First time I ran into this, there was a ceiling fan on the roof of the porch. To top it off it certainly didn’t look like an exterior grade fan. I taped it off and used plastic, then double wrapped it to be sure. From the junction in the roof line to the fan motor itself, it looked like it had separated a little bit and there were gaps. What I do, and who knows if it is right but it works, I rip open some of the plastic to make a hole, then tape the hole down to the surface so it doesn’t billow out while working.
So how do you handle this pro washers? I imagine down south these things are as common as heat in the summer.
Thank you. I get the idea of spraying around objects that could pose a hazard, but with the gaps in the housing I thought the safer thing to do would be to tape it. Am I wrong in this assumption? Have you had any issues? I know you do more washing in a couple of weeks than I probably do all year.
You can’t see it in this picture, but they also had LED lights in the ceiling surface too that I was already planning to spray around. So I would have wound up spraying about 1/2 of the ceiling. I wound up having to rag around some of the lights to get the dead bugs off after I sprayed the ceiling and rinsed. Second shower of the day hitting this porch. Maybe I’m dumb, but I wiped off their fan blades while I had the ladder out to remove the plastic and tape.
I look at it like an open window. I’ll wash around it but I’m not going to cover it with plastic. I can mist around a fan without getting it wet, but if there is wire or something exposed, I’ll just skip the area.
If they’re janky looking I’ll bag them but if the look like they’re up to snuff I just wash around them. I do clean the blades with a ceiling fan “brush” on a bamboo broom handle. Takes all of 30 seconds and customers notice.
Oh yeah, they noticed right away. I’m weird, and probably the worst businessman in history, but if I paid someone to clean my house and porch I would expect them to hit the fan blades so … I did it.
I just talked a neighbor out of PW their house last night. Told them it really didn’t need it, but if they wanted me to I would be happy to wash it and take a check. Told them wait until late fall or early next spring and 'll look at it again. I’ll probably see a competitor in their drive in 2 weeks. Maybe I’m an idiot.
Never turn down washing a clean house. I like having neat freaks for customers (usually). All their friends tend to know that they’re “picky” customers, and will take their recommendations more seriously.
In your case, I probably would’ve given them a good friends and neighbors discount for washing their clean house.
I started out that way, too. But, after a while, I decided it wasn’t really worth the effort if they’re outdoor rated fans and you exercise caution when washing around them. I don’t wash around any light that is turned on though. That’s just asking for a bulb to blow.
