jeffex11

sorry for not reading all the posts but I wanted to commend you for doing things your way. I have been taken to task many times on this site for washing and staining in 1 day and still using a extension wand. I appreciate your alternative marketing tactics. As long as you get the results you and your customer want who is to say anything but nice work! My business model is intact and I also use brushes in my house wash. I continue to wash and stain in a day and I belive in my process. I don't like too much pressure near any windows and simply applying chems isn't enough for my taste. I'm always open to new ideas in this business and thats 1/2 the fun of this message board. As klong as I can get great results and maintain repeat customers that put me to sleep with a smile.

olympic maximum 3yr toner. wood tux wet is another although I haven't use that product myself

I charge by the section on fences. I get $30 a section to wash and stain on a fence like in you pictures. usually a fence section is 7 to 8 ft. linear so approx. 32 or so sections $900 is a good price for the fence IMO. My wife and I can wash and stain that fence with 2 machines in 6 hours.

nice finished product!!! 29 gal. sheeesh... thats a thirsty deck!!

what did you bid and did you get the job?

The homeowner called my house to complain that I didn't put the furniture back on the deck after we washed it. Staining was 3 days away. He started out saying he couldn't believe how clean we got the old gazebo and then the real nature of his call emerged. He informed me he thought we had finished early and that we should have put back his stuff. As things went it bacame apparent he was mad it didn't take all day for the price we charged. I took a looong pause before I spoke.... I don't remember bidding on a time frame for washing and staining . I recall you were fine with our price . I told him in 16 yrs of doing this I have never had a problem with a customer being mad about putting back their own furniture. In fact I have little old ladies who have the deck cleared when we get there. He then changed his tune somewhat after I told him I would get in my truck and come down there and put the stuff back if tht was such a deal breaker. This was a big job bid at a good price but I told him I would be glad to settle up with him for what we had done and he could find someone to stain the deck who takes longer. He took a moment of pause this time and started to give us accolades on how clean we got the deck. We showed up Sun. on time and he was a new man. Respectful and happy to se us. 4.5 hrs later we were done and check in hand. His wife was so happy she baked cookies for us and had agrin from ear to ear. As he wrote me the check for the balance he owed he couldn't resist a snidely little comment though. " you don't pay taxes on this I bet". "shure I do " was my comment. "I have insurance as well! He said he couldn't believe how great his deck looked and offered us some drinks for the ride home. I gracioulsy accepted and offered him a thanks and a handshake. I could see a new respect in his eyes for this business and the ability to get things done better and faster than thehomeowner. He still added up on me and hated that I didn' work for $10 an hour.

I noticed a small pressure washer in his garage too. He may be kicking himself for agreeing to pay to have the work done when he saw how easy my wife and I made the job look. No only would he NOT get off the old stain without a chemical such as HD-80 he would take forver as he has a homeowner 6hp powerwasher. I just found it funny that he called under the false pretence that the furniture deal had p'ed him off. A small foot note to this story is the day we showed up to wash the deck he had run his sprinklers all morning and created a swamp around the deck.I called him mon. pm to remind him of our service on thurs. He had what appeared to be hispanic workers installing a new wood floor and tiles on the inside. He obviously looks down his nose at what he views as meanial workers by his lack of respect .You sometimes have to have thick skin as a business owner but in the end the customer was happy and you can see the results. This is NOT a business where we do work a customer can't do, however it is a profession where we can do the job better and faster than most homeowners. Thats what I reminded him what he paid us for!!! Not simply our labor + materials. It took him 2 years to complete the building process himself. I guessing the reason his wife was sooo. happy was WE only took 2 daysto wash and stain it !!!!

oh yeah I forgot the pictures. camera make it a little yellow

lawyers and real estate agents.....WARNING!!!! you did the right thing IMO we all have our memerable customers. In my own experience I have learned to offer a limited color choice and my website shows how the same stain on different decks can look different due to absorbtion of pigment by the age of the wood. A person who wants a test sample get a $$$ increase in price. I sell time so more time is more $ . The one thing I learned is NO reddish stain goes on a deck without a picture being shown to a customer of what they can expect it to look like. The natural toner stains I use on 90% of my work prevents the "I didn't think it would be so red " comments. the darkest stain I use is olymic natural cedar toner and It comes out redwoodish on some older porous decks and light cedar on some newer decks. The honey gold is the safest color I use and make up most of my work.

always a good move to be patient. investment in equipment is a decision process that is individual to each business model. sometimes renting a more expensive piece of equipment can give you a real picture of what it can do to save time on a job or produce better results. It helps calculate the return on the investment vs other alternatives

SSSOOOO what sprayer did you get?

even more amazing is you depend on a forcast to be correct!!! Only kidding!!!! try www.intellicast.com and use the base reflectivity radar. this is the most accurate radar in the sence that it has an element of its composite that looks sideways on the scan . this helps to show h2O that is ACTUALLY hitting the ground unlike conventional radar that shows a green patch on the screen but it is only in the upper atmosphere and doesn't hit the ground!!!. there is a mode (clear air) that will show conditions developing for rain. this does not work as well for winter conditions . One of the greatest tools IMO is the radar for making the decision to stain a deck. I carry my laptop with me on uncertain days and use it to decide. Remember the pop up thunderstorms in summer because they can start right over your head with no advanced radar showing it but the base reflectivity in clear air mode show the developement of conditions building up. Intellicast - Base Reflectivity in ct..., Se here is a sample of the clear air mode where it show a false reading of color pixals around the actual radar site in sterling VA .this is vergo and not actual building up to rain. Click on the animate mode and it will show movement .Remember there is NO guarantee with the weather but it helps make good decisions

mud duck I just bought a spray tech 1420 this yr for $300 from lowes and it works fine. I would buy a better srpayer if you plan on spraying every day though. If your just getting your feet wet on spraying it is a good place to start for the $. I still have my campbel hausfeld cheapo sprayer that last about 4 yrs for me before they start to leak hydraulic fluid . I did repair it though and it still works . When a piece of equipment becomes undependable I replace it and repair it for a backup. I can afford a better sprayer but at less than $100 a year to use one of these its well worth the time savings. How are your skills at masking off with plastic ? I have spent 1/2 hour to 1 hr just getting ready to spray for a deck that takes 1hr or less to spray. My first job with my first sprayer I had bid 12 man hours to hand stain and it took my wife and I ...2 hrs each to spray it. good spraying!!!!

that sounds like exaclty the scenario I had. Gray siding had some white streaks in it. I tried purple stuff to remove and it didn't work. I turned out to be some of the paint from the facia boards that the purple stuff removes in cleaning had dried back on to the vinyl as the house dripped some water from the weep holes in the siding. When we walked the house with the homwowner there was NO streaks . she paid and we left. Her comments were "wow I can't believe how clean everything looks". then the call came later that night that the streaks appeared. As the weep holes bled some remaining water that contained some of thewhite residue it dried on the gray siding I found that 20 to 1 HD-80 or 5 to 1 briteside removed the dried on white stains .

i found a supplier who has a tool much like a drywall pole sander that I want to try using larger sheets of melamine. Pointing out the cost of cleaning vs replacing will be the test for what you can charge to remove large areas. I would say that picture would represent some of the worst I've seen in my travels. Maybe only 25 sq ft per hour on that house by hand. I need to order the pole sander tool and larger sheets and see if that works.

hell I was just defending myself . I ran the hd - 80 at 20 to 1 so it was weak. It was on my own house and just an experiment with a different chem. Just like I started using bleach cleaners instead of vinyl brite this year. I was looking for something to get off oxidation and my brite side did the trick. It was as simple as apply and rinse. It is the same basic formula as hd -80 just weaker. Houses have never been my forte but I have done many over 16 yrs. if the mixture on the website for the cherry stuff works then I may be selling houses more. I think I pointed out that I was looking for help on this site in my posts. I DID learn something here and am willing to take the heat as well. I like to be cautious on customers houses with chems as I'm in no hurry to try out my insurance policy. I've seen what the purple stuff can do to get down to bare aluminum on gutters!!!!! I like having some confidence that the landscaping won't need replacing either so I just go at things a little slower when it comes to chemicals. I found a alternative outdoor bleach for $4 for 1.4 gal at lowes. comes in a 2 pack for $7.98 . I did a entire house thursday for $4 in cleaner

ordered the simple cherry and the f-13 this am . scheduling 2 houses in the same day to take advantage of the time saving. right across the street from each other in 2 wks. primarily I prefer to do decks ( as the name of my business is deckdoctor pressure washing) but if this system works I may push for more houses.

well since your post I tried using hd-80 at about 20 to 1 and downstreaming it on my own house. 4 to 1 mixture then downstreamed at 5 to 1 . baiscall the cleaner did all the work and I rinsed it with the garden hose I spot sprayed and use an extension wand and brush to touch up some spots. .......you are RIGHT!!! and I have learned something new. so now I can be an unprofessional , don't know what I'm doing ,using homwowner tactics, in business for 16 years(God knows How) , that gets done a little faster!!!! thanks for the push to something new!!! this year I found the bleach products did all the scrubbing for me and had killed the mold before you could finish spraying it on . As I stated I was reluctant to let it fly since I had not used it before and wanted to control where it landed. I bow to your superiority!!!! old dogs can learn new tricks.

thanks Jon that is what the owner of the company touted! what did you charge per sq ft. I have the 2 part wet look

yes some don't even know about it.

indeed! i remember the first time I save a guys a$$ by getting the stain off the back of his house because of his do-it-yourself spray job to stain his deck. They were getting estimates for reploacing the siding when I told them I could get it off for $375 . she couldn't write the check fast enough!!! I hope for a few feel good moments with this product too!

I will be up selling this service now!!! it was embarising to have to tell a customer I couldn't get something off their house. it works great on black marks on white vinyl railings from the p wash hoses too!!!

WOW!!!! that sh$# works like charm! a lot of elbow grease but it works. no residue at all except in a few minor concave parts of the texture of the siding. now it just need to find a big piece of it .!