How a multi-unit job actually runs

1. Send us your count. Unit count and floor count, plus any shared laundry machines or duct openings. Call or text.
2. Get the quote in writing. Your count times the published rates, with access assumptions stated. No sales visit and no proposal meeting.
3. Scheduled in blocks by building, so notices go out accurately and residents are not waiting all day.
4. Dryer running during exterior work wherever someone can start it. Where nobody can, the line gets agitated and then a reverse air ball goes through on our rods. Same price either way.
5. Hood and the full duct run on every unit, not just what is visible from the ladder. Lint trap housings and hose upgrades are $98 a unit, only where you want them.
6. A unit-by-unit record at the end. What was done, what could not be accessed, and anything found that maintenance should look at.

The quote needs two numbers: unit count and floor count. How quoting works.

Paperwork before anything is signed

Send your vendor requirements along with the unit and floor count. We tell you straight which ones we meet, get the documents to your office before anything is signed, and no work starts until your file is complete. W-9 whenever you need it, the same person on our end every time, and billing broken out line by line.

The dryer runs while we clean from outside

Worth understanding because it separates a real job from a fast one, and it is the question to ask anybody bidding against us. If a contractor tells you it makes no difference whether the dryer is on, they are describing the fast version. It makes a difference, and we would rather be straight about that than pretend otherwise.

Cleaning a vent from the exterior without the dryer running just agitates the lint and leaves it sitting in the duct. It looks clean at the hood. Then the resident runs a load, the loosened lint moves, and some of it blows straight out into the yard or packs somewhere worse.

With the dryer running, the airflow carries what we break loose all the way out of the duct while we are standing there, which is the entire point.

That means access to the unit, or at minimum somebody able to start the dryer. On an occupied property that takes coordination, which is why scheduling gets as much attention on this site as the cleaning does.

Where a dryer cannot be started, we agitate the line first to break the lint loose, then run a reverse air ball on our rods to drive it back out the exterior end. It is a good fallback and it is not the default. The price is the same either way, and the unit-by-unit record shows which units got which.

A suggestion, not a requirement: if management can arrange for someone to start each dryer as we reach the unit, whether that is maintenance walking the building with us or staff at turnover, that is how you get the best result. If it cannot be arranged, the job still gets done properly at the same rate.

First and second floor from the exterior, third floor and up from inside the unit unless the vents run to a roof we can reach, and no lifts across your landscaping. What we can reach.

The change order problem

Worth naming because it is the thing property managers get burned on.

A contractor bids one flat number. Mid-job they discover the third floor, or the units that need interior access, or that half the closets have doors that do not clear. Then they come back for more money, and you are the one explaining it to an owner.

Published rates fix that. The quote is your count times the rate card. If the real count differs, the invoice is the real count times the same rate card, and nothing gets renegotiated in the parking lot.

After the job

Every job ends with a dated record by unit number: serviced, not accessed, or flagged. Photos of the vents worth seeing are uploaded with it. What goes in the record.

Net 30 is standard once a job passes $5,000. Payment terms.

Questions