with the van position planned before a hose is unwound
• A whole terraced stretch worked from one standing point wherever the neighbours are booked together
• Frames, cills and rubbers brushed alongside the glass, which is where road film actually settles
• Shopfront lower panels hand finished, because that is the glass a customer stands right next to

More detail on the equipment and the order of work: the full window cleaning process.

Shopfronts from eight, terraces after

Blackheath sits in Sandwell. On a Blackheath day, shopfronts on the High Street and around the market go first from 8am while most shutters are still down, and the residential streets follow once the traders are open and the parking loosens. The terraced runs behind the market are worked in whole stretches. The estate semis are quicker, mostly uPVC and mostly reachable from the pavement. The 1990s town-centre houses have drives, which for once means the van stands on the job itself. Nobody needs to be at home for exterior work, though we do need the rear gate open where the back is included.

Small window counts, and why neighbours booking together helps

Price follows the number and type of windows, and Blackheath stock is not window-heavy, so the figures are small. What takes the time on a terraced street is the set-up, because the hose has a fixed reach from the van, and neighbours along a run can book together if that is easier for them. Shopfronts are priced per visit on frontage and frequency, and a weekly shop costs less per clean than a monthly one, because there is less build-up each time. A one-off clean costs more than a regular interval, since the first visit after a long gap takes two passes.

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Four to twelve weeks, set by what each elevation faces

Six to eight weeks suits most houses here, dropping to four to six on the exposed ridge-side streets and on any frontage sitting hard against the road. The sheltered valley-side streets are comfortable at eight to twelve. Shopfronts are another matter: weekly or fortnightly on the Blackheath day, because street-level glass in a market town marks within days, and a smeared frontage reads to passers-by as a shop that has shut.