In all my years as a professional window cleaner I am proud to say that my only accident happened last year when my step ladder slipped out from under me and I ended up with some bruises (mostly on my pride). How it happened was a simple mistake..

The job was an interior window wash and the floors were hard wood. Right at the main entrance was a set of high windows and a rug on the floor. The home owner assured me that the rug had a rubber non slip shield beneath in, so up I went. This next part is kind of funny because as I was up there working I was chatting to the client about how "I'm not afraid of heights, I am afraid of fa-". And at that exact word, the ladder slipped out with the rug and down I went. Sprawled out in a puddle of water mixed with irony I realized my mistake. I didn't personally check under the rug. There WAS a rubber mat under it but for some reason it had been folded under and rendered useless. Thankfully for me I was ok, and there was no damage to the home, and a valuable lesson learned.

Ladders are relatively safe when set up properly, on level feet and a nice easy angle. There are however times when a perfect setup isn't in the cards and you have to improvise. Then there's times where it's just not possible or safe to use a ladder and other tools must be used. I have no desire to put my body in a risky situation just to get a piece of glass cleaned. 

That's why my ladders have adjustable feet to set up on awkward ground and even on stairways. Still there's no reward that is worth the risk of a sketchy ladder setup.

Besides personal injury risks, there's also the risk of property damage. The last thing I want to do is break a window, scratch some paint, or gouge a wooden deck. As a business owner this all comes down to me in the end and it's greatly important to maintain a keen awareness of all that's around me at all times.

Some myths out there regarding safety need to be debunked. Such as rooftops. Albeit some rooftops are just dangerous and should never be walked on. For the most part, your common asphalt tile shingle roofs are safer to walk on than grass. The grits in each shingle hold onto whatever is on them and are never EVER slippery unless frosty. If there's ever a chance of frost on a roof I'll either work from the ladder if possible or completely re-book the service. Again, no reward is worth the risk in this line of work.

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. 

There's no denying it, when it comes to this industry there are a lot of options as to where to spend your hard earned money. When making your choice it's easy to be seduced by brightly painted vehicles and expensive advertisements. Often times the staff employed by the big companies  are under payed, under skilled, over worked, and disgruntled at earning a fraction of what the company is earning off of their hard work. How do I know this? Because I used to be one of them.

The first thing you get when you call any company is usually the owner. The owner meets you with a firm handshake and offers you a quote and you accept it. Here's where things begin to differ. The large company will put you an a waiting list for up to six weeks or longer. The small guy can fit you in next week. After you wait six weeks for your service, the brightly painted truck arrives with someone you've never met, alongside his rookie sidekick with no experience at all. They will have to rush the job because they have five or six more jobs to pile onto the day before it's over. Contrary - the little guy you met last week arrives, delivers you an excellent service, and has time to focus on the fine details while still charging you less than the other guys. At the end of the day though, it's about getting the most value out of the service you are buying. Does it make you feel better to support grassroots? Or goliath?

For myself personally, this concept transcends all elements of the marketplace  where we always have the choice to shop at the big box stores, or take the extra time to go to the famers market. When you support the little guys, you're helping out a single family face to face, and that's worth more than any billboard ad or golden arches. As a one man show I feel twice as much pride in my work than I did as an employee. I always do my best work regardless but, knowing that I was giving over half of the earnings to someone who wasn't even on the job with me to help.. it was a constant knot. 

I am always at a loss for  words whenever it's a roasting hot sunny day and I'm washing windows and a passer by comments: "Great day to wash windows!". 
Now, my normal reply to that is something along the lines of: " Its actually a great day for lots of things, like golfing, fishing, swimming.. etc" The truth that most people don't realize is that it's actually the worst time to wash windows. Not because I'd rather be working on my slice at the driving range, the fact is that hot glass is a pain in the..uh, lower back.

When the sun gets hot surface temperatures on windows can reach levels above 100 degrees fahrenheit. This results in very fast evaporation which is detrimental to the squeegee cleaning method which relies on wet lubricated glass in order to achieve a streak free finish. We as window cleaners have to deal with this in several ways because the last thing we want is to have to come back again and rub off some foggy streaks or rubber lines. 

First one is obvious, we start early as possible in the day. Its cool then and the glass is too. If the sun is already high in the sky and the heat is on, then we start on the shady side of the building, and most likely when we finish that side, the earth has rotated  and the angle of sunlight has shifted away from  the hot side. Besides that, keeping the water in my bucket ice cold and lots of it helps to cool hot glass down before my squeegee touches it, you can't put too much water on that window on a hot day. Then there is the actual rubber that is in the squeegee. Surprisingly there are lot's of different companies making various rubber compounds for window cleaners. Some are cheap, some are not, but you get what you pay for. In my research I have found that Ettore Soren rubber is probably the most durable and reliable rubber on the market. I've used it on extremely hot windows with practically no water at all and there have been little to no streaking left behind!

Who is the Window Viper? Well, that's me. My name is Chris Jackson, I've been in the window cleaning game since 2006 and I still love doing it. There's a great combination of skills needed to be a successful window washer, because we do so much more than wash windows. Besides all the technical stuff involved in beautifying peoples homes and businesses, there's a certain amount of customer service needed to really separate the good ones from the ordinary.  I have background in fine dining food service and I carry with me a few simple rules that are my standard in how I deal with my valued clients. 1.The client is king, always. 2. Go the extra mile to do that little bit extra and make the client feel special. 3. YES, is always the answer. There are no problems, only solutions to any issue.

I moved to Vancouver Island in 2012 with my wife and daughter and we enjoy living the simple life surrounded by beauty and nature. This is an awesome place to live and I feel very fortunate to live and work here. There's not a day goes by where I don't stop and pause upon somebody's roof, or on my ladder to just take a moment to take it all in. This is yet another way I find joy in my work. I've always loved to climb, rock climb etc. 

So there you go, thats me. The Window Viper aka Chris Jackson