AAPaint

Oh yeah, the house has been totally neglected, but it will clean up nice. I did a test and it shouldn't be too bad to do. The job includes a pt deck as well, which has thick black mold on it. I should know something in a day or two.

Very nice work. Hoping to close the deal on a cedar house myself here soon. We will see.

Axe the spammer!

Man, I wish Ron. We're running 100F for a while now, and no end in sight. Weatherman says 100F all next week, and we're stuck working in it. No letting up!

Hey Pete, fill out your signature. House rules, everyone needs a sig.

Shouldn't make any difference. I've had them run up, down, sideways, doesn't matter. It's a venturi effect, so the position doesn't matter.

You deserve every bit of it Russ. Thanks for being an awesome supplier.

I have no reason to question your integrity, but I would love to hear what's being said, and I appreciate you and everyone else sticking their neck out for this stuff. Thanks!

There are a number of good ones. One fella who will do you real good is Russ Johnson at Southside Equipment. I recently spent about $1200+ with him, and he's a great guy to deal with. Check him out here: http://www.pressurewasherky.us/ There are others that I think are good, and have used such as Sunbrite Supply and PressureTek also. Always had good service from all of them.

Hey Ron, I did read the card, and I actually downloaded and read both PDF's. I admit, I did scan through some areas and not read every last word, but I did miss the part about wood care. I am highly concerned about all of this, whether my area is good or not. I don't want this kind of thing to start spreading. This issue is like a virus to our industry, and should be quarantined and snuffed out asap.

Glad it all turned out ok. Your trials seem to detail why the professionals charge what they do for a job like this. Enjoy the results of your hard work, you certainly earned it.

Very interesting to say the least. Concrete is probably one of the most complicated surfaces to deal with cleaning and sealing, staining, or painting. Concrete is made by a chemical reaction, treating it involves chemical reactions, and those reactions can rear their heads in many coatings situations, and if you're not sure what you are dealing with, you can really lose your rear over it. Over and above every other substrate, concrete is the hardest to deal with. I know from coating thousands upon thousands of square feet of concrete that one wrong move, can cost big money. Glad to see it worked out in your favor this time. Not every contractor who's dealt with concrete has been so lucky, like the installer in this case!

After reading, it doesn't seem to apply that much to house washing. Chlorine isn't among the contaminants they are talking about, and doesn't pose any heavy metal risk. As long as you're not blasting lead paint, I don't see a real issue. There may be some concern for rust removal and surface cleaning. Whatever the case, someone should step up and try to nip this in the bud.

It looks like a hard troweled finish. I don't know what they call it, but it's smooth and shinier than the other concrete in the before pictures. I've done acid staining, color staining, and a few other things with concrete. I know when it's that smooth (first pics) it's hard to get a finish to take. Maybe it's power troweled smooth finish. Can't think of what that's called. Ahh, maybe it's just wet...but that's positively calcium and magnesium buildup on the surface. That's what the white stuff in hard water is. Educate us some more.

Yeah, mine does me good, but look at Guy's stuff. His rigs are f'in awesome. I need an upper rack like he's got for ladders, and I'll eventually go to a 5.5gpm machine, but for now I need to get things done and build this business back to where my old one was. Then we'll talk big guns. We're plenty busy, but we're still in the beginning stages, so it's kind of like peddling a bicycle up hill. It's real hard work, but we can see the goal, and know we will get there. Right now our NEEDS are fulfilled as far as equipment, and when we crest the top of the hill and start rolling down the other side, we'll move on to the WANTS.

Here are the pics you requested KGILL. You can see, it's not very complicated, and I have a ton of extra space between my toolbox and my rig and chem tank. I can wash about 12 or 13 houses before I have to refill my chem tank. If I need, I can haul 60 gallons of stain, all my buckets of stripper, brightener, and percarb cleaner, which I store unmixed in 5 gallon buckets. I can put my chem pump cart on the back, I can haul extra hose, pump up sprayers, and even fit my 8' ladder down the center between the rig and chem tank. The only thing I can't do easily is haul my 28' extension ladder. I can strap it on, but it's not an easy deal. I'm thinking of adding a ladder rack above everything. One difference you'll notice between mine, and the one I linked to is, my rig is turned around the other way. The exhaust was way too hot blowing on the hose reels, so I had to switch it around. It makes starting a little trickier, because it's pull start, but it's a honda, so it's only one pull anyway. I plan on closing in those sides between the tool box and chem tank/rig and putting signs on the sides there, but I just haven't gotten to it. Been too busy making money with this thing to change anything.

You nailed it Tonyg. I use the software to put me in the ballpark, and experience to tell me when it's not where it needs to be. Like I said, I can adjust it on the fly with a couple of clicks. It also does more for me than help with my pricing. It prints my proposals in a very neat, professional manner that would take an hour if typed out by hand. With this program, I input their info, put in my measurements, hit print, and wham, I have an awesome looking proposal. Then I have another form I keep my terms on, I pick which ones fit the current job, cut and paste them to the end, and within minutes I have an extremely detailed contract that looks clean, and professional, and is extremely detailed. I've tried, and there is simply no way I can come close to producing proposals and contracts like I do with this software manually. I type about 80wpm and I still would take forever to format and compile everything like it does for me with a few clicks. If anyone wants to see a sample of my proposals, shoot me your email and I'll show you what's possible. I'm not advocating anyone changing what works for them, I'm just saying there are more than one way to skin a cat!

It works, you just have to know where you stand on everything. It actually helps me be more accurate than I can just guessing at things. This program lets me have different variables for almost anything, and to even adjust the entire bid by a percentage on the fly. It's far more advanced than just a spread sheet, and I know many people in the coatings industry using it. Wood has variables, but painting has thousands of variables as well. Everything from clapboard siding to stucco, dryvit, hardy board, lap siding, t-111 panels, you name it. Then you have things like concrete which can be stained, painted, acid stained, color toned, textured, non-textured etc. Heck, crown molding and baseboards come in dozens of different configurations, but once I've nailed down our cost on one type, I'm done, and don't have to think about it anymore. It takes maybe three clicks to estimate the whole thing. You get out of it what you put into it. The beauty is, once you've set up a rate for one known variable, you never have to touch it again unless you simply want to tweak it for inflation/rising costs. Even things like railings, balusters, etc. once you have a cost, then it's a couple clicks for the whole thing. On the other side of the fence, I know many guys who won't use anything but a piece of paper to estimate by, and don't even measure what they're doing. Then I know some with arbitrary figures per sq. ft. that correlate with absolutely nothing in the real world. In the end, it's personal preference. This software allows me to make very neat, professional proposals in just minutes, and I simply couldn't live without it. Many old timers might not like it, but after 13 years in the coatings industry, whether it's painting houses or staining wood, I love it.

Jimmy Page, Alex Lifeson, David Gilmore....the list goes on!

Well, if fitting in the garage is a concern, I know my new 5x10 open trailer barely fits our 1 car garage with the tongue length. I have plenty of room for my rig, a 65 gallon chem tank (not using a buffer right now), a big tool box, stacked 18" summit hose reels, and I can squeeze in a number of other things in the free space like my chemical pump cart, surface cleaner, buckets of stain, and other materials. If you plan it right, you can get a lot of stuff on a 5x10 trailer, but keep in mind, I do mostly house washes and wood, so I don't need a ton of stuff. Think about what you're trying to accomplish with the trailer, and go from there. It's not super easy planning it all out, but it's not rocket science either. Everyone's needs are different, but the end result is fairly similar in one way or another. Since I knew I was going with an open trailer, and a minimalist setup, I used this to give me ideas: NEW DESIGN! 8' XD Trailer - Our New Affordable "Business In A Box" Special! 4 GPM, 4000 PSI,HOT WATER TRAILER RIG - Sun Brite Shop-Built Custom Trailer Rigs This is very similar to how mine came out in the end, except no hot box, and a chem tank instead.

Try it out, you might like it. I know I do. It's what I use to estimate everything. It's built mostly for painters, but works to estimate any surface coatings if you know your production rates and costs well enough.

Very nice. That's the kind of thing we're all hoping for....EARNING a big account is tops. Great work!

Allstarwindow, make sure you get your forum signature filled out pronto. It's an important rule here. With rigs, more flow is always better, but do what you can. If you can get 5gpm and 100 gal tank you'll be ok to start with. Especially if window washing is still your primary business. More flow just means faster completion, period. I just built an open 5x10 trailer, but an enclosed one would be nice too. Each has advantages and disadvantages. For instance, with my open trailer, it doesn't have a rack for ladders. I may have to custom build one, but an enclosed trailer you can put regular ladder racks right on top. Any school on the subject will help you, or you will be learning by hard knocks like a lot of us have. If you have a successful business already, you know you need to define what you're going to do properly, and that will provide many of the other answers you are looking for.

Happy birthday!

Thanks Beth, and Rod for the previous reply. We are on the same page. 8 man hours with two men should be four hours per man. That's what I was getting at. I think it was the wording above that confused me.