Beth n Rod

Ah! Found it. Here's the inside of the porch before stripping. Beth :groovy3:

We did the floor, the rail caps, and as I think about it, a very light touch up on the rail system, although you can see from the photo it didn't need much of anything. The bulk of it was horizontal work this time. The owner did have us wash and seal the underside on this trip, as they have a really nice patio and like to sit down there and wanted a nice deck in view if they should look up to star gaze. The fence is getting done next year, we washed the house this year as well. Beth

The wet formula. The one on shelves now. You can get it at www.sunbritesupply.com Beth

Carlos did you do that? BRAVO! I have had friends in past years who have lost everything to one of those. Beth

We will get our dry shots the day we go out to seal. We have years of expereince with HD-80, and Rod knows by sight how much to use. He does test occasionally, but not often, and these days only if he is faced with such a heavy buildup of various gunk that he has to guage his time as much as his strength. Beth :cup: :groovy2:

Rails first, floor last. Start outside on the rails, then do the inside rails, then the floor. For this deck we did all of it at the same time, let dwell, then washed it. Apply the neutralizer, let dwell, rinse (not wash), rinse, rinse...roll hoses and off you go. If you ever needhelp in the field, feel free to call. Glad to help. We do quite a bit of deck stripping work. Beth

one more....

This was vinyl, it was fine. We do wet things down tho... Beth

1) Marine deep cycle battery, charge duration will be dependant on the amperage of your pump but on avg should last around 12-15 hours of continuous use. Recharge with a trickle charger overnite. Shurflo pumps come with an on demand switch to automatically shut the unit off once it reaches max pressure in the diaphram. You can buy one with a by-pass switch instead so that you dont have the unit stopping and starting frequently which can lead to pulsing as you are spraying. 2)yep! 3)you can buy a battery box that you can mount to a cart below the pump mounting. use a 6' 1/4"I.D. poly braid hose with a 50micro filter. 4) No problems expected. 5) Breaker boxes are great housings for a pump. Rod~

Hourly rates can be figured at... w/h=wage/hour(wage+employer contributions+insurance[avg/monthly], mh=man hours twh=total wage hours, js=job supplies (anything you need to purchase for the job to complete the service including fuel, sealant, masking/tarps, tools, tape, etc.) jc=job cost, oh=overhead (office costs, insurance, advertising, communications, fee's, taxes, rent/lease etc. accrued per monthly budget%) nc=net cost, p%= profit percentage(how much you want to make after expenses), gc=gross cost wh x mh = twh twh + js = jc jc x 45% oh = nc nc x p% = gc gc / mh = Hourly rate ex: $25.00 x 8 = 200.00 200.00 + 250.00 = 450.00 450.00 x 45% = 652.50 652.50 x 15% = 750.37 750.37 / 8 = 93.79/hour To convert this to a sqft formula divide the gc by the # of sqft in the job and you have the price. ex:750.37/450sqft = $1.66/sqft. The figures above are arbitrary but still the formula works. You can figure out the costs per wash and the costs per seal and come up with the broken down sqft price accordingly. As you may guess, the costs are unique to each business and are effected by its region, market, and demographics. Rod~

There are some VERY good folks out there, doing some very good things that you rarely hear about. I wonder how many folks are aware that the President of PWNA, Paul Horsley in Canada, went to...Thailand I believe it was...a couple years back and help to build a school. That was the year of the PWNA's first Member Spotlight Award. (the one Jim won) Paul didn't enter. He told me that's not why he did it and that the recognition didn't matter to him. Helping to build a school is cool. Beth

Here are some photos of the work Charlie Arnold did that year as well. He lead a team to help with flood damage in Ohio, and helped to save people's homes.

Here's one I tried to post on PWNA but couldn't the file was too big. Jim Foley and his wife did a really special thing a couple of years back. Jim, take a bow! I remember your project a couple years back. I remember you winning the very first Member Spotlight Award for it too, the first year PWNA had it. I came up with the award and the concept and worked with Doc on it. The Member Spotlight Award was to recognize members who did charitable things for their communities, didn't have to be cleaning, but it could be. It seems to have evolved since then...which was the plan. Yours was a stellar project. Jim correct me if I am wrong, but I'm going to toot your horn here... didn't you and your wife raise money - like over 200,000.00 in grants and donations to build a playground for special needs kids to be able to play on? I have a file about it, let's see if I can upload it or if I have to break it down to do it. I am sure others would love to read about this project as well. I also remember Charlie Arnold from Delaware doing a wonderful project, he and his church did disaster relief work for a week for flood victims. I'll look for those files too. Beth Letter to PWNA.pdf

Chuck, Are you going to feature all the Clean Across America participants and their respective individual projects? I think everyones project deserves some recognition. Beth

Mathew, be patient! I have other things I do besides being here. I'll look into your settings. And Don, is this the first time you have noticed it? I'll look and see if a setting is mis-set, but please be patient - and don't "assume" I am aware of it or can fix it in the next 2 minutes.. Thank you! Now I need coffee. I'm sounding grumpy. Beth

Learned something new today! Thanks Cujo! :) Still seems odd that the HVAC dude was not prepared to clean it somehow. People who work on PC's use cans of air for example...they don't call in a maid to vacuum the keys out. Beth

Look into the line Sikkens has. They have interior wood products, I don't know if they can be used on a floor or not, but its worth looking into. Beth

But....if the air conditioner didn't work, it couldn't have been because the unit was dirty...unless they buried it in dirt...this is too odd. Beth

And the unit needed to be cleaned right away... so they could fix it or what? I don't see the need to rush washing the A/C unit...I see the need to fix the airconditioner. What am I missing? Beth

And... please post them in the PWNA forum. But yes, please share them. I know many folks thought this project was pretty cool stuff. Beth

Glad to hear he is OK. Pets can make a huge impact on your life. Give him an extra dog bone and some extra attention tonight. :) Beth

This one doesn't sound easy folks... Have not seen it, but here's the scoop... Deck is in Bowie Md. and has both paint and stain on it according to the owner. He's intersted in having it stripped off. Mr. Ranga 8008 Quill Point Drive Bowie, MD 20720 phone 202-437-4431

Steve, There is nothing wrong at all with your setup. You should be proud of it. You have found a way to be portable and eliminate some of the operator fatigue. Thank you for sharing here. I know I enjoyed seeing your setup, I'm sure others will too. Have a great day! Beth

Hey Henry, Question....we do something similar, but we keep the gun attached. Is one of the reasons you lose the gun, operator fatigue on the hand? Also how hard is it to shut off the ball valve under pressure vs. releasing the trigger? We use a bendy lance on the end of the gun to get the effect of full flow under decreased pressure and keep the unloader from going into bypass. If you can shed a little light on your thoughts as to why you omit the gun, I would appreciate it. Beth :cup: :groovy3:

JD, My thoughts are quanitity over quality are what the ad implies. Doing gutters in addition to washing a house for that price may keep the guys busy, but I dont see much profit in the price for the amount of time they may spend doing all that set up and ladder work/moving. As a consumer, if I were comparing services, I would wonder why someone was doing it so cheaply and be concerned about the quality and most importantly how well they would treat my property in the process. Would my plants suffer? Would they use a strong chemical that could cause damage to my siding? These are all some examples of the same questions that consumers ask of us and I am just passing them on for consideration. Rod~