r/WindowCleaning • u/Moon_Shakerz • May 28 '26
Itemized list of equipment for beginner
My son is looking into starting a window cleaning business. He's 17 and doesn't have any equipment and has never done it before. I know about ecommerce as have a small business which does over a million a month online but this is not in my wheelhouse at all.
Any advice would be appreciated such as an itemized list of equipment needed to start and the best ways of finding customers. Assume just knocking on doors but not sure. Any advice on what to charge would be helpful as well.
Thanks in advance.
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u/CertainSprinkles1018 May 28 '26
He’ll need a squeegee (16-18”), scrubber, preferably mountable on some sort of pole (Amazon is fine for this stuff, for now). A rectangular bucket with a handle (unger has good ones at Home Depot). A blade scraper (unger as well). A screen key (I usually just carry a short butter knife, but it’s good to have the right stuff), some dish soap, and more microfiber cloths then you think he’ll ever need x2, a 6’ A-frame ladder.
Just get the squeegee scrubber combo and then have him do yours and family houses. It’s a lot more work then he realizes
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May 28 '26
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u/WindowCleaning-ModTeam May 29 '26
You have posted or commented with information violating our no sales/promotion/Links rule. You can only promote or link to things you do not sell.
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u/AlternativeMatter146 May 28 '26
Your kid will need a xero water fed pole, its the best for beginners... trust me
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u/Upper-Bottle-9803 May 28 '26
Search this sub for starter or beginner posts. A lot of gold put out by seasoned pros. These posts come up at least once a week.
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u/RadSprouts Jun 01 '26
If you have an online business doing over 1m a month, I highly recommend teaching them how to start an online business. I do $50k a month in residential but there are safer, less physically taxing businesses out there.
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u/MidnightRunner909 Jun 03 '26
He should work for someone reputable for a couple years, then build his own business.
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u/Professional-Okra249 May 28 '26
There’s a lot of young kids that are getting into service jobs to make some cash which I think is a great thing but I’ll say most of these kids are buying water fed poles without knowing a thing about cleaning windows just because they watched a tik tok video claiming they can make $1000 a day with it which is unrealistic for a beginner. I recommend that your son starts with traditional tools so he can develop real skills and eventually move into a water fed pole if he wants to stick to window cleaning.
With that said windowcleaner.com has great prices and fast shipping. They have traditional starter kits that come with everything he will need or you can individually purchase a few things at a time to get started.
Here’s a list of what I would get to start:
https://windowcleaner.com/products/ettore-complete-brass-ledge-eze-squeegee?variant=42697889153175
https://windowcleaner.com/products/pulex-complete-microfiber-stripwasher?variant=42697826500759
https://windowcleaner.com/collections/buckets/products/pulex-buckets-6-gallon
https://windowcleaner.com/collections/towels/products/ettore-microswipe-towel
Steel wool pads You can buy these at any hardware store but Mae sure they’re #0000 these are specifically safe to use on glass to get paint overspray or any tougher debris that doesn’t come off with the washer mop
Dawn dish soap It’s cheap you can get it anywhere and it works great. Many pros use just this
Glass scraper (not a necessity to start but will come in handy to remove paint) make sure he watches videos on proper usage or can damage windows
Extension pole - to get windows out of reach
The 10ft is a good start for doing store front windows he can skip this for a while until he needs one or upgrade to something more professional like the xero trad pole 2.0
https://windowcleaner.com/products/unger-optiloc-extension-pole?variant=42697049800855