Don’t Do Windows? You May Be in Luck

The Wall Street Journal:

With summer’s distractions drawing to a close, we’re reluctantly turning to home-improvement projects, and one thing is clear: We don’t do windows. Or at least, we don’t do them well or often enough.

That’s evidenced by the layers of grime and suicidal moths caked on our glass from years of putting off cleaning until, well, next year. Rather than donate a precious weekend to balancing on ladders with buckets, we opted instead to call for professional help. It’s not hard to find; there are dozens of independent contractors advertising online and in the Yellow Pages of most towns.

But we worried about credentials and liability issues if something went wrong. It seems we’re not alone: From 2004 to 2007, the number of consumer inquiries to Better Business Bureaus about window-cleaning services has more than doubled to 33,937, putting it in the top 10% of all industry inquiries. Window cleaning generates about $500 million annually in the U.S., according to the International Window Cleaning Association, an industry trade group.

So we turned our sights to a handful of national franchises that either require or strongly encourage units to carry hefty insurance and be bonded against theft, and to vet cleaners with criminal background checks. What’s more, the franchises also set standards when it comes to how workers clean. While in most cases the services performed well beyond our expectations, in one instance we were left with a badly scratched window that made us glad the franchisee was part of a national chain we could hold accountable.

Our testing took place in four particularly grimy-windowed houses in Arlington, Texas; Takoma Park, Md.; Atlanta; and Garrison, N.Y. In each location, we were able to land an appointment for interior and exterior cleaning within a week with one of four franchises: Window Gang, Squeegee Squad, Fish Window Cleaning and Dr. Glass Window Washing. We never got to test a fifth franchise, Window Genie, (www.windowgenie.com) which has 32 locations in 10 states, because the Pittsburgh shop didn’t promptly return calls and our backup location, Chicago, got rained out.

To our surprise, we discovered many of these franchises do more than just clean windows — from pressure washing driveways to polishing chandeliers and cleaning gutters — though none pushed these extras too hard on us and not every franchise participates. We also learned that in most cases cleaners are paid on a commission basis, or “by the glass” as one worker described it to us, rather than an hourly wage to encourage them not to dawdle. They used a wide arsenal of tools — from Dawn detergent and steel wool to proprietary cleaners and scraping blades to remove bugs, paint, tree resin and gunk.

The best bet for our buck was Squeegee Squad, which nicely shined our 2,200-square-foot 1906 Atlanta bungalow and all its varied glass — including original wavy panes, stained glass and new insulated windows — for $175 bucks. Then they knocked another 10% off that because we were first-time customers. We appreciated that our cleaner took off his shoes inside and stuck to his original quote after realizing we had more windows than anticipated. He used only dish soap, noting it wouldn’t harm plants, and employed a scraper.