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Jeff

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Posts posted by Jeff

  1. Posted · Edited by Jeff · Report reply

    16 buildings. We can only work on one building a day due to tenant logistics (per management). The bad news is that most of them aren't completely lift accessible. The good news is that we can hit it all fron the ground as long as the wind isn't too crazy.

    One building a day. Heck my crew would be home by 9:30 am LOL

    Is it one building a day because you wouldn't be able to finish two buildings in a day? Or just one building because thats all they are allowing. Never heard of such a PITA thing. Have to go to the same job site 16 different days, thats a lot of travel time and gas expense. You had to rent a lift for at least 16 day, wow!!!!!!

    I have had a couple managers try to slow things down simular to that. I showed them let us do it our way say for $5000 or their way for $7000, they usually will see the light when its explained to them the right way

    I just had to explain a job, they only wanted us filling our tanks at the clubhouse off one hose bib and every unit had water hose bibs, but people complained in past years. I suggested getting one owner per building to allow us to use their water. The property was use to one man pressure washing companies. It would have cost them a few thousand more to do it their way. We can not use hydrants in this county plus we would of been there a couple weeks with a much smaller crew, our way its a 3 day project

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Hi everyone, I haven't been on TGS in quite a while. I had trouble logging on a while back and just never tried again.

    Got a million old posts to look over, anybody want to talk about multi unit washing?

    Hope everyone is doing great and had a good year.

    Life is Good.

    Jeff

  7. Posted · Report reply

    Hey guys need some help. We had some paint on aluminum fascia and trim just WASH AWAY this week. It looks horrible and its in several areas of 2 buildings. Let me explain and give you thoughts on why it happened and walk you through the whole mess and hear your thoughts

    We were washing 30+ townhome buildings, we had 27 washed and 2 out of the last 3 buildings we had major paint failure on the ALUMINUM trim. Also in two other little spots on two other buildings, small spots of paint washed away too. Of course the homeowners and at first the manager thought it was our fault. Hey I understand, we wash there buildings and rinse and paint just flows off.

    I have been going crazy with this trying to figure what happened and am pretty sure I know exactly what happened

    I want to know what some of you experts think and then ask what kind of paint I should use to fix this. Yes I know it wasnt our wash process of house wash mix that did this, but I am going to eat this one instead of telling them sorry, not my fault

    I bid this job in 2009 and also 2010, in 2009, I was told I lost the bid, because another contractor got the job and I asked the manager why he got it. The manager said the contractor sold the property on using hot water and a quality chemical to clean the property. So the other contractor washes the property in May 2009

    The manager tells me in early 2010, that they had a lot of problems with the contractor and I asked her like what?

    The property has an irrigation system, but NO orange iron rust stains EVER showed on the siding, this contractor whatever he used to wash the buildings, when he applied it and was finished ORANGE RUST STAINS APPEARED on many many buildings at ground level where irrigation heads would get irrigation water on the siding. At the time I told the manager, I had never seen anything like that ever happen and I questioned her about it, she said she knows he used hot water and I asked her if he used bleach mix or something else, she said she thought something else but did not know what. I have since this all happened if she knew what he used, she doesn’t.

    Now these orange rust stains appear for him washing, so then he refuses to remove tham and says its not part of his contract, they tell him to remove them if he wants his money. He goes back and uses some kind of rust removal product or something and then he kills grass wherever he applys the rust remover and they freak again, so that’s that

    Now I am trying to figure why basically ONLY on 2 buildings out of 30+ we have this major paint failure. On our trucks, we have 12% and Dawn, then also powder form of Oxalic, NO oxalic was mixed up, no other chems were mixed in our mix, so I wonder if its maybe something wrong with our 12% we had got some new 12% the day prior and still had some older 12%. On these last 3 buildings, we were gangbanging them and 4 my employees were washing them to finish up, some were using newer 12% and some were using older( a few day old) 12%. Paint removed on the two buildings using old or new

    Now we had already in 2 days using ALL the SAME 12% with NO PROBLEMS, except one area the paint came off aluminum trim in a perfect circle and another area of about 10 inches, no big deal I have seen this happen for some reason in the past and we just spray painted the area

    Now these two messed up areas it’s a total of 10 units and it happened to about 5 – 10% of the Aluminum trim, many right at the entrance of each of the 10 units, most of the paint washing away was from a 8 foot section of trim that is under an entrance over hang, but it also was on a few areas of fascia aluminum also. It’s a flipping mess

    BACK TO the other contractor last year. Pretty sure he used something other than bleach, because of the orange iron stain APPEARING.

    I have talked to a few contractor and all have said maybe he used a Sodium hydroxite (sp) like a stripper or something like a gutter black streak remover. That got me thinking and asking questions. I know if I use (I think its Bobs F13 or F XX? the stuff to remove black streak from gutters) If I use that, in the past I have spilt a little on driveways and all of a sudden ORANGE iron stains appear on the concrete, just wherever its dripped on the concrete, so I now figure looking back, these houses driveways had irrigation spray on them and this product or similar products bring out the Orange on the concrete

    NOW why didn’t all the buildings trim paint wash away??????????. I figure he used a product and maybe just didn’t rinse these two buildings well or at all and this stuff sat there for a long time, breaking down the paint and when we come along, we aplly our house mix and then rinse, it just washes right off into a white liquid…ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGG

    WHAT DO YOU ALL THINK?????, something caused this, heck I could of made my 12% and Apple Blossom Dawn mix 2, 3, 4 times stronger and it still wouldn’t strip paint, heck it only stayed on 3-5 minutes before we rinsed.

    I know its not our mix, but how do you tell the homeowners this, they see us wash and the next thing they see there trim paint washed away. I have talked to the manager and a couple of the owners and I think I have them understanding but its still a mess I have to deal with

    We are going to take care of it and I am going there Monday to take a closer look and hopefully meet with more of the owners. I want them to know what I think happened and mostly know that it wasn’t us that caused this mess, its PRIOR DAMGE . I am sending one of my guys to this place next week for a few days to paint the crap. I want these owners to know ITS not us, this is my reputation here

    ANOTHER question, what the best paint to apply to bare aluminum??????????????, there is some paint left on in spots and its pretty tight. I just want to find the right and best product so we don’t have problems down the line later

    Sorry for the long post, but just need some professional input. I am going to write a letter and state what I know and think to the Manager & HOA, I want it on record and clear my name

    Thanks

    Life is good, but a pain at times too…LOL

  8. Posted · Report reply

    Does anyone have any good suggestions on a hat that has UV protection and is virtually indestructible?! I'm trying to keep the sun off me, but bleach destroys most hats...thanks for any help!

    Queensboro is selling these now, bleach doesn't touch them as long as you dont mind the safety orange or safety yellow color, not a single bleach stain on them

    post-23-137772320121_thumb.jpg

  14. Posted · Report reply

    Just found out my girl Cindy will be in Houston this Friday evening.

    It will be nice to see her again.

    My wife will be there as well to scoop me up off of the floor ( again).

    Life is pretty freakin saaaaaweeeeeettttt !!!!!!!

    Hey, there is nothing wrong with butt smooshing two beautiful women at the same time.

    How often does that happen?

    LOL LOL LOL Have fun man, I know you love her. She used to be my girl too

  15. Posted · Edited by Jeff · Report reply

    I freak out on my guys if they don't have a lot of cones out, wherever they are, even in a closed condo community. They are a lot better now, I think they got sick of me bit*hing them out. I have cones around trucks, whereever a hose crosses a walkway, I have them in communities if a hose is crossing a parking lot to slow cars down. Cones cones and more cones, it takes seconds to put out, but a bunch of bright orange cones will be noticed usually by all

    SAFETY FIRST

    FYI.....Hey I just got these really great safety caps, baseball caps. Safety Green/Yellow with reflective areas on the hats too, with company embroidered logo. They are bright. Queensboro has them, I think they are a great addition to the safety factor, all my guys now where them and my foremen where the orange ones

    Really you might all want to check them out on the Queensboro site Hats and Visors scroll down and you will see the caps. I bought 30 of them. Something GREAT about them, BLEACH DOES NOT EAT THEM UP, how cool is that. Check it out. NO bleach stains on hat and logo looks great. Great for under $10, they had a sale and they were like $7.97

    post-23-137772318537_thumb.jpg

  18. Posted · Report reply

    We have been doing 2-4 jobs per day and the phone still keeps ringing. I feel like I'm going nuts at times. We've been able to keep the wait down to aprox 1 week. Most all of the jobs we are doing involve Roof Cleaning and Pressure Washing at each location. These take time. I actually got excited the other day when a customer only wanted their Roof Cleaned. I Love being busy!!!

    Cool Larry

    Every once in a while I am hoping for heavy rain and lightning so my guys can get a break, but then if we take one day off now, we are screwed, just have jobs packed together

    Glad you are getting all the work

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Turning down work out here in Massachusetts. I hate doing that but if I book too much and can't get to it all it doesn't look too good. Anybody ever notice it starts to drop way off in the middle of summer?

    Been on the BB's for years and historically it seems August is slow for many pressure washing contractors. It gets slow for us in August every year too.

    So far every month this year we have done better than last year, we have been booked solid all of March, April and May is insane and June is pretty much packed, got some July & August jobs already

  22. Posted · Edited by Jeff · Report reply

    I'm covered in many states, but some of the large management companies ask for extra things to be listed, endorsements, waivers etc etc and it gets to be a PITA sometimes and has cost me more $$$ to add & meet their requirements, its all over the place sometimes for comp & GL when dealing with the big regional or nation wide companies. Just when you think you have every possible addition to your policies, you get a call from a different management company and they want something extra, argggggggg. Just part of doing biz, but man 9-15 pages of stuff just for insurance coverage. One job I probably got close to 35 pages of stuff before it was finally a signed contract. Is it worth it? Sure, but sometimes its just overboard.

    Forget what I had to go through for having coverage working up to 20 stories high

    It was funny I have coverage to hang off the side of a flipping 20 story highrise building on swing stage, but had to fight, kick & scream to get the right coverage to clean two story roofs, go figure

    I believe in being covered, a few hundred $$$ here, a couple thousand $$$ there, extra, to make sure I am covered, its worth it, better than doing a job and hope nothing goes bad.

    Not worth getting sued and possibly losing my company and more for one job

    Got to love insurance companies LOL

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Last month he wrote me and said he is extremely busy. Relax guys he is swamped full of work. He is a great guy and just got in over his head a little bit.

    I have heard that from him for months, He has my revised website 96% done two months ago, he started it at the beginning of Dec 2009. All thats left is to add a couple PDF's. He knew this was a major new part of my marketing, promised me stuff every other day and then nothing for weeks at a time. Horrible business, i have used him for years

    The problem is you say you heard from him last month, me too and now nothing for close to 4 weeks, no one has heard from him. I really wonder if something happened to him in these past few weeks.

    I tried relaxing, tried not to be mad, now i just wonder and look for someone else. I wish he would step up and finish the last little bit he has left. I spent hours and days getting him text, layout, pictures and he's left a long time customer hanging, its just wrong......no matter what, unless he's in jail or ....

    Its a shame, he's done great work for me

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Has anyone heard anything from Keith at KBK, other than being mad with him, I am also concerned.

    My website he has on and off worked on since Dec2009 and he was almost finished and now I can't find him anywhere. Its real weird. Last contact was 3/22 and now nothing. I have heard from others looking for him

    Has anyone heard from him in the past month? Hope he's alright

    Keith you out there, contact me

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