So – hello reddit!

As the trees turn colors and the days grow shorter, it’s a perfect time to make sure your windows are clean. It allows maximum light through your windows and enhances the beautiful fall colors the cooler water brings. We highly recommend you take the worry and hassle out of it by hiring professionals (ahem – us!), but if you decide to go it alone, please be careful!

Our condolences

Sincere condolonces to the family of James Thomas Penny, who passed away unexpectedly Monday in Middleton, NY. He was not only a retired window washer, but also a Marine who served in WWII in the Pacific Theater. Thank you for your service sir!

The cons continue

It looks like Europe has an ongoing problem with con men posing as window washers and bilking the unsuspecting out of money. As such, we’ll continue our ongoing reminders to make sure you know who you’re paying for the services you receive. To paraphrase Smokey the Bear: Only YOU can prevent window-washing scammers from stealing YOUR money. Don’t let it become an epidemic here like it’s becoming across the pond. On that note, we’re off to see about finding a talking squeegee for a mascot.

was unveiled by those wacky South Koreans at Ilshim Global Co. And while we love technology and gadgets here at Pro Window Cleaning, we don’t see this as much of a threat to our industry. But here’s a look at it for the curious.

IFA 2010: Windoro Robot to Clean your Windows via Vimeo.

The Independent has this summary:

Manufactured by Ilshim Global Co. the robot can clean a square meter of windows in ten minutes. Windoro is equipped with bumpers in order to negotiate window frames and is programmed to return to its original location once its task is complete.

What they don’t mention is how loud and annoying it is.

More scams in the news

A man has been sentenced to 5 1/2 years for conning people out of money by posing as a window washer. We can not stress enough the importance of not paying the wrong person for services rendered!

Empire State Building going green

As part of the refurbishment of the Empire State Building, every window is being taken out, upgraded and reinstalled. While not directly related to window washing, it’s an interesting process and great for the environment. Here’s a short video about it.

Final Swipe

Here’s to hoping everyone had a great Labor Day!

William Shatner is hosting a new show on the History channel – William Shatner’s Weird or What? which premiers tonight. One of the segments will feature a window washer who survived a 47-story fall in New York.

In the case of the window washer who fell more than 120 metres and survived, computer graphics and an applied-physics explanation provide a pretty good theory for why the worker didn’t perish in the same manner his brother/co-worker did.

Here’s to hoping the good captain puts plenty of emphasis on the importance of proper safety equipment to prevent these situations from arising.

Life imitating art?

The NY Daily News reports that a man jumped from a 40-story building this morning and survived after landing in the back seat of a Charger.

RSS feeds

Just wanted to mention how amusing some of the stories are that come through our RSS feed. It’s obviously just a search engine for news stories with predefined terms like “window washing”, but those terms turn up in unexpected places.  Like this review of Mafia II, where your character apparently has a beautiful panoramic view from a window washing platform.  Which is as good a place to jump from as any.

Final Swipe

Always make sure you know who you’re paying for your window washing services.

This is our new company blog (on our freshly renovated website, we might add), where we’ll have regular updates with our views on industry news, promotions, and maybe some just plain randomness. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter and easily share with your friends and favorite networking sites at the bottom of the posts.

This week in  news – safety first!

Two construction workers died this week in Bangladesh after the window washing platform they were on failed. While it may be a world away from you geographically, let it serve as a reminder to everyone to inspect your equipment for safety, especially you high-rise guys and gals.

Pro Window Cleaning crew removing TransAmerica signage from the top of Town Pavilion in downtown Kansas City

Reasons to hire a window washer

Earlier this month, Angie Hicks wrote a piece for the homeowner about hiring window washers. It highlights reasons and offers some good advice. Arguably the most important is the mention of insurance . Whether you’re hiring someone new or just want peace of mind about your current service, a professional window washer/crew will always be able to provide proof of insurance for your inspection. Hiring someone without insurance puts you at substantial risk if something happens to you, your property or the worker. In Angie’s words “Don’t be a fall guy”.

What are you Seeing Clearly?

We’re planning an ongoing series for the more visual among you. We’ll post a shot or two we took while we were on location recently, but what we’d really like is photos submitted by you depicting how you see your windows. It can be artistically abstract, a very basic snapshot, or a simple before and/or after photo of your windows (or, as importantly, through your windows) after a cleaning. We want pictures of windows though, not just through them. A beautiful view from a high rise office or out of your kitchen window is perfect, but we want to see how it’s framed through the window. A really dusty or spotted window is just as good – show us how much attention it needs or how much you think it adds to how you see the window.  Send photos to SeeingClearly.

Scott takes a self-portrait overlooking downtown from the side of 1201 Walnut.

Final swipe

Looks like we can hold off bidding on all that glass that Polsinelli was wanting to add to the Plaza.