Jeff

You know I was thinking about how I got the job we did the other day at the golf course we did the concrete etc. The Golf Pro/GM told me that he called a Friend, who said theres a guy who does good work and he gave him a name of a neighborhood in which I did work for the HOA. The Pro said he asked the HOA prez if he could recommend/refer a good PW company and as the Pro told me, I came highly recommended, so thats why he called me So I was thinking back on how I got the job in the neighborhood that referred me to this pro. Its a long list of people & companies that got me this last job at the course, I found it kind of interesting trying to look back and see how I got this job. I always since I started PWing would ask my customers to please refer me to others and even now with larger commercial I ask them to refer me, I send them a letter thanking them for the job and please pass my name onto others. IT WORKS!!!!!! Well hear goes "How I got the job at the golf course" Its going to be another long Jeff post:rolleyes: Approximately in early 2002 I did a house wash in my mothers neighborhood, small little house owned by a nice guy and as I was finishing he came out and we talked annd I asked him to please tell others about me As I was loading up a SUV pulled up to talk to my customer, then the customer introduced me. The guy was the PM for the neighborhood, large PM company. He asked me if I was interested in a job, YES, He asked if I had a way of doing a job with no water hook ups, I said SURE, I didnt but I didnt tell him. They wanted a bid to clean the community mailbox areas the little structures and some small concrete pads. Gave him bid it was around $900, a pretty big job for me back then. I got the job and called Jim Carroll and Jim got me one of those square water totes 330 gallons. I did the job with a 3gpm direct drive and I toted the tank in the back of my pickup with the machine, the machine being direct drive I had to put it on the ground for gravity feed. Did the job, came out great and submitted invoice I called the PM and thanked him for the work and asked him for more work and please pass my name on. I remember about this PM, the 1st time I met him, I thought he was kind of snotty/stuck up,but I still asked for more work PM called and asked me for 2 bids on 2 neighborhood pool areas, got both jobs, decent money again, alot more than my house washes Some time later, months later after I had called & written this PM a few more times asking for work I got another call from another PM with same company. He said Dan (PM) had refered me, this PM asked me for bids on 2 neighborhood pool areas, did the jobs and asked him for more work, a couple weeks later another referall from Dan to another PM in his company, I did 5, 5-story condos I did the stairs leading up all 5 floors These 3 PM's I still work for on several projects alot of residential neighbor hoods and and some smaller condo complexes. Quite abit of $$$ over the few years now. I still call, write & fax them for work. I do about15 neighborhood pool & common area work for them along with all the residental people who see me working and ask for estimates and several small condos, Wild guess Id say IVe gotten around 150K - 175K of work directly from them since 2002 Alright now we are into 2003, again still doing work for these PM's. But havent heard from dan in many many months. I get call from 3 residentail customers who Dan refered them to me. These were very rich homes on a local river I did the homes and thanked them and asked for work. I call Dan & thank him, he says the rich neighborhood HOA prez liked how i cleaned his house now the want a price to do all neighborhood street signs. I do job 2004/2005 get a call from a lady PM and she wants price on 7 large huge very nice townhome buildins in the richest neighborhoods in this area. I mean RICH. I get the job and make a killing done in 6 days over 10K. I have also gotten 2 other jobs from her, over 4K & 6K and this PM has referred me to others Then in late 2004, still doing working for these PM's and still getting a lot of residential referralls from the PM's & the homeowners. I get a call from another PM of this same large company and he asks me to look at a project, its common area concrete curbs, & sidewalks and common area signs, the job was over $4500 we cleaned all concrete & did rust removal took about 8 days, underestimated it pretty bad, but still did a great job and HOA was thrilled and they gave me a free ad in their newsletter and got several residential jobs. I have now done the concrete again at a higher price and will be doing it every year. NOW THIS NEIGHBORHOOD is the one that just refered me to the Golf Pro. Now this Golf Pro is setting me up with the head of maintenance and he wants a price on all the wood bridges on 9 golf courses and Im sure I get much of the PWing work for the courses. This course is owned by a company that has several large condo towers in this area, some I bidding on right now from another large PM company. The Pro also told me he was going to write me up a letter thanking me and referring us to others, he also said he's submitting it to the right people in cooperate office, Totally cool guy and who knows where his referalls will lead Ive done hundreds of jobs residential & commercial made big bucks from this one house wash I did in 2002. Im in with several PM's because of this house wash.......WHY??? because I asked them ALL to please pass my name on. I know this is just another Jeff story, but I just wanted to point out what 1 referall can lead to and if you just do good work and ask others to help you, like i say the skies the limit!!!!!! The moral of this story "Ask and tho shall receive" Its amazing what one little job can lead to, so when your out there and your packing up you equipment, make it a point to thank your customer and ask them to pass on your name to others, You just never know where its going to lead. Now go out & clean something!!!!!!!!!!:lgsideway LIFE IS GOOD JL

Man what happened to your shoulder, hope its healing OK, As my late (very missed) Dad used to say, everything always gets better!!! Good luck to you JL

Just wondering what your biggest or most challenging job/project was, residential or commercial Post some pics if you have them Just want to hear what you all do for projects JL

Did a job yesterday & finished this morning it was 15K of old rusty concrete at a local golf course we also did some other areas & 2 wood bridges at the course, they are getting it cleaned for an rating from a golf assoc. The Pro who runs it is a real nice guy. Well everyone one was thrilled how clean we got the concrete. Concrete had a ton of exposed aggregate, real rough and it had a ton of irrigation rust all over it. We cleaned it and applied Oxalic twice to it. I was real happy how it came out, it got rid of over 90% of the rust and in spots the rust was almost black. We also did 2 wood bridges, came out nice we just used bleach & some pressure , the bridges were pretty beat. When I bid this job the Pro told me I was highly recommended by another property. He had said about the wood bridges that the head of Maint. wanted to talk to me about another NINE (9), so today the Head of Maint. came to me and said how everyone was thrilled with the job we did and our professionalism, I thanked him. He asked me to set up an Maintenance program for the other NINE (9). Well go to find out as we talked he was talking about NINE other golf course which have several bridges on each. TOTALLY COOL, NINE course do the bridges every year. Man God is good to me stuff just gets handed to me on a silver platter sometimes. I dont know if I'll get them but they are just asking me to bid on them because of our reputation OK question if I clean these is there anything good to seal them with, lots of golf cart traffic. WHAT A GOOD SEALER/Stain for Heavy traffic? Plus Im going to have to set up some kind of rig I can take out on course JL

Last time I was on a bosuns chair it was at a nuke plant and they took this big motor of this water treatment pit, it was about 15 feet across and it was about 40FT down to sea water below we hung the chair off a large pipe and I got init and lowered myself down. I was to PW off the barnicles. As soon as I hit the trigger I started spinning , Itried that for a minute or 2 then we tied a piece of wood to the gun to try to prop it against the inner wall, spun again, they had supers above watching, everyone was laughing, after spinning for 15 minutes I told them forget it. Then I tried to pull myself up the ropes swelled and were real slick I almost went for a swim. I got up top and was dizzy all my crew were laughing their ****** off. The motor went back on the next day. Just another fun day at the office JL

Its a Spider basket, like a swing stage but for one man. On roof its a rolling counterweight rig, so you can just roll it around the roof. Its when you cant go off of the paraphet walls. Its funky set up all that is holding the weight & you is about 2000lbsof wweights at the end of the rig. Its a rental from Sunbelt it serves its purpose. If I ever to decide I want to do more high rises I would buy rigging, but I rather stay below 4 floors, Im getting to old to be playing like that and its to damn windy here at the beach. I had that swinging about 15 ft each way one day in the wind JL

Are you a Corp or sole Prop. I pay very little in taxes except payroll taxes, that I pay monthly. I am S Corp and I pay myself payroll and then theres also an amount that you can take from corp and not have to pay all the taxes involved in payroll, I can take money and only pay Social Security, My accountant is very good at helping me reduce tax payments. I pay everything that is required and i dont mind paying taxes, its America and I want to pay my fair share, But a good accountant that knows the service/construction trades can help save you $$$. The more I make yes the more I pay, but dont pay more than you have to. Some accountants just dont know all the tricks of the trade,my 1st accountant had me paying more than I needed and I actually got a credit because he screwed up Good luck JL

Why dont you lease from a good dealer/distributer and lease the equipment. They have some decent leasing companies and once its paid you can own it for a dollar or 10%, they have different plans You want to expand how, do you already have work to expand or do you want to target certain kinds of work and you dont have the equipment to do this type of work I like to have the work then buy or lease Good luck JL

These are some of our arger projects the 1st & 3rd pic we do annually, 1st is 35 buildings we do every June, takes about 6-7days. 2nd pic iwas one of the funkiest to rig it was a 17 story building, 3rd pic we do about every 16 months its 6, 3 story buildings and 26 , 2 story buildings, This was the job I went fulltime on , I dont do 3 story buildins now with out a lift unless its 1 or 2 buildings. Im so used to doing condo complexes now , they dont even seem like big jobs. Im working on getting 42 huge , 3 story buildings we will be doing them every 18 months. I love the vinyl condo complexes

I cant remember what size tips are on my surface cleaner, the # is worn off. I need the size for my 19" & 30" running off a 5.6 GPM 3500psi Thanks JL

Thank you!!!!

THINK ABOUT WATER SUPPLY !!!!! How and where will you get water????

I have one guy, now a freind of mine who is responsible for I would say over $45,000 of my work last year and has had some part of introducing me to or getting me about 40+% of my work. He's great, he owns a property services company, he does lawn, pool, repair and many other services and I do the pwing. He's responsible for the company who has me looking at all 60 of their properties. He never asks me for anything, all he says is Im his most reliable contractor. I do give him money many times, but its a fraction of all the work he gets me. Im very lucky to know him and now we consider each other Friends. JL

The hook we use is a red handled 4" paint roller handle we get from Lowes, screws right on the wooden extension pole. My worker ( Brother in law) is a pro with the hooks he flies through these gutters and does a great job. Also we have used a small piece of thin flat iron and screwed & taped it to a pole for smaller gutters we just bend the flat iron to the size of the gutter so it fits a little better. We also use an electrician fish from Lowes to check the downspouts if needed. Just fish it down and you know if there clear of debris or not

OKyou all should know Im not very mechanical so I NEED SOME ADVISE I prefer to buy a new truck but am looking at used Been to a couple chevy dealers and found out a few things I didnt know, just because I have no clue Alright this is strickly a work truck Im looking for stripped down vinyl carpet, am/fm auto no power windows The Chevy 1500 HD & 2500HD i can get with a 6.0 engine and a 4.10 axle, both have towing rating of 10,300 and the 2500 has 10,500. The 2500 hundred has some better stiffer suspension, but other than that, can I just go with the 1500HD ???? Now I'm thinking is a 6.0 enough engine???? They have the 8000 vortex 8.0 basically I want something that will last and be able to pull my large 16 foot enclosed trailer with a lot of equipment weight in it. Would I be stupid to go with 6.0 its basically what I have now and I fear Im slowing killing my 1500 dodge 6.0 or 8.0 ??? Please give me advise Thanks Jeff

Hey Fullblast, I dont know much about equipment but those machines you had built sound like there really something. You could clean alot of houses LOL. What kind of work do you use all this equipment for. Just wondering. Can you post some pics of your setups too JL

Its a 2001, its a good truck but with my traier full with up to 3 55 gallon drums of chem, 3, 4gpm machines an extra 6-7 hundred ft of pressure house and skid 7 tank and misc stuff its a lot of weight and I can feel it, I had to replace one axle already, but that was already probably wearing prior to pulling trailer and I may have some tranny issues that will be getting checked out Friday I want a newer stronger better pulling truck for the trailer and the Dodge I'm keeping to pull my little open trailer and my next skid set up is going to be an open 12 footer. The Dodge gas mileage is bad when pulling the enclosed I can watch the gauge go down when I travel 45 minutes away then back. I like my Dodge but I think I'll do better with the newer 2500HD for pulling my big ass rolling billboard Thanks everyone for the input They had a Chevy 3500 Dually fully loaded a beautiful truck , real nice!!! Maybe I'll get it. It was only listed for $50,000. Crazy 50K but she was pretty JL

Good Luck Ken, I hope all goes well. Dont forget to have them put a valve on tank so you can empty the water.

Mike almost all the roofs we can walk on, so we use back pack blowers and just blow the stuff out, we also carry with us if they are packed solid with pine straw, we use a little hook on a wooden extension pole, just hook some of the pine straw and start blowing with the blowers. When it gets hooked on the gutter nails just keep moving the blower back & forth and it comes free. Very rarely even have to bend over to reach in gutters. Alot of these gutters arent bad we do them every 3 months. We also use a lift so its real quick to get on roofs and no ladders Gutter cleaning of complexes are some of my best money jobs, you should try to get some of this kinds of work, Do they have alot of pine straw where you are Have a good one JL

Pollen hit heavy today its green yellow everywhere, we'll see how long it last. The winds have been a pain, at least most of this week we are cleaning gutters at several complexes. Did 44 buildings gutters Monday & Today another 3 then move to another complex of 14 tomorrow. Pine pollen is a pain , but pine needles in gutters are great When the winds blowing cleaning chem all over me its one less bath I have to take LOL

OK anyone want to buy some 18 month old precarb powder, its going cheap lol

Thanks everybody!!!! I also talked to a couple local mechanics today and they reccomended the 2500HD over the 1500 and said stay away from the 8.0 gas guzzler. THANKS AGAIN HEY RICHARD CONGRATS, HAVE A GREAT WEDDING DAY!!!!!!! ENJOY, take some pics Jeff

Ive used Gutter shock on two very small areas with smoke damage. One was from a fire on vinyl siding took thick black soot right off, the other was a outside fireplace and they wanted it cleaned, a few applicatios of GS and the brick looked great. Im sure theres products out there for soot but GS worked well JL

I have the 30" Big guy and the brush skirt is worn, actually the metal ring of the skirt is worn and I need to change it. Problem is the skirt has a metal ring that it clips to the body of big guy. Those clips are rivited on the body and one of the clips that are rivitted is broken, because it was badly worn from scraping against wall/concrete. 1st does that skirt just suppose to unclip and then clip new skirt on? 2nd how do I take broken clip off and replace it? One other problem, where the trigger gun on Big Guy is it has 2 allen set screws that help hold the gun in place, they have worn the brass fitting on the gun and now the gun is very loose. The problem is now those 2 allen wrench set screws will not budge and now I have stripped them. What do I do? Thanks JL