Atlantic Power Washing

Always start out the new season with new hoses; around 300 ft. Once one breaks, trash it and pull out a new one. You will save yourself alot of time. I used to repair my hoses and found that they would only last a few weeks at best before they would break in another spot. The hoses would usally break right in the middle of a job after I just finished soaping a house. New hoses will last me almost a year without any problems.

The guy who fills my 55 g. chloreen tanks accidently filled one that had maybe a cup of muratic in it and we almost had to take him to the hospital. I wasn't home when he showed up to fill my tanks, but I arrived shortly after. He was sweeting perfusably and couldn't catch his breath. It was a scary moment. As these guys have stated,never mix chloreen and muratic!

last year was $105,000 and my over head was $27,500..Right now I'm at $69,629, but i have $4,290 on the street......last year at this time i was at $71,696 that's -2.9% over last year but i hope to catch things up soon. I have never been down on my numbers since i started business in "97" I have grown at least 10% each year.

Have you ever polished aluminum before? then you know when aluminum breaks down it turns black. Anywhere there is aluminum you will find black steaks. Crown molding under windows where they used aluminum flashing on top, the aluminum breaks down and bleeds on to the painted wood below. Water flowing down aluminum couses fricktion that breaks down the aluminum and then you have a black streak. When it rains the outside of the gutter get wet too and the water puddles up on the top ledge of the gutter (it actually goes behind the pores of the paint and breaks down the aluminum) and then rolls down the front side of the gutter. So the black streaks are actually the broken down aluminum particals itself.

Mid July threw August is always a slow period for residual work. People just aren’t out enjoying the nice weather anymore, the kids are out of school and people are on vacation a lot. This year, here on the east coast, it has been VERY hot and humid and people were staying in their houses, even the grass around here wasn't getting cut. That's why this years slow summer period was slower than usual. What I do is take my income from the privies year say $105,000 then subtract your overhead. $30,000, then divide $75,000 into 52 weeks......your weekly salary is $1,442. If your wife is helping you by answering phones, scheduling jobs, paying the bills, keeping the books straight and what have you, then a portion of that money goes to her...$600. So your income is $842 week. never take a penny more even if you have a week where you make $5,000......this way you should be able to pull yourself threw the slow months of summer and the real slow months of winter. Hope this helps.

I use a 2001 Ford F-250 5.4L 4x4. It pulls a 6.5x16 trailer. I also just purchaced the new 2005 Toyota Tacoma V6. I am using this truck for estimates and personal use.

I agree....and you should write down the item # of what you are buying before you call to place an order.

Nothing will kill mildew except for sodium hyporchlorite.......What espec is saying is that with their chem (premier) and HIGH PRESSURE it will remove mildew, but it is still microscopically there and will return faster than if you kill it. It's like mowing your weeds vrs killing them.

Well Permier is a house wash chem....so i would assume he's refering to house wash. Beth, does the house wash you carry use a sodium hydroxide base, or is it an acid base?

Cox hose reels are the best if you want a reel that is strong and sturdy. I've used all the rest (rapid reel, hose track, silver eagle's SS) and none of them perform as well. However, there is a problem with the powder coating. Mine have all blistered up withen a few months of being on my open trailer. By the end of the year they are ready to be replaced with new ones, only because of the rust. I bought 3 sets of them, I keep buying them because i like how sturdy they are and the ball bearings around the shaft. Yes I do down stream chlorine threw the high pressure reel and i know that that contributes to my rust problem. I have to buy another set for this season. If Cox would use the same PCing process as honda uses on their engines, and garentee them for life, they could have a whole new line of reels and charge twice as much for them and i would be the first pay the extra $$$ because i would know that i have a reel that would last forever. The only thing that would need to be replaced would be the swivel once in awhile. I know Cox makes a SS reel but do make one that used the same gauge SS and the weight of their standard blue reels?

Furring comes from your chemicals being mixed too strong....spliters come from too much pressure. Over time you will be able to look at a deck and gauge how much pressure, what type of cleaner to use (bleach, sodium hydroxide, pre carb.) and how strong to apply the cleaner. Always use the bare minimume amount of cleaner to get the job done and you will not have a furring problem. Same goes with pressure.....if you start to see little spiters, back off the pressure some. Hope this helps. Good luck.

I'd like to apoligise to TGS....i didn't realise they sold cox reels on this site. My reels are close to my chlorine tank so what ever is within a 5 ft radius rust.

The only thing i don't care for with the cox reels is they seem to rust easly. Hose track reels arn't as sturdy as the cox but they have a better powder coating on them and will not rust. If cox would just make a stainless steal hose reel, that would be the ultimate hose reel.

Hey John, you're not far from me, i'm in fredericksburg. Have you tried Jones chemicals? they're in ladysmith. $1.10 per gallon 100 gal min. there's also Dominion chemical and i believe they are close to you as well. they deliver to me 100 gal every 2 weeks and i think the cost is $1.30 per gal.

I wasn't gonna mention any names, but yeah that's it.

I have never etched windows with bleach.......I have had a problem with limo-something. I bought 6 boxes of this at one time. after using the first one and having to go back on the windows and buff the steaks out, I ended up giving the other 5 boxes away to my competitor......and he thought I was just being a nice guy. I believe it is the citric acid in this product that caused the etching.

I cleaned and sealed a deck in the early part of July. I talked with the guy today and he asked if I would come and look at it because it looked really old and white spots all over it.....That puzzled me because I know I cleaned it properly, I’ve been doing this for eight years now. So I went out today and looked at it....The white spots were sap coming through since the wood was drying on the inside, but what puzzled me the most was the amount of mildew that had grown on it in 2 months time.....the sealer I used was Wolmans rain coat cedar....I sprayed it on with an airless and brushed the whole deck, meaning I would spray 5 boards and then brush the sealer into the wood. I asked if it was repelling the water, they said "yes it was". I wanted to see for myself, so I took a hose and sprayed it down and sure enough it was repelling 100%....So I asked if was still wet in the mornings(after a rain in the evenings) and what time it dries...They said " well before you sealed the deck, it was usually dry but now it's wet until about 11:00 or 12:00 when the suns comes to the back side of the house"....So my conclusion is since this sealer is not allowing any water in the wood, the water just sits on top and beads until the sun dries it up around noon.....Mildew spurs are floating around and attaching themselves to the beads of water.....in fact, the deck looks like a leopard now, big black spots that look like beads of water......Anyways, what a weird predicament. Since my sealer is doing it's job I have to go and clean the deck again after just 2 months.

The Rain Coat is Wolmans water base product. Yes it's on the surface and is not comeing from the wood. I'm going back out there today to take some pics and i will post them when i get back.

Hey Gavin, yes i do use a surface cleaner in the garage but not on the concrete driveways and sidewalks. The reason for this is because the garage has a smooth finish and the driveways and sidewalks have a soft top layer finish. if you use the surface cleaner it will leave over lap marks. I can teach you to do the whole job in about an hour with less than 1000 psi. but it would take a lot of typing so if you want you can contact me at www.atlanticpowerwashing.com i will be glad to help.

Hey Gavin, we do a lot of new construction and one thing you should keep in mind is that if you are using water at 200 degrees make sure that the hose is not stretched across the lawn or it will burn the grass...The only time I use hot water is when I’m cleaning the front porch or stoop to remove the paint drips. If you are cleaning the sidewalks and curbs that are stained with mud, you can use a very light solution of muratic acid 1-20... I hope this helps.

Alan...why not just put the chemicals down with a regular gun and then switch to your surface cleaner?

Rob......i think some people use high pressure soap for fleet cleaning, they use chemicals that are safe to run thru the pump.....Never make the mistake of running chlorine thru your pump as i'm sure most of you know this..i made the mistake myself and ended up replacing the pump.

I have ran into a similar problem...I have a 5 gallon tank that is hooked to a 3 way valve. If you turn it one way it pulls from the 225 gallon tank, turn it the other way and it pulls from the 5 gallon tank...I keep antifreeze in the 5 gallon tank so that when I’m done at the end of the day all I have to do is flip the valve and it will run antifreeze thru the system......The problem I run into is, a lot of times I forget to open the trigger on the gun, so when I start the pressure washer, it goes into bypass immediately, and before I realize my mistake, it pulls all my antifreeze into the larger tank, because that is where the bypass water goes..

Bigger tips equal less pressure, and smaller tips equal less gpm. That can not be applied to all machines as they need the correct type of unloader to perform this. High psi and less volume can be as useful as low psi, and high volume. Just depends on the situation. Can i get an AMEN?:D

Sometimes it is necessary to reduce the water flow, one example for me is when I clean foundations for builders that have already put mulch in around the house, it still takes a lot of pressure to remove the mud from the foundation but if you keep the flow at 8 GPM it would blow the mulch everywhere. When it comes time for me to rinse the driveways and sidewalks I switch to a # 20 tip, my flow goes up and pressure drops down, now I’m not blowing the pee out of everything….. Also when cleaning decks a high flow will damage the wood. It takes a certain amount of pressure to clean the wood but if you meet that pressure requirement at 8 GPM it will splinter the wood. I like to use about 1,800 to 2,000 PSI @ 4 or 5 GPM. One last example, if your removing gum and you still want your high pressure, but very, very HOT water, you have to sometimes reduce the flow, so here you would go to a smaller tip size. I think of it like this, a # 4 tip will only allow so much water to flow thru it, the more water that flows thru it, the higher the pressure. Your pump will not push 8 GPM thru a # 4 tip unless it is like a 7,000 PSI pump. If you have an 8 GPM pump, the pump is always going to pump a full 8 GPM at full throttle. If you reduce the tip size the extra water has to go somewhere, it goes into bypass.( pressure type unloader only) Forgive me if I made absolutely no since…It’s too early in the morning....... :coffee: