RyanH

I'm not sure I understand....pumps work off a pressure differential. Ideally, pulling a vacuum on the outlet end should help the pump out. If you increase the pressure on the outlet, you will get a decrease in flow; if you decrease the pressure on the outlet, you will get an increase in flow. By using a shurflo at the source pumping into an Xjet, you help to overcome the pressure drop through the hose. Besides, if the pressure at the outlet is too high or builds up, the switch cuts the flow off. My worries would be if you are pulling too much vacuum (like a really high pressure washer flowrat) and causing pump cavitation.

Huh? I dilute mine all the time depending upon what my application is. http://www.clean-rite.com/images/43msd.pdf Check where it says "solubility in water" This is my butyl cleaner of choice.

I've done some observing over the past year or so with gutters. Around here, gutters are severely undersized for houses...they put 4" gutters on with the downspouts spaced 20 - 50' apart and on a roof with >45 degree pitch. The water runs off the roof so fast that it does not have time to leave the gutter through the downspout and spills over the edge. On a new roof, it carries the oils from the roof with it and stains the gutters. Others have said it in the past, and my own experience has shown it to be true: you need a degreaser to clean the gutter streaks. There is more than dirt and algae on the outside. I like to use a purple degreaser cleaner from a local auto store and it works very well. I spray in 10 - 15' increments, let it dwell for about 30 seconds and spray off. 90% of the time no scrubbing is required for me. I apply it with my pump rather than Xjetting it on...I need full concentration for it to work in a good amount of time without ruining the paint.

Eric, Drive around and find a few neightborhoods that look to be generally well kept but have some residences that need cleaning. A good rubric will be to look at the conditions of the yards and homes. The cars in the driveways/garages are also something to consider...if most of them are rusted out, then you may not have much success. Mayeb I'm diverging from the point I'm trying to make...I've got Nirvana on *really* loud and am a little distracted, but the point I wanted to make was to find some decent neighborhoods where you think you will have a good probablility of getting some business and offer to buy an adspace in a newsletter. Many communities with more than 60 or so homes will have a homeowners association and ones with more than 100 usually will have a newsletter that goes out monthly, quarterly, or biannually. Buying adspace will encourage more people than leaving out flyers. Many people will perceive flyers on mailboxes or doors as a slight invasion of privacy (do you really enjoy strangers stopping in front of your mailbox or walking in your yard), but will perceive a newsletter ad as something beneficial to the community (you are helping to pay for it's publication) and shows that you took the time to find out something about the neighborhood (at a minimum the contact person for the association). I've found contact info by googling the community name and city (surprisingly many will have websites with contact info), dropping by the clubhouse (in swim/tennis/golf area), or just knocking on doors. If you knock on doors, I've found it VERY beneficial to offer the first person who helps you a hefty discount on a house wash, especially if their house is looking bad and is in a very visible location, if they'll let you put a sign in their yard. This gives you multiple opportunities to get your name and services in front of the residents. Whew! RyanH.

A Florida couple, both well into their 80s, go to a *** therapist's office. The doctor asks, "What can I do for you?" The man says, "Will you watch us have sexual intercourse?" The doctor raises both eyebrows, but he is so amazed that such an elderly couple is asking for sexual advice that he agrees. When the couple finish, the doctor says, "There's absolutely nothing wrong with the way you have intercourse." He thanks them for coming, wishes them good luck, charges them $50 and says good-bye. The next week, however, the couple return and ask the *** therapist to watch again. The *** therapist is a bit puzzled, but agrees. This happens several weeks in a row. The couple make an appointment, have intercourse with no problems, pay the doctor, then leave. Finally, after 5 or 6 weeks of this routine, the doctor says, "I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Just what are you trying to find out?" The old man says, "We're not trying to find out anything. She's married and we can't go to her house. I'm married and we can't go to my house. The Holiday Inn charges $98. The Hilton charges $139. We do it here for $50, and I get $43 back from Medicare.

I just keep licking my upper lip. My own version of "water reclaim system." :lgbounces

If they unlatch them, you can pop them out with a knife, screwdriver, etc. I use a nylon kitchen utensil so I don't scratch the paint, but anything flat works fine. They will have to latch them back from the inside when you put them back up. How can you clean off the grime from the windows without removing them? I liken it to a car windshield...I can throw soap on my windshield and can sit through a heavy rainstorm and still have that grimy film on the glass. Nothing like cleaning with a sponge to make it sparkle!

Also, check to see that the overlap direction of vinyl siding is all the same (i.e, no piece of vinyl has both ends covered by adjacent pieces). Not only will paying attention to this prevent you from blowing water behind the siding, but pointing it out to the customer will give them a higher perception of your attentiveness to their property and experience as a contractor. That has a significant impact on reducing the "sticker shock" when you quote your price if you charge high. Be sure to point out as many problems and potentials for cleaning as possible if they are present when you do your walk through...the more things you see that they never noticed will definitely help you in your quote.

I get (got) them to unlatch the screens before I showed up and removed them myself...the logic being if they could/wanted to take the screens down themselves, they wouldn't be hiring me to monkey around on the ladder to clean them in the first place. Also, the screens have a HUGE pressure drop across them and eliminate any cleaning ability. Plus, take a look at the crap that accumulates behind the screens...it's definitely noticeable from the inside of the house and attentive homeowners will notice it AND notice that it is still there after you leave. If you remove it, that is a HUGE plus in their mind and is a definite help for recommendations to friends. Plus, the grime on windows only really gets cleaned by scrubbing, and you can't do that with the screens in place.

Maybe she had an incident like one of my past customers who used an inexperienced contractor...he blew chemicals and water right through the sash and sprayed her carpet and curtains with bleachy water. Guess he thought a simple seal could withstand thousands of pounds of directed pressure.

John, I've found that the bleach tends to streak somewhat even with liberal rinsing. My biggest factor is the gutter cleaner...if that stuff gets on the windows I have to scrub it off otherwise the oxidation and gunk I remove from the gutter will coat the window. Besides, the window ledge/sills are things I could not ignore and had to physically scrub anyway (didn't want too much water pressure going around that area), so it was nothing for me to slop a squeegee around the glass. I still rinse with cold water and it works wonderfully, I just have to remove the chems from the other processes.

I include the windows in the standard house wash. The process of cleaning the house will streak the windows if I do not go back and clean them individually so I have to do this to leave the customer with a high perception of quality. I also include the window sills/ledges, so it isn't a big deal to slop some window cleaner on while I'm up there. I've only had one house where the guy just wanted the green stuff cleaned off the siding and nothing else...apparently he was selling the house and just wanted a good curb appeal (visible only from the curb I guess)...I think I deducted something like $75 from that on a split level house. Normally I just try to price the job to get around $80 gross per hour from it and I know how long it will take me to do it by looking. I've never been called to do just windows.

After washing the house, I always go back and wash each window with a squeegee and glass cleaner then rinse. I dried once and wasted SO much time. If you do a good enough job washing and use a good cleaner, the film it creates does a fine job at letting all of the water roll off and leaves a clear window. Adding a roof job is dependent upon how much money you want to make, whether or not you are capable/comfortable of doing it, and if the customer even wants it. I couldn't believe how many customers weren't even aware that that black crap on their roof was not the natural age progression of a roof and that it could come off. I've had some customers say that they thought a housewash should be like getting a hair cut: you don't trim the sides without the top and shaving the neck. So, in that case I'm able to quote high and do the entire thing. Some just want the trim/gutters brightened. I've never been one to stay strict in my services...if a customer wants it, I'll provide it if it's within my abilities and can make a profit on it and as long as it won't undermine my credibility. I'll offer suggestions, but ultimately he/she with the checkbook makes the ultimate decision on what gets washed. And everything costs, so of course a roof would be extra and more than the sides.

Big Lots (if they have those in your area) can be a great place to stock up on the little things like misc. tools and fittings if you want to start building an inventory and not spend much money. Or check out yard sales / flea markets. Sorry for stating what might be the obvious, but the thought of building a tool and repair kit can seem daunting and one may overlook these resourceful places.

Here's one that had me laughing so hard I had to leave the library: What is the height of noisy? Two skeletons humping on a tin roof. The language of the original was a little more colorful than this, but you get the point.

Yes...been doing it for over 5 years now and that's been my primary business. Pressure washing was something to do during the days (janit is at night) and over the summer while in school. Will be giving up the cleaning shortly though....new job will require too much travel. It was good while it lasted, though; I didn't know any other people in school making $40-$50 per hour with part-time hours. I thought about hiring help, but it's just not worth it to me at this point after taxes and liabilities take their chunk.

I was running right at 1 hour per 2000 square feet. So probably a total of 8 hours labor with setup and breakdown. The downside is I had to go find something to occupy my time between the drying cycles. Fixed mother in laws computer during one span. Saw "Million Dollar Baby" during another (BTW...that movie ROCKS!!!), did my routine cleaning during another, etc. Not bad though. Weather wasn't great this weekend, so it gave me something to do.

Looks like a really good start! I like your format...looks inviting. When all the links are active, if you continue in the same format and quality, I imagine it will work very well for you.

FInished the job this evening. 8 coats on one area, 5 coats on another to even out the last contractor's work. The black parallel lines on the floor were caused by the first contractor applying the sealer. Don't know why they did the way did, but it's a pretty horrible job. Apparently they rolled it on the entire length of the floor then back to the beginning to start over again. The first strip had time to dry, they overlapped, and the sealer went on uneven. Ugly! Oh well. Better surface integrity now. Ended up being only 2000 square feet....they only wanted the business area sealed, not the entire stripped section.

Pressure, I checked the code in the file....nothing bad. There is nothing written in VB on it, just all encoded in the spreadsheet itself. Notice how rows 14 through 166 are hidden? All of the data is contained in there. You can't unhide them because whomoever wrote it put in a password, but you can copy and paste everything into a new sheet and unhide those rows to see what's going on. Pretty cool idea. Spoiler.................................................................. Man behind the curtain... Ok, looking at the code, basically it has a number assigned to each letter: a=1 b=2 ...... z = 26 It ignores the first letter of your name, so if you put in "seymore" and "zeymore" you get the same answer. It then adds the value associated with each letter in your name up and adds the number 33 to it. There are 100 possible job titles, and the sum of the letters in your name and 33 will match up with one of the 100 job titles. For longer names that go over 100, it subtracts 100 and returns the new value. Same for it being over 200, 300, and 400. If the letters in your name go over 500 then you are destined to be jobless with the job title #N/A.

Last week the senate passed a bill limiting the lawsuits on malpractice and auto accidents to $250k. For paltry and frivilous lawsuits, this is fine, but if you are dismembered or disabled, you can't even collect an amount equal to what your income would have been for the rest of your life had you remained in working condition. Enter Government absurdity #2, and a complete contradiction...flash a deflated boob or expose a cheek on the telly, and BAM!!! $500k fine. Which situation causes a greater loss? Nuckin futs, I tell you what. ---And I keep putting an upper case G in Government because it has become a self-gratifying entity and has completely lost the reason for its existance. Give me a libertarian any day over a republican't or a democrap/democRAT..oh how I yearn for another Thomas Jefferson. I'm done ranting. I just know that many people here, after running their own business and seeing how things really work, have a higher degree of common sense than anyone else I know...thought you'd be interested in those in whom we place our trust.

okay, they have all three in the plant. Thanks.

Ken, True, the cap is not absolute and does pretty much encompass just the economic loss. I have some conflicting issues whereas those losses are concerned...all operations are elective unless you are brought in on your deathbed and it's an emergency, in which case dead is dead anyway and atleast an operation may give you a higher chance. My real problem is lawsuits serve a dual purpose: one is to try to give something to the person or family who lost something due to negligence. The other is to act as a malpractice determinant. Basically, if you are operating you'd better make damn sure that you don't forget to plug in a crucial piece of medical equipment, use sterile, instruments, not to forget and leave a sponge or suture kit inside someone's abdomen, etc. It was a way to say "Hey, you effed up and we want to make sure it doesn't happen to someone else." Insurance companies needed to make sure that the doctors they represented were reputable...that's how they keep from losing money and it forces them to be a little more accountable and do better research on a doctor. The complaint was that insurance was getting to be sky high and doctors were leaving the profession. I disagree with the silly lawsuits, but dammit, if you go in to have bone in your right knee replaced and you wake up and they amputated the left leg, then I think retribution and assurance that it won't happen again is warranted. If that means losing a medical license, then so be it. I'm all for "survival of the fittest" and if you aren't responsible enough to assume the level of responsibility a doctor requires, then go to work for the crime lab doing forensic autopsies where you won't have a chance of doing any more damage! I'm just afraid that with this bill the restrictions are going to relax and we are going to see a higher percentage of incidents because the fear of a massive suit is no longer there. Another idea...if the insurance companies are going to be saving massive amounts of money now, are they going to reduce their costs to bring the doctors back? The idea is to keep more docs from leaving...do you think docs will then pass that savings onto the patients since insurance costs were the "reason" for elevated expenses to begin with? I doubt it. I'm a fan of corporate america and I have no problem with big business...I just don't like them dictating consumer rights. And similar argument with medical drugs. Voluntary to take them and if they adversely affect you, well, it was your choice to take them. But if the manfs know that there is a serious threat to certain people and downplay that threat, or a doctor doesn't properly prescribe it, then the liability should fall on them. If your ability to make an informed decision is clouded by misrepresentation, then the liability falls on them. whew!

Thanks Reed. The emotions were building up pretty good...but that picture of the little girl holding up the sign for her dad really pushed me over the edge.

What do you use to clean it? Run water through it or a type of thinner? For the price this will bring I'm not too concerned with trashing my already well-used pump, but if I can save it I'd be much obliged!