This blog is for Glass Smart Window Cleaners.
It is focused on the development and discovery of custom products for the Surface Maintenance, Restoration, and Protection of different window surfaces. Join me. henrygroverjr@gmail.com
A little crude as I am learning a new video editing program. A cheap one that I downloaded free. Can't get any more cheap then that. Movie Maker from Microsoft. Cuz Microsoft took over my computor and "updated" it to Windows 10 when I was VERY content with Windows 7. Immediately after my old Pinnacle 12 editing program wouldn't work. Not compatible with my new tracking OS. Just had to vent.
Hoping you like my little movie. It does demonstrate how EZ it is to mix up the SKRUB. This is a great product for removing light stains from glass by hand. Can be cut with pure water to your liking too. At the end of the movie I demonstrate how you can stand up a pen in a cup of SKRUB. I havn't found a commercial product yet that I could do this with. They typically use only a very small amount of superabrasive powder. No matter what it happens to be. SKRUB is also great for removing greasy fingerprints from restaurant windows. Just add a table spoon of it to a couple gallons of cleaning solution. Use any soap or chem you want. A friend discovered he could make up a solution of it in a Gatorade bottle with the pop up cap. Squirt it on the applicator only when needed. This way it doesn't cause your entire cleaning solution to turn a dirty white. And the SKRUB goes a lot further. What I find personally fascinating is how the powder turns a dark brown when it comes into contact with a water miscible fluid. This is because the individual microscopic particles have been treated with a proprietary chemical. Or they have been functionalized. The particle zoo is quite diversified. I would like to take this opportunity to once more warn the manufacturers among us not to waste their time with these "transformer" products I am developing. They will be gold to us Window Cleaners;...but will be quite impractical to copy and market. The ingredients cost, and shelf life actually precludes anyone from bringing them to the market. Even a niche market.
Oh yeah. If you would like a copy of my newsletter the Glass Smart Product Development Review that gives the sources for all of the ingredients and more just send me an email. The two page newsletter is 35 bux, sent by email, and billed by Pay Pal. These products along with the knowledge you will find on this blog will give you the edge over other companies. Be;...
Written and produced by Henry Grover Jr. henrygroverjr@gmail.com To receive these posts directly in your inbox just type your address in the box at the top right, "Follow by Email".
This is a transformer product. It is unlike any other glass cleaner in that it cleans and seals windows with a hydrophobic organosilane. When applied even in the pouring rain it becomes instantly effective. So when you soap a window with your applicator the OS reacts with the free oxygens of the glass leaving the organic, chain part of the molecule hanging off. This is the hydrophobic end that pushes water away creating a water shield.
You can use Glass Gleam, Dawn, Joy, or most any other synthetic detergent or commercial glass cleaner. Then add just a very little bit of the OS to your bucket. Now you are ready. You have a water based cleaner/sealer. So you can soap and seal at the same time. No extra time needed. Transformer products are not commercial products. You buy the ingredients yourself and put them together. So your formula is your formula. No one else has to know what it is. This gives you the edge. I do not sell any of the ingredients. You can buy the ingredients yourself directly from the ingredient manufacturers/sales companies. You might even create a formula or a product that I haven't yet come up with.
All I sell is a newsletter called the "Glass Smart Product Development Review". Each issue is 35 dollars and is a complete turnkey. It contains all the information you need to create the product. Written by Henry Grover Jr. henrygroverjr@gmail.com If you would like to receive these posts in your inbox just type your address in the box at the top right, "Follow by Email".
Others too like Repcon, Rain-X, and the Invisible Shield. Then we have products like Enduroshield, Diamon Fusion, and Hydroshield that have been aimed at the granite, porcelain and architectural glass world. Years ago we had two products developed by DuPont down in Wilmington Delaware. One of them based on a PTFE (teflon) chemistry was discontinued. The other one known simply as their TLF 8291 was marketed to the mirror manufacturers. Here it was called Mar Guard. But it too has been discontinued. There are other companies that have specialized in silicon (the element not the molecule) chemistry. These have developed both hydrophobic and hydrophylic sealants for glass. I think by now you get the idea. That there has been a ton of money devoted to developing this type of product. There has also been a ton of money spent to have one of these applied to buildings. Even and especially brand new buildings. How much money? Just do the math. At four bux a square foot multiply by the number of square feet. A large office building for example might have five hundred windows. At 30 square feet per window this comes to 60,000 bux. What amazes me is some of these buildings are brand new. That means the sealant is being applied to new glass that hasn't even been stained yet. How do you sell that? My guess is a lot of hype. We know that is is tough enough to sell a stain removal job. And we really don't want it. We just want to keep the window cleaning contract. Now sealing glass is not a bad thing. It absolutely will help to prevent weathering of the glass over the years. And make it much easier to remove any stains that might develop. Especially if the window glass is flush with the exterior facade and there are bricks or concrete directly above every window. Or if you are doing a job that is almost or right on the ocean. What coastal window cleaning company isn't painfully aware of the problem of sea salt? Sprinklers systems too must be positioned right next to windows. Especially if they carry very hard ground water. So yeah. There are situations where one can most definitely predict that brand new buildings will be stained. Sometimes a brand new building will start developing stains before it is more than a few months old. What would help us sell a sealant would be a quick demo. Just look at a new building with this in mind. Look for the sprinklers or the design of the windows and concrete, brick, or stucco. Then clean a window, fog it to show the newly forming spots. Which will become unsightly braille over time. Then make your pitch. At this point it would be rather easy to remove these deposits and seal the glass. Pricing correctly is very important so you can make a profit. I will save this for another post. However the easy answer to that question is just to actually do one entire window for a demo, add up your times, add in the cost of your products, then multiply by what you will need to make per man hour. Always add around 20 percent to the final quote just to be safe. Written by Henry Grover Jr. henrygroverjr@gmail.com If you would like to receive these posts in your inbox just type your address in the box at the top right, "Follow by Email".
