You have to glaze by Friday if you want to finish the job on time and get paid. Glazing by Friday takes advantage of the natural two day break that most people take. Clients don’t want you working at their homes on the weekend, and you have stuff to do with family and friends. It’s two days that most people take for granted.
Timing is everything on a window restoration job. Timed and executed correctly, a good team can complete a 10 window restoration project in 10 days – one window per day complete. Assuming a three person team, break the order of operations down like this:
Week 1 – The First Five Days
Day 1 (Monday) – Mechanical Makeovers to four openings, eight sash deglazed in the steam stripper.
Day 2 (Tuesday) – Mechanical Makeovers to four openings, eight sash deglazed in the steam stripper.
Day 3 (Wednesday) – Mechanical Makeovers to two openings, four sash deglazed in the steam stripper before lunch. After lunch, strip, prime and glaze the first four sash from the first day.
Day 4 (Thursday) – Strip, prime and glaze eight more sash.
Day 5 (Friday) – Strip, prime and glaze the rest of the sash.
Weekend – The Natural Wait Time
Week 2 – The Second Five Days
Day 6 (Monday) – Strip and prime four frames, paint eight sash, both sides.
Day 7 (Tuesday) – Strip and prime four frames, paint eight sash, both sides.
Day 8 (Wednesday) – Strip and prime two frames and paint four sash, both sides before lunch. After lunch, paint frames.
Day 9 (Thursday) – Paint remaining frames, assemble sash into frames, tune.
Day 10 (Friday) – Assemble remaining sash into frames, tune
The Reasoning
The lynchpin that holds all this together is the Sarco Type M Multiglaze glazing compound. Used correctly, the compound sets up in two days and can be painted on the third, enabling the user to complete a project in a timely fashion.
Say the user wasn’t paying attention to the process and didn’t get all the glazing done on Friday. Sure, it can be done on Monday, but you might as well write off the whole week, because glazed on Monday, the soonest painting can take place is Thursday. You might get them done by Friday, but it’ll be a close one and ultimately will be hard to get everything assembled and tuned before the weekend.
It’s not just about getting sash glazed by Friday so you can paint on Monday. It’s about getting the glazing process completed as early in the cycle as possible, so as to take advantage of the weekend’s hard stop and natural wait time for letting the glazing cure. During that wait time, the technician can be doing a host of other work on the project to push it along. They can do jamb work, clean hardware…. all kinds of stuff.
Just remember to put priority on glazing first to give yourself time to do the other details that mean so much, that also set you apart.
