RyanH

:grrr: GRRRR!!!! I'm going to hold you personally responsible for the night I will be spending on the couch because I will be too late getting to bed trying to top that score!! I thought I had it whipped. Oh well, congratulations. I'll be back. Ryan H.

The list changes from time to time, but currently: #1 Kiera Knightley (whew, man!!! You Brits sure know how to breed your women!) #2 Nicole Kidman #3 Faith Hill #4 Daniela Pestova #5 Charlize Theron #6 Rebecca Romijn-Stamos #7 Jessica Simpson #8 Condoleeza Rice #9 Emily Gimmel #10 Naomi Watts And, if she were older than 17, I would have USA Olympic Judo competitor Rhonda Rousey in there somewhere. Oh, and of course, these are the top 10 runners up...my wife is numero uno above any of them.

why does everything from North Africa cause destruction to America? West Nile virus, African Killer Bees, now Mega-tsunamis? What we need are some more South African visitors, like Charlize Theron. More of that type of threat I can *definitely* handle :) . *no real geographical reference was intended by this....I just needed a chance for a shameless plug of #5 on my top 10 list of women.

Bzzzttt!!!!

Telescoping spray gun from Northern. http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?addon=342811&catalogId=4006970&storeId=6970&productId=357025&langId=-1

Bought 100' of 3/8" ID poly braid and used it. Pressure was never an issue on the house I did. I only went about 15 feet up, but I extended the wand and jetted the bleach up an additional 8 feet or so. Coverage was very nice and quick. My limiting factor was the climbing itself. House was about a 1800 - 2000 sq. ft. house with very steep roof lines, but I only had to clean half of the roof. Used 11 gallons of 6%.....would have felt better using about 15, but 11 worked. I took some pictures of the rigging gear I use and me using it as well as some before / after pics of the roof. I never had to pull out the pressure washer, so ideally I could go to do the roof jobs without having to pull around the trailer...I just need to tie the ladder into the truck. I never did get a chance to setup the nice hand truck, though, so I don't have any good pics of the shurflo setup itself. Hopefully I can get a chance in the next day or so to piece it together, but I'm having trouble locating the free poly tanks.....car washes around here just order the 55 gallon drums from what I'm seeing. And no fancy digital camera (yet), so it'll be two or so days for the pics. Ryan

What kind of head can you acheive with that unit? I need to have the flexibility to acheive about a 20 - 30 foot vertical rise. I was assured by the SHURflo guys that this would be possible, but I wonder how well the output is at that spec?

Lance, The ratio will depend upon the severity of the roof. I don't see anything wrong with putting up 5 - 6%. Since I'm not going to be flooding the roof with the bleach, I need it to be effective very quickly in case I need to do a second application before I leave. I decided against the truck mounted setup because some roofs have wierd geometries and it will be beneficial if I can have direct lines from any side of the house rather than having the hose sprawled all around the house. I'll check with a carwash in the morning....around 5am before they open. They are all over the place here, but may object to me rumaging through their garbage bins. I'll let you know how my results are. Ryan H.

The idea is still in the back of my mind, but has been placed on the back burner for now. One of my contract customers found out I know a little about numbers and has hired me part time to design and layout the implementation of some projects for their facility. One of the tasks will involve something similar to what I was trying to accomplish here. It's funny....they are giving me the task and scope of one of their project managers, but it's only considered part time!! Oh well, the pay is much better than any part timer I've ever seen and will give me a little more experience in this field....but on their dime! I'll still try to put together some routes for PWing, though, it may take a little longer than I had first anticipated.

Not that I'm a huge contributor here and will be missed all that much in my absence, but I do get some private messages here and there for specific help, so don't get upset if your questions go unacknowledged. I'll be down for awhile upgrading and moving to a new computer system. When I come back, I'll be a hyperthreading, 1GB RAM hauling sumbeeee-yatch! ciao Ryan H.

This board is addictive. This was the first place I visited to check out my internet configuration. It didn't take me as long as I thought it would.....I guess all of these years of upgrading and rebuilding have made me better than I thought.

If it is powering on, but nothing is coming on, tell him to listen to see if the speaker is making any noise. If he is getting some rapid beeping, chances are one or all of his memory modules has gone bad. This is as simple to fix as taking a trip to a computer supplier and getting a replacement. New software shouldn't affect the computer's ability to turn on, unless it's one of the old-style viruses designed to affect the boot sector of a disk or the CMOS, but even then you will see some activity when you first power on.

New Norton 2004 has caught embedded spyware. ZoneAlarm Pro has stopped numerous little buggers trying to worm themselves in and out (spyware, adware, trackers, trojans). Just my experience with these two programs over the past few days. I had McAfee before. Computer started acting a bit dodgy, so I bought Norton (I think 2002) to put in. Installed it and ran it....it found *268* infected files that McAfee had missed. Since then, I've never used McAfee, only Norton. Used in conjunction with a good firewall program, my computers have been pretty stable (save for the past Lycos bugger that I had).

Rats. :goodgrief :irritated :growl:

Yep, that's me. I happen to like U2, so I guess that's cool that i resemble something related to them. That dress up picture has somehow disappeared off the face of this planet. Sorry, can't put that horrid thing back up.

Ha. Perhaps I'll change the avatar now to give a new image. My wife thinks the one I use now looks a little goofy.

http://www.zonelabs.com This company puts out some very good software to prevent unauthorized programs from communicating with the outside world (like the trackers and snoopers). They offer a free version that acts as a firewall (very good). They also have some other versions for about the same price as Norton and some that also include antivirus libraries. I'll be putting this in my computer later today. Something that is becoming a pain in the a$$ lately is browser hijaaking. When you try to go to any website, a bug in the comuter reroutes it to another site. Usually I can get rid of these by going into the windows registry, but I got one last week related to Lycos and it kept passing itself back and forth on my home network. It installs itself and a bunch of other crap. I just decided to wipe out my entire system and upgrade (I was ready for some new stuff anyway).

Steve, I know exactly what you mean. Some of the more upscale areas around here have those things. A pain to clean, but they do look nice. When it comes to pricing something like that, your ability to get to it is the deciding factor. Most of them are nearly impossible without a climbing and rigging system. If I have to pull mine out, I usually have a $200 minimum charge. While you are up on the roof anyway, it shouldn't be too hard to clean the sides of the steeples. I've moved away from the Xjet on roofs, though and am upgrading to a shurflo system. Keep in mind though that for very steep roofs, shooting a large amount of solution onto the roof will cause it to flow off faster, and you may not get a sufficient dwell time.

Bank of America started requiring all business checks to be cashed to have a business account and the certificates Everett mentioned above. Some smaller banks will setup DBA accounts for you and they are a little more lenient on rules for depositing /cashing. If you get to know the tellers at a small bank, they will allow you to put business checks into your personal account without having a business account. I've never seen a bank that will allow you to cash a check without a personal name on it unless your name is in the business title (like "Mike's Pressure Washing") AND you are cashing it at the same bank from which it is drawn. My willingness to comply 100% with taxes is directly related to how I think the government is doing at the time. Currently, with the war and my support for our president, I'm more than willing to pay what the tables say I should pay. If Kerry or Clinton manage their way back in, I will most likely be little more subversive and not as forthcoming with the dough. No taxation without representation, isn't that what our founders said a few centuries back? And Kerry sure as hell doesn't represent me nor my beliefs.

What is the application? Running laterally for 200' will result only in frictional losses. If you have any elevation (like roofs), you will have to also take into account the head created by the change in height and how much pressure you will need to overcome it. If you are going too high, you may have to stage it with multiple pumps. I'm putting together some designs right now for myself to use in cleaning roofs, so let me know your uses/thoughts/questions, and I'll let you know what i come up with. Hopefully you will have some questions I may not have yet considered. Ryan H.

Rotary cleaner http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=18592 Hand tools http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=67_2031 Carpet cleaning chemicals http://www.jon-doninc.com/catalog/default.php?cPath=67_2029 I remember when I was doing some research on the truck mounted units awhile back many people said that the Avenger 450 was a good starting unit. Provided most of the needs any carpet cleaner will ever need. Some more links I had stored: http://www.century400.com http://groups.msn.com/Steambrite/avenger450.msnw http://www.prochem.com

The typical components of a carpet cleaner are: Solution tank: to hold your water and soap solution Pump / delivery system: you will need a pump and hose to pump the solution from your tank to your cleaning hand tool Vacuum system: EXTREMELY important as you will need to remove as much of the water from the carpet as possible Recover tank: to hold the recovered water and soap (which typically resembles chocolate milk or coffee) Stain protectant can be applied with a pump up garden sprayer. Hand tool: there are a variety of these things ranging from cheap to expensive, and tiresome to effortless (with respect to price). Usually it consists of a metal tube about 4' in length. A vacuum hose and pressure hose are attached. The pressure hose is used to deliver the solution, the vacuum hose is used to remove. A nozzled head (triangular in shape) is at the opposite end, in contact with the carpet. For the cheaper units, physical agitation by hand is used. This is very exhausting and can result in inconsistent cleaning patterns over large areas of carpet, but is the most common and cheapest. Other tools resemble a vacuum cleaner in the sense that they have independently powered beater bars to agitate the carpet and make cleaning easier on your arms. Also, a VERY cool tool (costing between $2000 and $3000) consists of a spinner and multiple water emitting orifices with simultaneous vacuum ports. The object of this is to clean the carpet from all angles, not just a one-dimensional stroke. Portable carpet units range in cost from $1500 up to around $6000, the factors involved being whether or not the unit can heat the water internally, how much solution it holds, attachments it comes with, and quality of construction. Truck-mounted units can range from $7000 up to over $20000 and have the same components as the portable units, just scaled up and more powerful. Some models use small 4-cylinder car engines (Nissan is a popular one) to power the vacuum pumps. The pressure on some can reach over 3000 psi, so some people use their setup for pressure washing as well (you would never use this for carpet, but you never know when you will need to push water up high and need the power). The units also have the ability to heat the water (absolutely essential for successful cleaning). http://www.jondon.com/ http://www.longbeachvacuum.com/steam_extractors.htm You can go to either of these sites to learn about the different styles. Jon-Don has some fantastic products and the people there are very helpful on what kind of chemicals you need. Also, you can google "truck mounted" AND "carpet extractors" and get some excellent information. I use an Edic Stealth for one of my jobs...it works really well as a portable unit, but the drawback is I have to heat the water externally (I have on-site access to a stove, so this isn't a problem). Hope this gives you a head start. Good luck! Ryan H.

I snubbed the Xjet in the beginning because of the price....$150+ for the M5 model. I finally broke down and bought one after reading all of the positive opinions about it. The first time I did it, I completed a two story vinyl home in less than two hours. Prior to this, it took me over three hours for the same level of quality (lots of running back and forth to disconnect the chemical source). It is definitely worth it, but I would spring for the M5 adjustable model...I rarely even have to use the other tips now. Ryan H. Oh yeah, welcome!

Xtreme Solutions says that you can mix salt (just like on french fries) with their Xcrete concrete removal solution and get a good copper cleaner. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't vouch for it's effectiveness or ease.

I think governments are the only entities which generate business. Am I right? Come up with new laws and create new positions to enforce those laws, like cops who video people putting flyers up in neighborhoods. I think real estate would (eventually) be a good deal to get into. I'm looking into buying a condo in FL and renting it out most of the time. I've got my sights set on opening a liquor store at some point in the semi-near future. And a gun store not long after that. A friend of mine who accidentally got into selling jet skis has done quite well with it. Lawn care is oversaturated in my area, so I'd stay away from that. The best way to start a business is to look at people who run small business and are successful and see the things that make it successful (customer service and satisfaction is generally numero uno, so you really need to know your S). The key is to find something that is needed or in demand but is not in overabundant supply. That's one reason why specialty people do so well. I can see where pressure washing can be VERY profitable in my area, but I estimate it would take about $30k in operating capital to really make it happen, then a crew (or yourself) that is committed enough to work outside in the weather and give quality work (lack of motivated labor is the limiting factor in many fields).