AC Lockyer: 0:23

Hey guys, it's AC Locker here and the tools, techniques and chemicals that you're going to need to clean the exterior of your building. If you're a homeowner, property owner, engineer, maintenance director, any of those types of jobs we want to help you be successful. Taking care of the surfaces on your building. Taking care of the surfaces on your building. And this week I've got Denver Cross and he's from Denver's Window Cleaning and you're up in Canada. What's the specific city that you're in?

Denver Klassen: 0:52

We're in a small town called Steinbeck in the province of Manitoba in Manitoba.

AC Lockyer: 0:58

So, Madeline just moved in and zoomed in and did the cool Google thing and everybody can see all the licensed affiliates we have in the world. It just zoomed into your location there, which is very, very cool. It's kind of neat to think about that. We're over 150 licensed affiliates now in eight countries and that's just pretty cool. So this week we're talking about Windows and people probably think to themselves ah, window cleaning, that's pretty straightforward.

Denver Klassen: 1:32

I get that comment a lot.

AC Lockyer: 1:38

You get that comment a lot. How many years have you been cleaning windows Denver? We're going into our 19th seasonth season, so basically 19 years, and when you're talking about windows we're not just talking about the glass surface right, correct.

Denver Klassen: 1:53

Yeah, there's a lot of different features or different areas of the window, like the, the frames, the sills, the screens, the glass itself. Um and uh, you got interior and exterior. You got to think about the. You open the casements. You got to look into that and clean the, the insects and the dust out of corners and crevices there's a lot of things that you got to figure. Yeah, there's a lot.

AC Lockyer: 2:16

There's a lot to it, yeah and so, yeah, when you look at the basic window, you have have the glass portion of the window, you have a gasket, you have a frame, you have, you know then, the casement, you have the sill, you have a screen, storm windows. You guys got storm windows up where you're at.

Denver Klassen: 2:37

Some of the older houses do, but the windows are built a lot better than what they used to be.

AC Lockyer: 2:46

Before we had double-planed gas-filled glass, people used to hang a window on the inside and a window on the outside. You'd have a gap, sometimes this wide, between the two and you'd have to get in there and try to clean that with, like, a bottle opener or a bottle brush or something like that.

Denver Klassen: 2:58

It was absolutely miserable yeah, no, our old, our old storm windows were actually on. They were hung on hooks at the top and then you could have toggles that held them in place on the sides, so you could swing them out, swing them out, unhook them and bring them right down.

AC Lockyer: 3:13

Wow, In Virginia here in the United States, they literally install a window on the outside, install a window on the inside and you can raise or lower them. But when you raise that window up, you still have the other whole half of the window on the inside that you've got to clean out and and window cleaners just absolutely hate yeah I haven't seen that too much, but I have seen, yeah, yeah all right cool.

AC Lockyer: 3:36

So let's let's let's break into this a little bit. What are the different types of window cleaning? Because window cleaning has gotten very sophisticated over the years. I mean most homeowners. When they go to clean their windows around their home, they grab Windex, they grab their paper towels and they will clean the inside of their windows. Maybe on the outside they'll get a bucket with soapy water and a brush and they'll scrub them on the outside and rinse them with water. And that's how most homeowners think about cleaning their windows. But there's even now, in as many varying types of windows there are, there is almost as many disciplines now on how to clean windows. But I really want to focus on the top disciplines. So why don't you introduce us to some of the techniques for cleaning windows or disciplines?

Denver Klassen: 4:29

Well, you mentioned the mom and pop, the homeowner style. But then there's the traditional window cleaning, which is the mop and squeegee, and that goes back to, I think, the Depression era when people started cleaning windows and that was one of the industries that just they kept busy and because shops wanted to keep your place looking nice. So that's just basically a. We call them a scrubber. Here in the us they call them a mob, yeah, applicator. Some people call them an applicator. It's just basically a handle. It looks like a letter t with a sleeve on it and you soak that. You scrub the window, scrub the glass and then you got a squeegee which is a very soft rubber in a metal channel with a handle on it, and you just pull the dirty water off the glass.

AC Lockyer: 5:14

That's your traditional method and and so there's there's a real technique to that. I've seen people take the the mop first and the mop almost kind of looks like lamb's hair. You know, it's really nice. You soak it in your bucket and you apply the soap in the water, you scrub the window and then you take out your squeegee. But I've seen people have the mop in one hand, the squeegee in the other and follow each other and come down the glass and it's really incredible to watch. They actually have window cleaning competitions and there's actually a person who holds the world's record on the fastest window cleaning ever on a two foot by two foot lot to it and different types of rubber, different elastic elasticities of rubber, the size of the channel, the different mops, and then you come back and finish off with a microfiber towel. I mean the buckets that they carry on their side and all the tools. Describe some of that stuff, because it's fascinating to see an old school window cleaner at work well, you have your the buckets.

Denver Klassen: 6:30

Which would you come along? What used to come with like a five gallon pail? You dip one into the scrubber or the applicator, then flip it over.

Denver Klassen: 6:36

You're going to dip the other yeah, um, but now they come in a bucket that's about 20 inches long, so you can actually just do one, one dip and, uh, your, your applicators, all wet, um, so then, um, the whole part of the squeegeeing. Squeegeeing is the, is the the secret? Anybody can wet a window, as long as you scrub, and thoroughly, and make it wet. The trick is the squeegee and um, if your technique is wrong, you're going to leave a lot of lines, and I see a lot of startups, a lot of people who say I'll do it myself. Um, just after they're done, you, just you can see a lot of the streaks that they leave. Right, and most traditional window cleaners are artists. Um, you gotta be able to separate the artist from the guy who can do it really well and you want to make a living at it.

AC Lockyer: 7:27

Yeah, yeah, so literally I've seen people do different techniques with the squeegee and so real, real newbies, amateurs, might do what they call the pull technique, where you go to the top of the glass and you pull the water off. You go to the top of the glass and you pull the water off, and then you wipe off your squeegee with your microfiber towel and you go to the corners, wipe it, wipe a few of your streaks off and that's okay. But what is the real way, the real technique, to squeegee a window?

Denver Klassen: 7:58

uh, some call it the 'S' like the letter S technique, or this is world technique. Um, you know, as you talk to, and it basically is just following a pattern, just a swirling pattern, and then bringing the dirty water down to the bottom. Then you do what's called closing out. You just press your squeegee up against the bottom of the frame and you bring that, that dirty water, right to the bottom and it lands and runs onto the sill and you can soak up the dirty water there. So it's, it's fun to watch. Um, people always pause and the when you're doing that, they'll. They'll stop eating if you're washing windows at a restaurant, or they'll they'll pause on the street when you're doing a storefront, and the main comment we get is oh, can you do my glasses, or can you do my house, or that looks, that was complicated things like that.

AC Lockyer: 8:47

So it is entertaining, yeah it's funny, I call it the dark arts of window cleaning. You know it's you. You mentioned the artist side of it. There's a lot of people that are just very, very wound up and and and proud of the way that they clean windows. But it takes a long time. If you're trying to scale a window cleaning company or you're trying to you're a facilities manager and you bought a bucket, you bought a T-bar with a scrubber strip on it, you bought some squeegees and channels and rubber and you've equipped your team with some trad poles and all of the accessories and kooch them on for window cleaning and then you go to train a janitor how to clean windows. It doesn't always go well. How long does it really take to train somebody to clean windows where you can turn them loose on a route?

Denver Klassen: 9:40

When you do that method you talked about, which is the, the pull down, the straight pull method, um, I could have somebody being productive in in two days, yes you know. But when you train that the swirl technique um, it takes a lot longer. So when I do train the straight pull technique, I have a mandatory move they got to do. First, is they got to do what's called a dry line at the top of the window if they're pulling straight down Right, or a dry line at the bottom. They got to create a small space like an inch wide, so they can put a clean squeegee in and then pull it across. Or, if they're pulling down, they put a clean squeegee in and pull it down Right, because otherwise they're going to pull the dirt from the top and create some streaks and then it'll catch and it'll look cleaner at the bottom than it will at the top.

Denver Klassen: 10:26

So that's the artist side of me, trying to train my people to be somewhat artistry, if that's a word. And then An artisan, yeah, there we go To deliver a fine product, right, right, and so the customer's thrilled, and then we have what we have in our shop. We call it our Miyagi window If you have ever watched the Karate Kid. Mr Miyagi. Wax on, wax off.

AC Lockyer: 10:54

So that's…. We've already talked about that several times in this podcast series. Have you, okay? Yeah, Mr. Miyagi is very popular.

Denver Klassen: 11:07

It's a great analogy, right? Yeah, and uh, um, we actually have the window set aside. We say, okay, you're on for the miyagi window. We, we make them do it over and over and over. Yes, yeah, it's muscle memory.

AC Lockyer: 11:15

Then they say, okay, you're right-handed, switch to your left hand, which will cause a lot of frustration, right, but, but we, we get both hands going in the squeegees so they can both squeegee and scrub with either hand and that's important, because when you're on a ladder and you're cleaning a window over here with your right hand, you don't want to get down and move the ladder so you can just clean the next window with your right hand. You want to place your ladder once and clean this direction with your right hand and turn around and be as proficient with your left hand to be able to clean the window yeah, yeah, we actually have a contest in our shop for fastest time on that miyagi window, and then they get a, a gas card or something.

Denver Klassen: 11:54

Yeah, get to a pizza shop or something like that. Um, yeah, we do that every season.

AC Lockyer: 12:02

And so for people, now that you're you know, you can go to your local Wash Life store or any of our distributors are out there and you can purchase some of the great lines that are out there, like Phantom Window Works or Unger Ed Array. You know there's many, many window cleaning companies out there that make great products, many, many window cleaning companies out there that make great products, and you can go and purchase your T-bar, your trad pool, your squeegee and channel and rubber and all the tools you need to clean the windows. But there is a little secret you just don't put a squirt of dishwashing detergent in the water and clean the window. You can put too much soap in the water. You can put too little soap in the water. What is your standard mix that you like to use for squeegeeing the window? You can put too much soap in the water. You can put too little soap in the water. What what is your standard mix that you like to use for squeegeeing the windows?

Denver Klassen: 12:50

my ratio to start is about a tablespoon of soap per gallon of water, and then you can tweak it as you go. Tablespoon is minimum and, uh, you can tell if you have enough. If you get a nice glide, your squeegee will glide across the glass. But if your squeegee is bouncing or or squealing sometimes it makes a squeaky, squeaky sound then you'll probably need a little bit more soap. So we start with about a tablespoon so the soap's acting as your lubricant.

AC Lockyer: 13:16

Because when you, when you go with your, your mop or your scrubber and you scrub the glass and you mop it all down, you need that little bit of something to break the surface tension on the glass so that your squeegee not only removes the water but doesn't shatter, because if it shatters then of course you leave more streaks and spots and everything lasts. So you know, the product that we use is a product called Phantom Levitate. We call it Levitate, that's Gilson Phantom's Levitate. But you also kind of want your squeegee to levitate on the glass. So you get a good squeegee and so, yeah, you need about a tablespoon is about right per gallon and then you go up or down, depending on if you have really hydrophobic glass or if you have hydrophilic glass. Depending on if you have really hydrophobic glass or if you have hydrophilic glass. Why don't you explain to people a little bit about, just really quick, about hydrophobic versus hydrophilic glass? Because they're going to encounter that out there.

Denver Klassen: 14:19

Well, hydrophobic and hydrophilic this is the way that the glass pushes away or repels water or holds on to water. Now, I'm always under the impression that hydrophobic glasses when my water sheets off real nice and nice and smooth, it's hydrophobic. And I've been in debate with people who say, oh, that's hydrophilic. So I just know there's a difference. Right, I'm not science-y in that way, other than I can see the difference, I can teach the difference, and it depends who I talk to. They'll debate me on what. Which word is which. Um, so you might even know which word is. Is where the water repels real nice, well, I think it's not only that there's a preference thing.

AC Lockyer: 14:55

Some window cleaners like hydrophilic glass and some like hydrophobic glass. So the key to it, the way it's been explained to me and I got us one of my mentors, steve blythe, with jay racenstein they're an over 100 year old I think they're 115 year old window cleaning supply company now um, is phyllos, where hydro, hydro, water, phyllic or phyllos is the greek word for loves. Okay, so glass that loves water, the water will sheet across the glass and will come down the glass as a sheet of water. Yeah, it plays on the glass, it loves the glass it, it mates together well with the glass.

AC Lockyer: 15:38

Hydrophobic is hydro, water, phobic is fear, is when it beads up and the water repels the glass like it's scared, like it's pushing that water away from the glass. So when you get glass that the water beads up on and stands up on, it's hydrophobic fears glass, um, if it's hydrophilic, then the glass loves the water, and so that's the difference between the two. And if you're doing mop and squeegee hydrophilic, where that you get a sheeting action on the glass is just the absolute best because then your squeegee doesn't shatter, you don't have to use as much, so you don't get a lot of residue on the glass. It just goes a lot better, would you agree?

Denver Klassen: 16:22

I do agree. I do agree. But when it comes to traditional methods, I honestly don't really pay attention or notice it that much, and I don't even teach my my crews about it that much. It's when we do pure water window cleaning that you can really see it yes, you know.

AC Lockyer: 16:38

So you're not. You're not what I would describe as a window cleaning snob. No, I've seen some window cleaning snobs. It's crazy. Yep, so you mentioned pure water, window cleaning. That is something that's just really come to prominence the last 20 years in the industry, especially the last 10 years. It's really become common in the window cleaning industry to use pure water. So let's describe that technique, because if you're a novice or you're trying to train and scale your company quickly, the water fed pool might be the answer for you. So describe that process.

Denver Klassen: 17:19

Yes, Well, pure water. Window cleaning is the art of putting dirt into clean water and rinsing the dirty water off and then letting the remainder of the liquid, pure water that's on the glass, just evaporate and dry up. Then your window is left spotless. So the key there is to get pure water. You've got to get a reverse osmosis system with a particle filter, ro filter and a DI resin to polish the water. In some areas of the country there's more or less of these items. I'm in a pretty hard water area a lot of iron deposits so I've got to use my particle filter, my DI filter I mean my RO filter and my DI resin to bring my water down to zero parts per million or as close to zero as I can.

AC Lockyer: 18:09

So let's talk about that real quick, because pure water is not soft water. There is a huge distinct difference between the two of them. Soft water is water that has been softened, usually by using a mineral like salt Okay, using a mineral like salt okay. And pure water is zero tds. Tom, well, it actually stands for total dissolved solids. I was gonna go tom day, sam, but no, it actually stands for total dissolved solids and so it's zero tds. So in florida, here, our water is somewhere between usually between 320 and 350 TDS, and that means that when you take the water out of the tap from a city, well water could be even higher, 500, 600. But when you take that tap water out of the house and you were to rinse your windows even maybe after scrubbing them with a scrub brush and soap and water, and rinse them, they went dry with spots, or what are called mineral deposits on the glass. Now, what's your TDS in your area? Do you know?

Denver Klassen: 19:10

In summer, between three and 500. Depends which well I tap into.

AC Lockyer: 19:16

Yep, yep. And so you're in a similar situation. What we have here? We have a lot of silt or sediment in our water too. Especially if people have a well, they have well water.

AC Lockyer: 19:29

You absolutely have to have that fourth stage or that sediment filter on your pure water cart, but what we're doing is we're making zero tds water. What that means is is in the water molecule the hydrogen and the oxygen, okay, hydrogen dioxide in that molecule and the molecules are all stacked together and make water, is if you are able to remove any dissolved solids in there and and get zero tds water, that makes for lack of a better term, the water hungry for minerals. So when you spray the water on the glass and you agitate it with a brush, it'll, without soaps, without chemicals. Pull that dirt off the glass and you agitate it with a brush, it'll with out soaps, without chemicals. Pull that dirt off the glass and bring it into suspension on the on inside of the water so you can remove it from the glass. And then you, and then so you explain kind of the technique because you, you just don't rinse it. There's there's like three things you do. Go ahead and explain.

Denver Klassen: 20:25

Purified water, zero TDS water naturally wants to get dirty. Yes, there's definitely a technique to washing windows with purified water. My technique is we start with the frames. We got a lot of vinyl frames in my area, so vinyl, plastic frames and they tend to break down, get a lot of oxidation. Frames in my area, um, so plastic, vinyl plastic frames and they tend to break down, get a lot of oxidation, especially if they're self-facing. And when we agitate the frame a little bit, some white looks we we call it bleeding. It looks like it's just running. It's oxidation, it's chalk yeah, it's chalk. Yeah, it's running down the windows.

Denver Klassen: 21:00

Right early on, when I started training pure water, my guys would wash the windows, wash to wash the frames and then they leave and let the water evaporate and then customers would call me back why is my window so hazy?

Denver Klassen: 21:12

Yeah, are you a little milky run spots?

Denver Klassen: 21:15

I had to change my training technique, yes, so our method now is we wash all the frames with a bristle brush, whether it's a boris air bristle or a padded brush.

Denver Klassen: 21:25

We like to use bristles that get into all the crevices and get the bugs and s out dirt and dust as much as we can within the crevices of the frame, and then we'll go around the house or the building and do the frames. Then we'll come back to window number one, now that the water hasn't had a chance to drip out, and then we'll concentrate on the glass without touching the frame again, because all that, that chalky water, um, has had a chance to run down, and so we can just focus on the glass and then scrub and rinse the glass with pure water, and once we do a final rinse on the glass, we leave it alone and then let the remainder pure water which is the last thing to touch your glass let it evaporate. And then you gotta remainder pure water which is the last thing to touch your glass let it evaporate, and then you got an almost perfect result, whether you're on ground level or I can be confident up to 65 feet.

AC Lockyer: 22:17

Now when we were talking about hydrophobic versus hydrophilic, a lot of people that are doing pure water because they'll come in. I like to kind of pre-wet the glass first, try to rinse any dirt, because we have a lot of silica sand here and if it gets caught in the brush it'll scratch the glass. So I'll rinse the window first, get silica sand off of it. I'll scrub all the frames really good, and I have a frame scrubbing brush because sometimes that oxidation gets caught in it. I have another brush on the pole.

AC Lockyer: 22:45

I'll flip it around then and then I'll do the glass portions and I'll lift the pole off the glass and I'll rinse it down with the spray bar or the jets or anything else to then make sure that there's only pure water left on the glass and then, if it's hydrophilic it'll have a sheeting action and it will dry 100% spot free. But if it's hydrophobic you may still get some droplets or spotting, you know little droplets all over the glass and if they dry with the sun, if there's any minerals left of it at all, they'll dry as spots. How do you avoid when you have hydrophobic glass and you do get some droplets of water on the glass after using a water-fed pole and and scrubbing the windows, how do you avoid those spotting? Well, if it's a really hot day.

Denver Klassen: 23:38

We slow down our rinse so that, so that we don't rinse faster than what we could bring the dirty water down, right. Um, so we have to slow down our rinse so, as we're coming down, the water will evaporate really quickly. On the on the south side, you can see it steaming up, right. So you gotta, you gotta, pay attention to that. Um, if you have a two jet brush, which is pretty standard, or four jet brush and I mean by that is you gotta, you gotta brush it this is the brush head you'll have a jet coming out of the middle of the bristles, those types of brushes. You have to lift off the glass and you have to zigzag and rinse the dirty water. Now, to do it properly, you can't do a big zigzag sorry, maybe moving my hands too quick. You have to actually go inch by inch, which takes a long time. So that's out of all of the glass.

AC Lockyer: 24:26

You can't miss an area.

Denver Klassen: 24:27

You can't miss the spot, otherwise you'll have spots within the beach pattern, within the zigzag, if that makes sense. So there are products out there, there's companies out there and I have my favorite. I don't know if you want me to plug one here, but I have my favorite and it's reach it. I love the reach it brushes because they're light, they're agile, you can do a lot of stuff with them and, um, they're easy to train a crew with and the brushes, if you get the right, one, can adapt to mistakes, right, but which has made it very easy to rinse, so you don't have to pull the brush off and zigzag.

Denver Klassen: 25:08

And I know Unger I believe it was, or Tucker has come up with a rinse bar. They followed Ritchit. Ritchit came up with a rinse bar that comes on top of the bristles and you can actually scrub your window and as you're scrubbing, you're already bringing the water down, you're already rinsing, because the whip, the pure water, is above the bristles, right, and that makes it so easy to teach and the results are fantastic. There are times we have to lift up the, the brush just to do a final, uh little touch-up rinse, but we get very, very few spotting fallbacks.

AC Lockyer: 25:48

So the other thing that is really really huge positive on doing the water-fed pole is these poles are 25, 35, all the way up to 65 feet long, so you can clean second-story, third-story, all the way up to fifth-story windows with the water-fed pole technique, which makes it a lot safer, right yeah, I've got as high as seven stories.

Denver Klassen: 26:12

Wow, I'm not a. I'm not a fan of it. It's, it's actually quite nerve-wracking. Um, but four stories and down. I've. I've got a team of uh, young ladies that are on my, on my team as well. They're doing four stories and down, right, and it's a lot of shoulder work, a lot of upper body. Um, you get the right carbon fiber pools, a light brushes and it's, it's amazing what you can get done yeah, very cool.

AC Lockyer: 26:40

Well, you know, certainly there there's a lot of stuff that you can do. We went through three techniques. I mean literally you can. You can take and have a five gallon bucket with a pole and a scrub brush on it and clean your windows. Make sure it's a soft scrub brush, rinse them off with regular water and if you're a homeowner, take out your blower that you use to blow off your sidewalks and blow all the water off your glass quickly. Make sure you don't get too far ahead of yourself. Do each window at a time and that will give you a spot-free clean. You could use the mop and squeegee technique, which will certainly work, which is the good old school solid window cleaning. That's the classic window cleaning. And then the latest technique is certainly the pure water window cleaning with the brushes and the poles and the reverse osmosis zero TDS water to be able to do the windows.

AC Lockyer: 27:30

You have a lot of options out there. So I hope this has helped you guys envision that if you're going to start cleaning the windows on your facility, you can get equipped for that. You can call somebody like Denver. Any of our soft wash systems pros are happy to take a phone call, coach you through it, help you tackle some of these smaller projects yourself. But if you get tired, if you get weary, if you have too many windows and you go, help you tackle some of these smaller projects yourself. But if you get tired, if you get weary, if you have too many windows and you go, this is for the birds, what are they going to do? Denver, if it's for the birds? Yeah, if it's for the birds, they're like that might be an American saying, like if they're wore out and they don't want to clean their windows anymore, who are they going to call?

Denver Klassen: 28:19

Well, they can call a referral market, like a referral partner, another window cleaner right, somebody who actually specializes in that? Yeah, yep, and I'm more than open to phone calls. I've coached probably half a dozen of your affiliates in window cleaning in one way or another. And uh, I'm, I'm open to phone calls answering questions.

AC Lockyer: 28:34

That's just what I love to do, yep because eventually we may get the business from that customer, because sometimes people just get to the point where they don't want to do it Now. So if you guys are interested in engaging somebody like Denver, you can go to our softwarsystemscom website and click the locations button. Or just go to softwarsystemscom website and click the locations button, or just go to softwashesystemscom forward slash locations and you'll see where Denver is. Or any of our other up to 150 softwash systems pros and right now eight countries and two territories and growing around the world to take care of your, any of your window cleaning needs. Or you can visit The Wash Life Store or any of our distributors to possibly get set up to handle doing the window cleaning yourselves. If you'd like to even rent a little pure water window cleaning unit cart to clean your windows, we'd love to help you do that.

AC Lockyer: 29:31

But in the long run, trust me, you're probably going to say, nah, let's just engage the pros, like the soft wash systems pros like Denver up there in Canada with Denver's Window Cleaning. Hey, Denver, this was great man. There's a lot to what cleaning windows. I mean. The time we took today just didn't justify it no, I, I didn't talk a long time, a long time.

AC Lockyer: 29:54

Hours about cleaning windows. We didn't get even into tin side or you know there's all kinds of things. You know different coatings on windows. What do you do if you scratch glass? I mean there's so much to talk about. But having clean windows, I mean those windows are the movie screen to your life, and having clean windows on your home and your building allows light in, makes people happier, and we're getting ready to come into spring here and it's going to be beautiful outside, so we want to get all that beautiful light.

Denver Klassen: 30:27

Yeah, it is one of the most neglected parts of my home, but it is one of the most expensive packages when you're building a home.

AC Lockyer: 30:34

Oh yes, i It's nothing to put fifty to a hundred thousand dollars plus into windows on a home. So absolutely well, Denver, thank you so much for being on the show with us today.

Denver Klassen: 30:49

t's you my pleasure. Thanks for the invite all guys.

AC Lockyer: 30:53

So tune in next time for any of the surface substrates, any things that you need to clean around your property or your homes. We are the place to talk about the surface, the stain, the tools, the techniques and the chemicals to take care of cleaning all of those things. This is AC Lockyer. We'll see you at the next podcast.