WindowBossPro Blog — Routes & Scheduling

Estimating Job Time for Window Cleaning: Windows, Stories, Sides and Extras

Every schedule rests on a guess about how long each job will take. Guess short and the last customer waits until dark. Guess long and the van is back at the shop at 1 p.m. with nothing to do. Window cleaning time is more predictable than it looks, if you break it into the parts that actually drive it.

Why Time Estimates Matter for the Route

The last article, You're Stop 12 of 20: What Window Cleaning Customers See on the Route Map, showed how customers plan around their place in line. That only works if the route is realistic, and a realistic route starts with realistic job times.

WindowBossPro does not guess job times for you. What it does is keep the details that drive time on every address: number of windows, stories, sides and extras. Those details show under the address on the lists and on the tech's phone. The estimating method below turns them into minutes using your own crew's pace.

The Four Parts of a Window Job

Window count. The base. More panes, more time. Count the way you price: if you price by window, estimate by window.

Stories. A 1-story is ground and short-ladder work. A 2-story means extension ladders or a pole and more time moving between panes. A 3+ story job slows everything down and may need two people.

Sides. Outside only, inside and outside, or inside only. Inside work adds drop cloths, moving items off sills and careful work around furniture. Inside and outside is close to double the window time, often a bit more.

Extras. Screens, tracks and hard-water removal each add their own time. Screens are a per-screen task. Tracks can be quick or very slow depending on how long it has been. Hard water is the wild card and can take longer than the cleaning itself.

Finding Your Crew's Numbers

The fastest way to good estimates is to measure your own crew for a few weeks. For each job, note the window details from the address and how long it actually took from Start to Complete. You do not need a spreadsheet for every job. A dozen jobs of different sizes is enough to see the pattern.

You will end up with simple rules of thumb for your team, something like a certain number of minutes per window outside on a 1-story, a little more on a 2-story, roughly double for inside and outside, plus a set amount per screen. Write them down and share them with whoever builds routes.

Revisit them each season. A new tech is slower for a while. A crew that has worked together for years is faster than any rule of thumb.

Add Drive and Setup

Job time is not the whole stop. Each stop has setup: parking, getting ladders off the van, finding the gate, talking to the customer. On a tight storefront route, setup can be most of the stop. On a big home, it is a small slice.

Drive time depends on the route. That is why grouping matters so much; see Grouping Neighborhoods: Building Tighter Window Cleaning Routes. A day of five homes in one subdivision has almost no drive time. A day of five homes spread across the county can lose two hours on the road.

Using Estimates When You Build the Day

With your numbers in hand, building a day is quick. Pull up the due jobs on the Waiting List, read the window details under each address, and add them up as you assign them to a van. When the total gets close to a full day, stop adding. Auto-route and check that the big jobs are not stacked back to back.

It helps to leave a small buffer. A job that runs long is normal, and a day with no slack turns one slow stop into a late finish for every customer after it.

Keep the Details Accurate

Estimates are only as good as the window details. The best time to capture them is at the quote, when estimates are built from your service list with per-window, per-screen, story add-on and hard-water pricing. When the customer approves online, the job becomes scheduled services with the details on the address.

After the first cleaning, the tech knows the house. If the count was wrong, or there is a hidden skylight, or the back has more glass than the front, a note to the office gets the address corrected so every future estimate is right.

Better Estimates, Better Days

Break each job into windows, stories, sides and extras, learn your crew's pace, and add drive and setup. The schedule gets more honest, customers wait less and vans come home on time. For more on how it all fits together, see the WindowBossPro window cleaning route software page.