Freshlook

The tone difference can be credited to glarring sunlight, NO CLOUD COVER AT ALL! The before's were taken around 10 a.m and the afters were taken around 3 pm. when the sun was peak. If you look at the 3rd after picture at that little plant in the far left lower corner, check out the shadow and that will tell you the suns position. Yes I did try to get the same angles but if you would like to see them they are even brighter than the one's I've posted. I even tried using my camera's settings to adjust for direct sunlight and STILL no good. I made sure to take enough pictures where one knows it's the same job, the landscaping in the far corner is able to be seen in most of them. I understand your criticism, but when it's 90 degrees out and the sun is hitting the fence it's not always able to be done. sorry don't have the expendable funds to splurge on the $1,300 camera I was eyeing. BUT when I do rest assured that you will have some pretty pics all of the same angle to look at. with a UV filter and all:lglolly: But if your in question that this is the same fence and not a different job here ya go. *Warning-- it's bright, and if you look at the grass you can tell there is no change in settings. Oh.. and Belmont, may I suggest getting a signature line?

that's what I'm worried about, they want to provide the finish and haven't specified. I tried getting them to use my typical brands, but no go.. so we will just have to wait and see. I told them 3 days to let it dry out and I'll be back...

After ---

but your forgetting the snow we had in march, that was a treat. The week before it was in the mid 80's and the next week it had dropped down to low 30's and 2 weeks later back up to the mid 60's and it's been VERY nice down here for awhile now.. How's Military town Wayne? here in the little big city it's clear til the end of the week. high 80's and possibly low 90's is nice weather. just sometimes in this heat i feel like performing haery carrie with my wand just to cool off. YAY, bring on june and july with high 90's and 100% HUMIDITY!!!

creating a database actually isn't hard at all. I learned back in highschool how to do it and that was nearly 10 years ago. I personally like that adaptability it provides as i've learned a few other options available. I'm currently working on a flash website, and I'm working with a real techie on it. He is super smart and is invisioning the capability on my "CONTACT" page to send me a Text message when someone sends me an e-mail (this is easily done by a having a smartphone such as a treo or blackberry etc. and using the e-mail software usually outlook express, which the phone automatically let's you know when you get a new e-mail). He also has a few other theories at hand that I'm kinda questioning and excited about such as a auto-quote. Where a homeowner can go to my website and via using the same spreadsheets I have (BUT IN A SIMPLIFIED VERSION to where a monkey and a tape measure could get the values), be able to get an instant quote for various services. ***of course it will be subject to change upon a visual inspection and the 1st contact where the work contract will be signed**. But i feel that it may reduce the ammount of homeowners who want their 900sq/ft deck stripped brightened, repaired, stained/sealed for $300 and won't budge any higher. just a few things I've got in the workings. he's busy and I'm getting the work done for free so I really can't rush him. right now door to door, and flyer methods are keeping me busy, but I'm focused merely right now on residential, yet when I'm going to target commercial I'll make sure to have all the goodies available to the customer. One thing I've noticed is the elderly typically don't like the internet, so if your going to target them.. lesson learned... websites are useless. :-)

Kevin, I personally use a spreadsheet thru excell and have it integrated / linked into Microsoft Database. So when I enter values into the spreadsheet they are calculated with pre-entered value. then the product of the equasion is transfered to the database to a form I created and prints out with a detailed verson of expenses of material / labor / etc.. It's pretty simple, and i"m looking for a more streamlined method, but it's working for now.

Ok, 2 houses down from my personal residence, a couple has a house for sale with about 1500 ln/ft x 6ft high privacy fence. About 2 months ago I seen a crew outside their house doing landscaping work (MUCH NEEDED) and little odd's and ends to the outside. Well, I noticed that the company which did all the cleaning just used household bleach to clean the wood and left it as is. Ok.. it's ugly but it's not my house and I just laugh everytime I see the whitewashed fence and how much my wife exclaims how ugly it looks, she even points out the rust runs from the nails. NOW, to the fun part. The Realtor selling the house is the step-father of my daughters friend. He came by to pick up his daughter from a sleep over and was asking me what i do. I told him and he then exclaimed what a wonderful job these guys did to the house 2 doors down. I just bit my bottom lip and said sure, I guess so. OH BOY... he said I guess so? what's wrong with it? I then opened up my portfolio of pics to the fences that i've previously done, and showed him the before and after pics. He was a little irritated at this time, but not at me "thank goodness the last thing I want is my daughter to be forbid to going over there", and went to talk to the homeowners. THEN the next thing I knew I had 3 irritated people at my front door, himself and the couple living there. The gentleman asked me why didn't I say something sooner, and I just couldn't help my smart-a-- mouth and said, you recieved my flyer, and seen my truck every day, and if you hired them to do the job, who am I but a passed over contractor. 1 day passes and then I get a phonecall from the company which did the job. Needless to say they are peeved. Once again I don't care and laughed as they called me every name in the book, questioning my ethics and how we need to stick together in this tightly knit industry. I pulled myself together and went from carefree to customer advocate. I simply told him that if they are charging a customer for a service, they should provide the service rather than a disservice, and that I would actually have a hard time conciously collecting ANY money from the job they performed. NOW the bad part, I have good reason to believe that the homeowners are filing a suit against the company and I'm lying REALLY LOW. They came to me and asked me how to correct the problem, beings that 3 couples who were interested in the house commented how bad it looked. I just mentioned to them what is done is done and staining may be their only option. They wanted a quote and I gave them one, $1,200. Their mouths dropped... and exclaimed that they couldn't afford it. Then they wanted to know if I could do anything to help them out or lower the price.. I had a bad day and without really thinking stated, Sure I'll sit on my back deck while you stain your fence and offer a lot of encouragement, and exclaimed that they got what they paid for. The other company charged them $200 for the fence. I was honest and mentioned that if I were to just strip, clean, and brighten their fence, for that price I might merely break even after chemicals, and expenses. Now the fence is still left in the shape it is, and I smile and wave to the homeowners as I pass their house with my equip every day. Taking note to self.. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK!!!!.. but being BRUTALLY HONEST is my biggest flaw... How different should I have handled this situation, and what would you do differently. any other advice I left out to the homeowners?

He was mad at the fact that the job orrigionally done was done improperly, and he was obviously trying sell the house quickly, but looking at the fact that they were only charged $200 I don't see what they expected, unless the company performing the work failed to tell them what exactly to expect. I agree it was grey as a stormy sky before, but now it's looking like a pair of jeans from the 80's.. stonewashed and dingy. I don't see why they would seek legal recourse thou, it's not like they damaged the fencing, it's just merely half done.. well maybe a 1/4'th That may be a good idea to see if they want me to perform the work and get paid when the house sells, but that also poses a dillema when and if the house sells. Heck for the price they are asking it may be a good 5 months, especially considering the interior of the house is very much is need of some love. 10 yr old carpets and a dog don't mix. I don't know I might make good and tell them they can make payments, I typically don't do payments, only paypal via credit card. But after I posted this i seemed to have a little warm spot in my heart for them. After all this is a VERY competitive housing market, and these people live at the end of my caldesac, and cut their grass maybe once a month, and have a chow that likes to make noise all hours of the night. If i help them out maybe their house will sell sooner and I can actually get a neighbor that cares about his/her belongings. Once I'm ready to sell my house, having his as the focal point to my street isn't going to help the matter.

Flipping boards over is really only a viable option if whomever built your deck didn't toenail the heck out of it. Look at your deck and see if you have several nails on the "SIDES" of the boards not at the end but actually lengthwise in the sides, where the boards run perpendicular to the supports. if your counting more than 2 per board I'd say flipping is out of the question as in my experience removing these boards without replacing is highly unlikley and you will most often end up with side splits. On a recent job I had a client wanting to to from a cabot DARK BROWN solid to a semi-transparent honey brown. They tried flipping the boards over after talking to a "Carpender friend" and destroyed nearly 75% of the floor doing so. Then paid me $300 for the tear-offs, $1400 for the rebuild, and $650 for the reclaiming and staining of the rest of the deck with invloved my ever loved 13" planer, belt sander and 6 in. orbital sander, and about 4 12 hr days to finish.. So my advice to you is $1,100 isn't bad, if you don't currently have it, I would suggest you just save a little in the piggy bank each month until you do or else your $1,100 price quote may end up costing you $2,350 because you decided to try to save money and do it yourself. I'm not trying to discourage you, however there is a lot of variables one must look into. Oh and since it's just pressure treated pine, last time I priced them they were just over $7 for a 5x1 12ft long board. Which if your leaving the rest of the deck alone, may just be your best bet

I think there's a middle ground, I myself am not a stereotypical perfectionist, however I do find myself spending more time needlessly doing things I wasn't planning on doing to make a project or job better than anticipated, often at my own expense. I'm not hypercritical, and can accept failure, but try all in my knowledge and power to avoid these circumstances. A lot of people out there just strive for average results or outcomes, just something that looks decent and move on. The dahli lama once said "A way to measure success, is to truely examine what you have to give up to achieve it" There is a lot of wisdom in this as a lot of us have families here and a lot of us have things which suffer, and lack our attention due to our buisness's and other priorities. I currently lost my job as a nurse and although got another one the very next day, it brought me great comfort to realize that I am the person I am. I like to build my life around stability. At all times I have 2 or 3 jobs to cover any possible hardships, and lack of income to support my family of 4. I do this line of work as a part time job, however it's stepped up to a full time job and was able to focus on getting more work lined up to accomidate the lack of a primary income. I also work thru an nursing agency making $27/hr where I pick up shifts when the weather is bad. Perfectionism is something people have as a perception as well, perceptions are only as good as the person whos eye's they belong. What may be perfect to me may not be on the same ideals as to anybody else. I feel that too often people are trying to live up to others expectations, which is why I make it a point to express to my prospective customers, that i never leave a job that dosen't meet the standards to which I would desire on my OWN HOME. I have high standards, however I know that to achieve perfection is a feckless endeavor which will lead to insanity.

Basically in a nutshell, think of yourself as a customer, you don't want a prospective contractor to be pushy, and you want him to be on task. So 3-4 days is adequate. Fair enough? Most questions of this nature can be answered by just putting yourself in your customers shoes. What would you want, and what would you not.

Just FYI most tool rental stores WILL NOT rent a floor sander to work on a deck, 1 raised nail will damage a drum sander, been there myself bud, I got a planer. Nice finish but A LOT of work

Oh I got a 12 year old daughter and a 7 month old little boy, the only tatteling he's going to do is demanding a bottle

I give 3 days, very similar to the infamous 3 day rule when it comes to calling a girl after a date, anything sooner to me seems a tad pushy, and anything longer seems like you forgot about them. I call them back and mention that I'm simply following up with them as I'm trying to develop a schedule for upcoming jobs and if they would like me to book them in a slot. I've never got a BAD response but some do say that they are looking for "OTHER QUOTES" meaning %10 chance of actually getting the job. No need to worry thou as this happens to me about 30% of the time but I land 50% of the call backs and the other 20% just backs out of even wanting it done. If you don't call them back and wait for them to call you, I don't know about your family but mine is awfully forgetful and loses things aka PHONE #'s meaning if your not well known your number is going to be hard to come across and they may end up going with company ABC If you think calling a customer after 1st contact is bad, heh, NEVER go into telemarketing with cold calls, people can be down right NASTY!! but in my opinion rightfully so, I hate when they call at 8AM waking the baby and myself up,!

WOW.... it's my current life story.... and i'm just getting started.. a 12 yr old who thinks she's going on 30

The blades aren't too bad and i charge an additional $30 per deck for the expense. I've done 3 of these so far and still on the same blades without reasonable snipe, or cutting imperfections. Have 4 sets just in case thou. screws are a problem, but via the method I use to resuface deck floors usually involves removing them. It's simple as long as you have access to the underside of the deck and using a tap block just remove boards, remove nails from board, plane down 1/16 of an inch maybe 2 passes if fail to remove imperfections and re-install boards. Goes fairly quickly with a helper doing the removal and nail-outs. I then plane, and reinstall Typically I may run into a few boards here or there that have major cupping or other nasty imperfections where I tell the customer before hand they have the option to replace any distorted boards, or I will simply make them look the best I can I don't offer this option on screw set decks as if the deck is in bad shape, I don't feel like messing with a bunch of rusted screws and the inevitable broken heads...

ha ha ha.. ken I've got a 13" planer I recently acquired I'll let him borrow!!!!

Ok, so I just got back from doing a few reinforcement repairs for a customer, prior services were a strip, and stain, and a driveway clean / crack fill / seal. Now that those are accomplished they are very happy. So happy that they want their White brick house cleaned now. Oh joy, thinking to myself it would have been easier to do house, driveway then deck. The stain is RS and applied approx 2 wks ago and I'm paranoid about messing it up even with covering it with plastic. hd-80's out of the question, bleach isn't going to do much, what other options do I have besides a strong solution of soap and water?

Heh I'm tired of a lot of things at the moment, this has been a heck of a week for myself, and believe it or not I can actually take sanctuary in PW'ing. As some of you all know I am a nurse full time and work part time PW'ing. Well the field of nursing I was in was dealing with clients with MR and developmental disabilities, "LOVED THE JOB", except for someone had it out for me and litterally fabricated a whole story up and caused me to end up in an investigation. I was told earlier this week that I was to be placed on "ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE" until the findings of the investigation were over. I knew the accusiations were all false and didn't have anything to worry about, but something in my heart told me to just get out of there. There are always investigations going on and people are getting fired left and right, so due to the instability the day after I got put on leave I went and got hired at a hospital that's 10 minutes from my house. Now I have a family to support and a new 6 mo old baby to care for and it really makes me feel great that even when I quit my primary job I just picked up my PW'ing and actually made more in a week that i would make in 2 nursing.. Just makes me take satisfaction that I can fall back on something I enjoy doing and get paid for it. When you are out there, tired and beat, feeling like crap, remember "YOU are your own boss and at the end of the day your working for you, and not some beaurocratic swamp-donkey's", and there is NOVELS to be written about the luxery of self employment.

Ken, if you don't mind, would you shoot me that spread sheet as well, I make errors on my calculations and seem to always under calculate, costing me $$$. Usually it's not a gross undercalculation, but usually by 20-50sq/ft. I would love to use a tried and prooven method

He said he used 10 gallons of chem's, so 2 / 2 / 6 would be my mix if your going thru this much chems

Exactly what I was thinking!!! I've also used a polishing (terry cloth style) pad on an electric buffer and a few presprays of simple green. Let sit for 3-5 min and comes off very nice

What was your mixing container? If you were running a 10 gallon container with 5 gal 12%SH and 5 Gal of soap, I'm guessing you were around 6% SH in your mix, Did you use a proportioner with your x-jet? I'm guessing not due to the ammount of chems used? if not at around 1 -1 you were around 3% hitting the house if my math is correct. I've NEVER had to use that high of SH concentration on a house that wasn't FILTHY & not to mention how the plant life likes bleach... Typically 1-1.5% does me fine. And being such a high SH concentrate may explain the shutter issue you had, or you may be correct as when you do clean a house some things show up if they were under dirt/algae/mold etc.. that you didn't notice before. I would try just playing with your mix until you get it right. Different surfactants, concentrations of SH etc... Just be careful

Good luck, that's like being able to understand trig after 1 day of class, it's going to take you awhile to know how to do what your boss is asking you to do. Even the pros who have been in each industry 10-20 years learn something new. New chem's and all other things going on.. Just utilize the search function, and you will easily find the general minimal suggested PW. If your doing this as part of your job I CERTAINLY would not get one from a big box store.

Ok, I'm a little aggrivated at this point to I appologize forward for any comments I might make with assumed irritability. I have ordered a product needed to finish a job that came up in an instant and even called to verify that the package would ship out first thing on monday (ordered friday), As it's now the following friday and on the website of the supplier it still says that the product is pending and not shipped. I tried calling several times and no answer. To me this is a severe strike on professionalism, as I have had to tell my customer that I can't start yet due to not having revieved the needed supplies. ""HOW DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK""!!!!... I am at the point of canceling my order and going thru another supplier to get the desired product, however I want to ask what everyone else would do in this situation. I do realize we can't bash companies by name but for future reference I would gladly accept Private Messages regarding companies NOT to use, as if there is one thing I can't stand is PUNCTUALITY~ when serving the service industry...