Beth n Rod

A WORD OF WARNING: If the house is that old and is painted, chances are damn good there is or was lead paint on it. Go to Home Depot or Lowes and get a test kit. Test the house. If it is positive for lead paint and you are not certified, stop where you are. http://www.epa.gov/lead/ Beth

If it is in the paint, you may need to re-paint it because the paint will have degraded. This is a two part job where you will need to return once it is dry and apply the paint. OR You can bow out of that part and inform the customer ahead of time what is going to happen and give them the opportunity to entertain a price from you or their original painter. Rod!~

Very pretty as always Shane. I love seeing your work! Beth

I have thought about this for some time. Over the past few years we have seen existing companies add wood services here, as was mentioned the handyman companies and the painters and landscapers.... But the start ups have been fewer than expected. It makes me wonder how many that go into business rely on banks lending money. Over the past few years the banks have been pretty tight with loans, when has effected many things. I would also have to say that there are other newer blue collar start ups that are "in" right now, such as the installation of solar panels. It might be that those who would consider this business are simply either unable to raise capital for the entry point, or, are electing to enter in areas we don't touch where they see a better wave..... Those are my coffee thoughts..... Beth:subdued:

Thanks for the Kudos Rick. We try to stay grounded in the fact that TGS is about all who contribute to it and we are the progenitors of the information that TGS makes available that wasn't so easily when many of us first started. TGS has been about raising the bar and helping others, but it took people like yourselves to make it a reality. Rod!~

I'm here.... :-) Beth

The industry is changing and many are busy with their businesses, and so much is available online these days that what we 'know' from experience, is becoming common knowledge for others available just by lurking. The evolution of BBS's has been such that the involvement has dispersed to favored boards because there is no entity available like the PWNA used to be that was cohesive enough to bring and keep this trade together. People have lost faith in orgs because of abuse and lack of vision or leadership. BBS's are the last bastion of unity left and are all divided but the industry is busy nonetheless. Rod!~

The 3m pads work well too but they deplete faster than an osborn brush. Plus, you must wear eye and respiratory protection when using either. These tools generate a lot of dust and the 3m pads shed particles of itself as it wears out. Rod!~

Do you have a link to this new law? My search only turns up pesticide licenses. Rod!~

The chemicals caused the furring. The brushing/pressure washing played into it but I blame the chems. TWP is not that tough to remove. Now, the next question is: did you neutralize after you stripped the old stain off with oxalic acid? If you didn't, the wood will still be alkaline and your color will not be true. You may have to repeat the process, and then sand the wood or use a buffer with an osborn brush to remove the fuzzies. Rod!~

Please add your signature. House rules. Beth

If you are in a state effected by Sandy, please post to let us know you are okay, or if you have spoken to someone or have gotten word from someone in a disaster area, please let us know they are okay. Thanks... Beth

rob vesh - Please make yourself a signature. House rules. And welcome! :-) Beth

Leasing is a good way to get better equipment and speed up your production and increase profits. We did it and it helped us tremendously. We were able to pay off the lease and buy other equipment as well due to the increase in revenue. Rod!~

Most surface cleaners require a certain amount of flow to work well. Yours would make some of the smaller units work but not at an efficient rate. Rod!~

The market is too competitive and we always got the ones that the blow and go guys didn't want with steep roofs. Those people with the steep roofs didn't want to pay more because they couldn't see the value in having us move ladders mutliple times to clean the gutters taking up to a couple of hours vs the shallow roofs can be walked with a blower and done in 5 minutes! They didn't want to pay more when so many others advertised $35-$45 per house! we needed to charge 3-4X that. Rod!~

I do have float tanks for both my units. 1- is a 150 gallon for my 8 gpm unit the other is a 30 gallon for my 4.5 gpm unit. The small 3 gallon tanks that come with the small skids don't fair well when the water is agitated upon entry and creates air bubbles that go through the pump. Rod!~

When you offer a product for suggestion, you need to look into a few aspects. 1. ease of maintenance. This is important because decks require a lot of it and frequent maintenance can be expensive if the product doesn't age well or creates conditions which require stripping instead of cleaning and recoating. If it is easy to maintain, the customer in down times could do it themselves and therefore save money. They will thank you in the up times and look for your services. They should be able to get the same results each time as if a professional did it. 2. Color shift. This is when the product darkens with age and exposure to the UV rays. Problem is, when you try to maintain it, and portions have eroded, faded or otherwise are no longer in tact, The product out of the can will not match what is currently on the deck. This results in a splotchy effect which is undesirable. 3. Compatibility. This is referring to the products ability to adhere to itself in the future applications. Some products are designed to repel with additives like silicone, teflon or epoxy ingredients. These products can create the need not only for stripping but sanding as well. Twp as you mentioned is a good product, we prefer the version that can't be bought in our/your area, but VOC's forbid its sale. Armstrong is a product that meets a few criteria for wood. It moisturizes the wood and helps to keep water from penetrating. It absorbs quite well and deeply which gives a long lasting result It cleans well and recoating is easy and the results and always the same. A great finish. Rod!~

We use 4 gpm units. both 3000 psi. Residential business; I don't recommend anything higher as some faucet flow restrictors don't keep up with the demand of the pump. Since 2003, we have used Hydrotech skids. Rod!~

Your engine is the equivalent of a 5-6 hp unit so it could not handle much more torque to run a higher gpm/psi pump. It would burn it up quick. For the money, your dollars would be better spent just buying a better unit. Rod!~

Spindles aka balusters, tend to be the most time consuming aspect of most decks. 1. Reason being is that when stripping, the chems don't stay on them well. Frequent re-application is necessary to get a complete removal of existing coating in some cases. 2. spraying sealer on the opens up the over-spray issue and so you need something to catch it like plastic, cardboard etc. 3. sanding is the most difficult as the common tools available do not get in between very well. When washing, you will have a better time if you attack them at angles pointing at hitting 2 sides each time, then reversing that to get the other angle. Repeat for the outside. This ensures you get the corners of each spindle and don't have any missed edges. When sanding, using an osborn brush on a 7" variable speed grinder/polisher works great to remove the fuzzies. There is also a roto sander attachment you can put on a drill to get in between each set of spindles when needing to sand remnant stain or smooth the surface. Bidding should weigh the spindles heavily. That is where the majority of your time will be spent. Floors and steps are fast and easy for not only access but computing sq/ft. Rails measuring is best done length X height. If you take each side of a spindle (4 sides) 1.5"X4=6" That equates the distance between them so you can literally calculate the sqft of rails and add that to get a more complete total sqft to help make sure you cover your time, labor costs, material costs. Start timing how long it takes to do a section of rails (between each 4X4 rail post) inside and out. keep track of that and use to compute your time for completing on a sqft basis. Rod!~

Considering that there is a pool in the same vicinity, I would have assumed building codes to have caught that power box as improper for the installation. One or the other would have had to been moved. btw, that was a factor 5 house wash on the p.i.t.a. scale! :D Rod!~

Tom is the way to go for equipment and the PWNA is the single best way to go for exterior wood education and certification. I agree with Jim do NOT let go of that interior clientele. Add decks as a supplement, and enjoy both. You'll fill in the weather and temperature gaps. Beth

I don't think of this product as an industrial grade product. It is targeted towards consumer home applications and in small quantities. The use of this product in conjunction with anything we normally use for housewashing would Create huge gas release problems and chemical reactions. Mold and algae typically does not regrow within a year if the siding is cleaned well enough. go ahead and offer your own warranty if you like. We tell our customers to look for maintenance washes every 2 years or more on the sides that need it the most. Rod!~

If you don't have filters for your inlet water to help keep debris and rust out of the system, this can lead to small particles getting lodged in the valves of the unloader which once it happens are not easily dislodged. This sounds like the problem but it may also now involve the seals of the unloader. If you are handy, you can rebuild it and replace the seals but otherwise, you may need to just replace it to avoid future problems. I use 2 filters. 1 before the tank and another just before the pump. This gives me a two stage filtering process to keep unwanted particles out of the lines. If you use residential water such as from wells, you may want to also install a coarse filter at the end of your supply hose where you connect to the faucet. Rod!~