JFife

I have to remove some wallpaper border from my house, and was wondering if anyone had any tips. Guy was telling me that you can mix Downy 1:1 with water and it will remove wallpaper better than any stripper you can find at the store. Any input??

"Do Little", (LOL) That was really funny, I was dying laughing! Listen, think long and hard about what you're willing to put your name on. Would you mind if McDonald's changed it's name to Doolittle's and gave you ownership?? You'd be the ultimate food lowballer, but you'd be making some serious paper and wouldn't mind looking at yourself in the mirror every morning. I am sure you know of Sunbrite in ATL, they sure as heck aren't sanding decks and doing 1000 a year. They are fast, reasonably priced and do work in line with what they charge. Read, "The E-Myth Revisited", believe the author is Gerber.

.......or be a lowballer yourself, like Mike's reference to Walmart. There is nothing wrong with doing lower quality work. People say, "do your best!". You can do your best at doing average work, charge less and do more work. If you feel that you have to do 'the very best' job imaginable, be prepared to lose a lot of estimates until you get your niche. Find a company to model yourself after, let's use cars as an analogy. Low=Kia Middle=Ford Upper=Benz High=Lambo I'd say I fall around Acura/BMW. I can do better at my work than I do, but it works for me and seems to work for my customers. Maybe in your area, you need to market yourself and price yourself like a Ford, and give Ford quality. Works fine, low on the bells and whistles. If you want to be at the upper end, prepare to expand your market area, and boost quality to primo. Or maybe go down to the Kia, and just spray bleach on houses and decks and rinse, and collect your money. I find nothing wrong with that, as long as the customer knows what to expect and that is what they choose.

One thing---be careful of the measuring stick of success you are using. I am not sure about the demographics of Fayetteville, I known it is south Atl., but you cannot compare your money to someone in Cali, phily or nyc. They may charge more and make more, but the house you live in that cost 100K (just a #) would cost them 300-500K. that is just life, you gotta charge what the market will bear. I wouldn't expect a guy working on his own in your area to make more than 60-75K, if you are working pretty hard. Granted, the prices you quoted are lowball, but just don't compare yourself to people in nyc and expect to make as much per job as them. jon

Ken, Aplus, Timbor is DOT (short for the chem. name), or borate. Effective for fungus reduction and deterent for some insects. Just plain borate is just a surface product, if you want good results you have to use a Glycol-Borate, which carries the borate into the wood fully. these are very expensive, like maybe $0.25 per sq.ft. But kills everything in it's way, which makes it popular for a wood home. Yes Aplus, mix at (I think?) 10% and apply, and don't rinse. Apply to wet wood. I cannot provide concrete data as to why it makes buffing easier, but I know and others I've talked with know that is does for some reason. Perhaps the reason is that it is similar to a salt, which might "crustify" the fuzz. I don't know, wouldn't cost much to try for yourself though. Even if I couldn't get someone to bite on the up-sell of the Borate on a home, I'd apply anyway just to make my life easier. jon

Ken, Here's a Q. What was the temp?? Strippers work best at 72deg., so this time of year.....maybe the first deck was on a colder day, which you might not have paid any attention to. Another thought.....maybe with the light pressure there was less water ricochete (sp?) and you could see your work better, and it gave you impression you were doing a better job. I dunno, these are just the two things I thought of.

Celeste, go to their site, call and find a local distributor. Most likely will have to order. Ken, Which product was it?? They have about 15 different strippers. The 310 I use is only for removing a film or coating, and won't remove penetrated stain. It would have no noticable effect on, say, Readyseal. Obviously, anything penetrating can easily be removed w/ naoh, but the coatings are what is tough. Beth, What's in it?? No clue. Tried to figure it out with no luck. It is comparable to the likes of Back To Nature, Peel Away (i think) and a few other coating removers. Remember, it is only for taking off a coating. It'll go through about 10-15 coats of paint. YOu apply with airless, let sit, and the coating starts wrinkling like an old man's skin. Before long, it literally starts falling off the wall. Then you hit with light pressure, and the coating comes off with no ill effects to the substrate. Now, if the paint or DEK or Cetol or whatever was applied over dirty wood, you'll still have to refinish the wood. Often paint may be applied to a deck that they were unhappy with the stain color, and if you stripped off the paint, you'd be left with this stained deck. So if you bid a job to use something like this, note that restoring the wood may be necessary, and will cost additional.

2hrs??? hmmm, sounds like a gummy Osborne to me. If you want to make buffing easier, apply some Timbor after stripping, then come back and buff in a few days. For some unknown reason to me, borate makes buffing much easier. A 5'er would probably cover 40 decks, cost of about $2 per deck for chems.

Removall310 by Biowash, no harsh chems, no sanding, absolutely will work, no guessing,

To anyone just starting out (or experienced for that matter), Henry's last post was about the best I've ever read. jon

BS Biz, I'd like to say that I don't think a degree is as valuable for us as it was for, say, our parents. As far as getting a job goes, I don't even think it helps that much unless you have a specialized degree (engineering, accounting), and if you consider success to be working hard in middle management and topping out around 75K, then get a four year deg. in Business. The value to me was that college teaches you HOW to learn, and more importantly, it gives you a great network. Personally, if i had kids, I'd send them to the military first for two yrs. before letting them go to college. They'd get the partying out of the way, be more serious students, learn discipline and respect, and get some great life lessons. I went to a pretty good private school, and the people i went to school with would not give you an accurate picture of the real world. Most were rich, spoiled, went to work for dad and thought all of that was what the real world was like.

Washaway, I mainly work on log home refinishing and repairs, but do other stuff to fill in gaps sometimes or if it comes along (mostly just decks) jon

I sure hope someone can give me an answer to this question which has been alluding me for years now. I've heard people say they can lower the pressure at the tip with a bigger orifice. Obvious, right?? You put on a soap nozzle, and you get a light spray. But I'd like to get something around 1000-2000psi, and i've heard people say they can do that with a bigger tip (per envirospecs chart). I use 3000psi, 4gpm coldwater, and i've tried following the chart to lower pressure, to no avail. Is it possible that I am lowering the pressure, and just cant tell the difference??? I don't think that's it. I'd expect to be able to hold a wand straight up above my head pointed out with 1000psi and it not blow my arm back. Am I wrong?? Can anyone think of a solution to this, or something I am not doing correctly??? To reiterate, my point is that I can put on a 40deg. tip which should produce 3000psi, and I cannot tell the difference in a 40deg. tip that is larger and is supposed to produce 1000psi. jon

I went to the pwna board today for the first time in ages, and I got to thinking, I never hear anyone talking about it anymore. I remember beth and rod and Mike Hughes were all really involved, but i don't hear about it anymore. I don't really keep up with the pwna, as I don't see it as something that would help my biz that much, and I don't really keep up with the current happenings and debates about the pwna either. I was just wondering, are everett, beth, mike, ron **********, and all the others that were so involved still big on this?? I'm not trying to start another pwna fight, I am just curious about those people, and if they aren't involved anymore, I'd like to know why. If this is a sore subject, kill the thread or erase it, i'm just being nosy. jon

Ken, I wish I knew how to post a link--but here are the directions. Go to: www.lhoti.com, and to the Q and A thread: (Country Log Homes, etc.......), about midway through the thread (about 25 posts) is some very good info on this, the best I've heard yet. Still leaves you with a lot of Q's though, jon

Beth, thats what I mean, I've done that, and can tell no noticable difference from a #4 tip to a #10 tip (all else equal). I'm going to get a pressure gauge and see what it says, perhaps you just cannot tell the difference due to the additional water output.

I wish I was as rich as you guys with your starbucks and such, I personally buy a big tub of Great Value French Roast at Walmart.

aaaahhh, that makes sense now, I have k7 unloaders on my machine, and that is what they do, slowly build. The gauge is a good idea, I'll try that and see, maybe I am using less pressure. thanks again guys, jon

So are you guys suggesting that a different unloader will reduce my pressure?? Honestly, i don't really know what "flow actuated" or any of that stuff means. I usually buy cheap machines and only use them about 200-300hrs. each a year. So can you recommend an unloader to me that might solve this problem?? I know there has to be an easy fix, I've worked side-by-side with Guntars (grime member) and he uses a hot machine from Delco, and he can spray with lower pressure, whereas if i put his wand on my machine, no difference. thanks for the help, jon

Micael, I think your prices are right on, and if you had to go to $900 to get the job 'cause you needed it, you'd get by too. Especially if you don't have insurance, etc. If you do the job for $1000, your chem/stain costs will probably be around $350. Depending on your skill level, you may have 10hrs invested in this job once completed, including some drive time. That leaves you with a profit of $65 an hour, which isn't real bad starting out. Of course, once you pay for biz stuff, etc., you won't bring home close to that. If you need the work, don't be afraid of the low end ($900), if not, a bid closer to $1300 would be closer to professional pricing. Good luck, let us know if you get it, oh, and if using RS to stain, consider using their brightener as well, works better than anything else, and with RS, you need the wood to be as bright as humanly possible. jon

No, no, that's fine, I understand there are passionate feelings on each side and I figured a pwna thread might escalate to this, but I seriously just wondered about those certain people, and if they were no longer involved, I was curious as to why. Ron Mus, you getting bashful in your old age:) Involved or Not????

I don't do the same type of washing as you probably do, but i would guess that your question leaves room for many variables. But, if you had two guys that were costing you 3K each a month out of the gross, 2K for fuel and biz expenses, then taxes, etc., I'd say you'd need to be around 15K for you to make 2-3K a month off of your employees. These are rough numbers, but reasonably close I'd say. Also, if you have money borrowed on the truck and rig, that could easily be another 1K a month expense.

still wondering, are beth, rod, mike H, and Ron Mus, no longer involved with pwna??

Doolittle, I don't really do vinyl washing, but I guy I know well that does bids everything over the phone. 1) you can either charge less, or make more per job since you eliminate the drive, estimate, etc. 2) because of that, you can risk being a little low on your bid 3) if you get to the house and their info was off, re-bid, if they don't want it move on, just like losing an estimate Good to hear from Tim Hays, last I heard you had your figures down to pull out 250K a year?!? Hitting it yet?? Tim is a good guy, saved my butt once about three years ago in North Carolina, we'd done a job there and they needed a little something done after we'd left, I called Tim and he went and did it for me, saved me a fortune and a lot of headaches and two days traveling.......class act all the way. Hope biz is going well for you Tim, jon fife

Ken, It definitely ruffles the feathers when you deal with a woman like that, but as soon as you've determined that she is a jerk and not just playing hardball, get out. She says, "I'll have husband do it again," or, "I've got a guy that will do it for $500," just say to her, "great, I'm sure you'll be pleased with your choice, if ever I can help you again, don't hesitate to call." She'll be taken away by your answer, as opposed to argueing, and she'll always remember you.......especially once the job gets done by her husband, etc. Kind of a passive-aggressive answer, but professional. As far as estimates, keep giving them. The more you give, the higher you can charge. If you've got work till June right now, and an emergency house wash comes up that you'd normally charge$300 for, bid it at $550 and Let It Ride. Be willing to work a few extra hours this week to double your profit??? Probably. I've never been one for set prices, kind of a do a supply vs. demand type of thing. jon