Most of our week is houses. Monthly rounds, side gates left open, a text the night before. But a decent slice of it is commercial, and one of the jobs we look forward to sits at the top of Grendon Road in Polesworth, about ten minutes out of Tamworth town centre.
| Client | Polesworth Garage |
|---|---|
| Location | Grendon Road, Polesworth, Tamworth, B78 1HA |
| The site | MG main dealer, Suzuki approved used and Nissan authorised repairer, with a Gulf filling station on the same forecourt |
| On the round since | 2022, four years and counting |
| Frequency | Every four weeks, booked around showroom opening hours |
| Time on site | About three hours, inside and out |
| Glass cleaned | Showroom frontage inside and out, entrance doors, frames, sills and trim |
| Outside method | Pure water on a fed pole, filtered to 000 ppm, no detergent |
| Inside method | Traditional applicator and blade on an extension pole |
| Access | Worked from the ground throughout, no ladders |
Family run on Grendon Road since 1984, with the service centre and bodyshop a few miles away in Amington.
A car showroom is a glass box with cars in it
A three bedroom semi has maybe a dozen panes. A dealership has a frontage that runs floor to ceiling, wraps round two elevations, and carries on above head height where nobody can reach it from the ground with a cloth.
And unlike a house, every single pane is doing a job. The whole point of a showroom is that people driving past can see the cars inside. Dirty glass does not just look scruffy, it puts a grey film between a passer by and forty grand of stock. On a wet Tuesday in November that film is the difference between someone pulling onto the forecourt and someone carrying on to the island.
So we treat commercial frontage differently to a house. Glass, frames, sills, the aluminium trim between the panels, and the entrance doors that pick up hand marks all day long.
Why pure water matters even more on a forecourt
We have written before about how the pure water system works, but a car dealership is the clearest example of why it is worth doing properly.
Traditional window cleaning uses detergent. Detergent runs. On a house it runs down a brick wall and nobody notices. On a forecourt it runs down a pane of glass and onto whatever is parked underneath, which might be a brand new MG in a colour that shows every streak.
Pure water has nothing in it. No soap, no salts, no chemicals, nothing dissolved at all. It is tap water filtered down to zero parts per million, which makes it aggressive enough to lift traffic film off glass on its own, and harmless enough to run off onto paintwork, alloys and vinyl signage without leaving a mark. When it dries there is nothing left behind, because there was nothing in it to leave.
That is the whole reason it suits the outside of a commercial job. No overspray problem, no rinsing down afterwards, no cars needing a wipe over once the window cleaner has gone.
Inside the glass, it goes back to the old way
Worth being clear about this, because the two halves of the job are not the same. Pure water is for outside only. It cannot come indoors, because it has to run somewhere, and indoors that somewhere is a tiled showroom floor with cars parked on it.
So the inside gets cleaned the traditional way. Applicator on, blade off, edges detailed by hand. Soap, water and a squeegee, the way the whole trade did it before anyone had a filter on the back of a van.
That is a proper skill, and it is quietly disappearing. Plenty of window cleaners who came into the trade in the last ten or fifteen years have only ever worked off a pure water pole. It is quicker to learn, it is kinder on your back, and for the outside of a house it is honestly the better method. But it means they never picked up a blade.
Which is fine, right up until somebody asks for the inside of a showroom doing. Then it shows. Streaks, missed edges, water on the floor, or just a no.
We came up on traditional, over twenty years back now, and it still gets used every week. The pole comes indoors with it, applicator and blade on the end, so the top of a two storey shopfront gets reached from the floor rather than off a ladder in a room full of customers and stock.
We work around the showroom, not through it
This is the part that matters most to any business owner, and it is usually the first question we get asked. A window cleaner turning up at eleven on a Saturday with a bucket, a ladder and a wet floor is a problem, not a service.
So the commercial jobs get planned around the business:
- Cleans booked around opening hours. Early starts before the doors go up, or a run at the end of the day once it quietens down.
- No ladders in customer areas. Everything is done from the floor on a telescopic pole, inside and out, so nothing is leaning against the building or blocking a walkway.
- Hoses managed and signed. A trailing hose is the one genuine hazard on a job like this, so it gets a cone and it gets kept tight to the kerb.
- Fully insured, DBS checked. Certificates go over before the first visit, and site rules get followed like anyone else's contractor.
- Same face every time. You get the same window cleaner, not whoever the agency sent this month.
None of that is complicated. It is just the difference between a trade window cleaner and a bloke with a bucket.
What actually comes off the glass
Roadside commercial glass gets filthy in a way domestic glass does not. Grendon Road is a working road. Diesel soot, brake dust, road salt in winter and a fine grey traffic film that builds up so gradually nobody notices until it is cleaned.
The best proof is the state of the applicator sleeve halfway through a job.
That is why a proper interval matters more on commercial premises than at home. Leave roadside glass for three months and you are not cleaning windows any more, you are stripping a coating.
The signs have changed, the glass has not
Have a proper look through the photos on this page and you will spot something. Some of them show Nissan branding on the building. The newer ones show MG.
Polesworth Garage has been a family business on Grendon Road since 1984 and has grown into a team of around seventy. These days they are an official MG dealer, an authorised Nissan repairer and a Suzuki approved used dealer, with a couple of hundred used cars on site at any one time and a Gulf filling station on the same forecourt. Their service centre and bodyshop sit a few miles away in Amington, which is another one of the areas we cover.
Four years we have been on that site now. Once every four weeks, about three hours a visit, inside and out. Long enough to watch the signage change on the front of it.
And it goes both ways. We have had eight vehicles off them over the years, vans and cars, including the ones out on the round today. They sell us our vans, we clean their glass. That is roughly how it works in a village this size, and it is a fair part of why the job has lasted as long as it has.
Which is the thing about a good commercial round. It is not really a job, it is a relationship, and you end up quietly invested in whether the place looks right.
The rest of Polesworth is on the round too
Worth saying, because people assume a window cleaner working a dealership forecourt must be a commercial-only outfit. We are not. The garage is one reason the van is in Polesworth, but it is nowhere near the only one.
Polesworth has been on the domestic round for years. Houses through the village centre around High Street and Bridge Street, out past Abbey Green, up towards Hall End and Birchmoor, and along the lanes towards Pooley. Monthly or every other month, £15 a visit for a two or three bed, frames and sills done every time, and a text the night before so you can unlock the gate.
Because Dordon, Warton and Grendon sit right next door, the whole corner tends to get done in the same run. If you are in the village and you want adding, have a look at the window cleaning we do in Polesworth or just text Ant and he will tell you when he is next up that way.
Commercial window cleaning across Tamworth and the villages
Back to the commercial side. Polesworth Garage is one site, and showrooms are only part of it:
- Shopfronts and high street retail
- Offices and business park units
- Car showrooms and forecourts
- Pubs, cafes and restaurants
- Industrial and trade counter units
- Care homes, salons, dental and veterinary practices
Geographically it follows the same footprint as the domestic round. Tamworth town centre, Amington, Glascote, Wilnecote, Two Gates, Fazeley, Mile Oak and Kettlebrook, plus the villages out towards Polesworth: Dordon, Warton, Grendon, Baddesley Ensor, Alvecote and Kingsbury. The full list of areas we cover is on the home page, and if you are just outside it, ask anyway. The round grows all the time.
What does commercial window cleaning cost in Tamworth?
Houses we can price off a list, and we do. The price list is public, no phone call needed to find out what a three bed costs.
Commercial is different, because no two sites are the same. What moves the number is straightforward enough:
- How much glass there is, and how much of it is above ground floor
- Inside as well as out, or outside only
- How often, since a regular contract prices better per visit than an occasional one
- Access, meaning parking, gates, whether the frontage is on a live road
- Timing, if it needs doing before you open or after you shut
The way we do it is simple. Ant comes out, walks the frontage with you, and you get a fixed price per visit in writing. No survey fee, no obligation, and the price does not move afterwards unless the job does.
Questions we get asked by business owners
Do you clean commercial premises as well as houses?
Yes. Shopfronts, offices, showrooms, pubs and industrial units across Tamworth, usually on a regular contract rather than one off visits.
Can you clean outside our opening hours?
Almost always, and for most sites it is the sensible option. Early starts and end of day cleans keep hoses and wet floors away from your customers.
Is pure water safe around cars and paintwork?
Yes. There is no detergent and no chemical in it, so there is nothing to run down the glass onto paintwork, trim or signage.
How often should a shopfront or showroom be cleaned?
Rough guide: busy high street shopfront every one to two weeks, showroom or forecourt every two to four weeks, office block monthly. Glass on a main road always needs the shorter interval. Polesworth Garage runs on a four weekly cycle and that keeps it right.
Do you clean the inside as well?
Yes, and for showrooms and receptions we usually recommend it. A spotless outer pane only makes a smeared inner one more obvious. Inside is done the traditional way with an applicator and a blade, not pure water, and still from the floor on a pole rather than a ladder.
Are you insured?
Fully insured and DBS checked, with proof of cover sent over before the first visit.
If you run a business anywhere in or around Tamworth and your frontage is letting you down, have a look at the commercial window cleaning we offer, or read more about our window cleaning in Tamworth generally. Then give Ant a ring and he will come and have a look at it.