Thy ground hog hath spoken! And it's not clear that the warmth of spring will be coming any time soon, but this winter has turned out to be one of the driest I can remember. I feel like I'm back in Calgary!
I'm already staring to consider making my spring calls due to the amount of early bookings that are already piling up.
I've been working very hard over the last couple months on some new marketing strategies, website upgrades, tweaking the logo, putting decals on the vehicle, and lots more. I joined the Duncan Cowichan Chamber of Commerce and am proudly taking care of the new visitor centre next to the forestry museum. I'm also now affiliated with the Society of Professional Ropes Access Technicians, and am about to get my certification. We sealed the deal to do a huge high rise clean, twice year on a Nanaimo Harbour high rise know as 'The Pacifica'. So much has been going on that i feel very confident going into the busy spring season this year. I have a feeling that you might see me with a helper in my passenger seat a lot sooner than I anticipated. You will definitely  be seeing me and my set up again at the Cowichan Home Show this May, and I will post more info about that a little later. As anticipated, GST is now being added to all invoices since the company no longer is views as a 'small supplier'. All of this news is good, and should definitely set us up for an even better year next year. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, there's a lot of work coming and The Window Viper will continue to uphold its values of grassroots community commerce, the highest eco standards on the market, five star customer service, and 100% satisfaction guarantee. Thank you to all of the Window Viper client base for your customer loyalty, and if you're a potential new client, thank you for taking the time to visit our blog. 

I'll see you on the ladder!

It's ALL green at The Window Viper. It's a grassroots company based in the very green Cowichan Valley of course. I drive a green truck, my uniform is green. All my tools and equipment are green. So what's it all for? What does it represent?

The fundamental aspect under it all is that The Window Viper set the example not only in service, but in maintaining a very high eco standard. I'm not doing this because it's fashionable, or to attract a certain clientele. I do it because it's the RIGHT thing to do, period.

For example - Moss Removal is a common add on which can be very tedious and time consuming but must be done to prevent your roof from any moisture damage. There's no shortcuts. You can't just go slap some TIDE on the roof and kill the moss. You still have dead moss on the roof that must be removed by hand. So, why bother with the detergent in the first place? Roofs run into gutters, which run into your perimeter drains which run into our watershed. The typical house needs 2-3 boxes of detergent to cover the roof. After one good rain all that stuff goes straight into our drinking water - gag!

Another example is siding washing. I was recently on a job in Cobble Hill and the home owner was astounded at how clean his vinyl siding was from me just using pure water and a water fed tucker pole. We got into conversation about how all these consumer cleaning products are all just worthless gimmicks that don't even do anything. They leave chemical residue on everything, cost an arm and a leg, and no matter how bio degradable it says it is - it's still a chemical. I had to strip my deck last year with a "bio degradable" deck stripper. Some got on my skin and I still have a scar from the acid burn! Scrubbing those high walls and gutters is hard work that can be done without the help of any such products. Pure water runs off your house and into the ground where nature can recycle it.

Water restrictions are another issue in the summer months and the equipment I use, when idle, can be switched off to avoid wasting our limited water resource. At the end of the day my dirty window rags are washed in a cold water ECOS high efficiency washer cycle. 

There's much we can do as individuals to reduce our impact on the environment. It doesn't take much to see the simplicity in keeping up a green standard in a business like mine, but oddly enough, most companies just don't care.