weaselcossey

$99.99? Surely you're kidding.

Looks like the neighbors need a good wash, and a good painter. Is that some kind of hardibacker siding on the second house over? I guess in a place like that, one just gives up on keeping a somewhat clean exterior.

They just remodeled my local Sonic a few months ago. The new design looked really good at first, but now its filthy. I've never seen anyone clean it. When I introduced myself to the manager last month, I asked about washing their concrete and building. She said: "We just let the rain keep it rinsed off." I talked to her about the importance of keeping a clean building/workplace, especially a restaurant. No dice. They probably wouldn't pay it anyway, gum is very heavy and everywhere.

I've never seen marks quite like those, such a consistent pattern all the way across. Could those marks be from some kind of chemical? Maybe they sprayed something on the entire surface with a pump-up, only to find it dry when they went back to rinse. Apparently it takes a real genius to leave marks like that, seems us fools can't figure out how. :lgbugeyes

Try some gutter grenade from pressuretek. Just don't mix too strong, or dwell too long. Of course test an inconspicuous place first. Use a soft brush to apply it, dwell, and agitate it a bit. Good luck. P.S. You can certainly be held liable without a disclaimer or such in writing.

I was hoping no one saw that.... My computer is going nuts, that one was supposed to be in the thread about automotive finishes..... I dunno what happened. I gave up on that post, didn't even go back and put it in the right thread. Did look like I lost me marbles, huh?

Inform your customers that you buy 'bleach' in 55 gal drums which are reused. 55 one gallon jugs in a landfill plus a little SHc runoff in your yard must be worse than only the latter.

Maybe they are no fun, but the respirator is a must in some situations. Safety 1st.

My local Sherwin Williams is having a sale through late august. They got the Titan 440i for $699, with hose, gun, and 4 tips. Might be worth looking into. Wouldn't you be kicking yourself this time next year if you had to replace the $300 sprayer from Lowe's?

I washed a house in May that had a deck with 1 week old solid stain. I just wet the windows and deck, soaped up the house, rinsed windows and deck, dwell, rinsed house, rinsed deck again. With that stain only 3 days old, I would definitely try to wash that side while its in the shade. Definitely rinse the mix completely off the deck before you do anything else. Just keep the deck soaking wet, and when you're done with that area rinse again. edit: I was using simple cherry and 6%.

As long as i'm x-jetting, 6% works fine on vinyl at 2 gal per 5er most of the time. I would really like to get a good ds injector (the one I have now sucks.......errr I guess that's the problem...it doesn't suck), but i'm sure I would need stronger than 6%. I'm sure dsing would be faster. Biggest drawback seems to be the hose filling up with chems. How does a person throw chems any distance when dsing? Can you use a 0 degree tip and drop the pressure at the unloader until it draws? Sorry, a little off topic.

Must be some type of swirled or ring shank nails for absolutely none to be popped out. We use the 4" swirled nails repairing docks. Nearly everything here is SYP. I've completely redecked a couple of docks, and have never had a problem with those nails working loose. I'm sure you know how the moist pressure-treated SYP acts when it dries. Considering the constant moving side to side, up and down in the water, and constant moisture from underneath the dock and condensation, its pretty amazing how well a good nail will hold in stable wood. The finish nails just blow my mind. That lumber must have been dried very well, and straight as an arrow.

For vinyl, this is the mix I use most of the time(with the M5). Sometimes you'll need more bleach on the north side, dormers, etc. 2 gal. 6% SH 8 oz simple cherry 3 gal. water. Sounds too simple huh? Try it. Mix some gutter grenade in a 3 gal. mop pail and brush the gutters. Clean gutters usually amaze my customers. Just don't mix the gutter grenade too strong, or dwell too long. I experimented adding 1/4 cup of F-13 to the house wash. Mostly does nothing to help clean the vinyl, other than weird stains around high traffic areas. Added a good tablespoon of apple blossom dawn, just made it harder to rinse. Added a squirt of cascade rinse aid, and ended up where I started. If there's substantial mold/mildew, make it 3 SH and 2 water. Cleans well and rinses easily. IMHO, the most annoying aspects of cleaning vinyl are: 1) Getting all the solids rinsed off. Especially under shutters and such. 2)Gutters 3 stories and up. For me, getting the vinyl itself clean is about as easy as it gets.

No 10% at the supercenter here :lgsad: I've called every pool store within 50 miles or so, no dice. I did find a local place that orders mostly janitorial stuff for local businesses. They offere me a box of (4) 1 gal. jugs of 12.5% for the low, low price of.......$39.95!! And I had to wait for them to get up to a $600 order, or pay shipping. No thanks. The only other place i've found is a chemical distributor about 70 miles away. They had 10% for $2.19 gal, 55 gal drums only. Minimum order is $800, and they still charge shipping. Keeping my fingers crossed for the wal-mart stuff.

In my opinion, the first thing you have to do is get the owner to understand that a spray down simply won't be good enough. You gotta at least soap it up and rinse. Imagine how many people will see you working there, and the buildings not actually being clean when you're done. Bad for business. I once had a guy in a nice gated neighborhood ask me to wash only the first story of his home. The second story was just as filthy as the first. I gave him a bid for the whole house, and didn't get the job. I just couldn't see washing half his house with all his neighbors driving by seeing my company name and a half clean house. No one else is gonna know that he only paid for the first story.

I don't know how profitable you'll be with that washer. Go to Buy the pressure washer items you need at affordable pricing. We have Suttner Cat Giant General Pump Delavan Pressure Pro Hansen Mosmatic Comet Whisper Wash AR pumps trigger guns surface cleaners lances wands duct spinners swivels ball valves chemica and order an M5 x-jet, 10 lb. simple cherry, 1 gallon of gutter grenade, and a brush with an extension. You should be able to clean most any vinyl siding house with this. If you can't find any stronger bleach locally, just use the 6% wal-mart stuff. It will work, you may have to apply soap a couple of times on trouble spots. In a five gallon bucket mix 2 gallons of 6% bleach, 8 oz of simple cherry, and 3 gallons water. You'll need the gutter grenade for gutters and downspouts. If you have some spots that won't come off the siding, don't hit it with high pressure, soap it up, dip your brush in the gutter grenade mix, scrub it with the brush, and rinse, rinse, rinse. Don't let the soap dry, especially on windows. Just remember if the soap isn't cleaning the surface, you need to adjust your mix, not blast away with high pressure. Good luck.

Someone correct me if i'm wrong. Your downstream injector is mixing at somewhere between 5:1 and 6:1, you want 9:1. If you premix your chemicals, one part chemical and one part water, that should put you close to 11:1 or 12:1. It seems to me you should premix two parts soap to one water to put you pretty close to 9:1.

I accept credit cards. Mostly because my mother-in-law has a children's boutique, and I just call her up and have her punch in the card number. Always be sure it goes through; its crazy how many people have no clue if they're anywhere near maxed out. I personally have two cards I use for everything possible. I ALWAYS pay the full bill every month to avoid interest. In one month I cashed in over $200 in points at a ticketmaster. Can't beat free money.

Someone didn't pay attention in science class. There is no 'suck'. Suction is created by 'pushing' air to create an area of low pressure, as explained earlier. Think of a shop-vac, it blows air out one end, creating an area of low pressure inside the vac, air in the atmosphere is then pushed into the other end which usually has a smaller tip at the end of a hose. I say 'pushed' because the vac doesn't pull the atmosphere, the atmospehere equalizes the area of low pressure inside the vac which is continually being blown out the other end for constant suction. The smaller tip creates more suction at the tip. An area of pressure, lower than the pressure in your 5er, is created in the xjet. As a result, the liquid in your 5er is pushed, by the atmosphere, into the area of low pressure inside the xjet. This low pressure area is continually recreated, constantly repeating the process. Its all about atmospheric pressure, this suction stuff. Always makes itsef equal. Stick a needle into a balloon, POP, all the air inside is released to an area of lower pressure, the atmosphere. If this was a helium filled balloon, the results would be much different. This is related to density and such. If your 5er is full of molasses, the results will be much different. Moral: Use the right proportioner for the recommended ratio. No mixing required, someone who manufactured the xjet already figured all this stuff for us, and was nice enough to make little proportioners color coated for easy reference. If they had only gave us a way to keep up with them.....

Anyone ever put signs in a customer's yard after washing? I am considering this, and wanted to know if anyone's had any luck. Maybe offer a 5% discount for using their yard for a week or two. I am only considering this for the high trafiic subdivisions, and generally 'nice' neighborhoods. I can get the signs for about $7 each if I buy 24. Anyone have advice?

I just bought a trailer mounted rig from my father-in-law for $1500 (i did have to wash his house aS part of the deal, but he's not holding me to strict payments either). Seems like I got a great deal. 13 hp honda, 3500 psi, 4 gpm, setup for downstreaming , 300 gallon tank, 30 gallon chemical tank, 100' goodyear hose, and of course wand with qc tips and about a 30" lance. I live in TN, pretty small town, and no one advertises here. I've only seen one small auto detail trailer around. I've only got a couple of jobs so far, but i'm hopeful. Just bought a 24' telecoping wand and turbo nozzle. I'll have to get a new reel, as mine is obviously too small for that much hose, and not mounted well either. It was suggested to me to fill up my tank on site. Didn't sound very professional, but my truck won't handle the weight (i'm working towards fixing that). Perhaps reimbursing the customer for their water, maybe that's not necessary, I just don't waNt to get off to a bad start. I've been pricing vinyl at 10 cents/sq.ft. First 2 jobs were one story, and I charged for footage of siding and didn't add anything for facia, soffit, or exterior of gutters. I knows this is a broad question, but does that sound too cheap? What's the best cleaners (i've only done vinyl and driveways as of now)? Any general tips would be appreciated. This rig basically fell in my lap. Now i just need some guidance from the wisemen of the trade. I'm a pretty intelligent guy, but I still know when i'm ignorant (meaning 'unknowing,' of course - ignorant just sounds so harsh). So i'll be looking forward to any feedback. If anyone has comments on the pricing (i understand this will vary greatly by location etc) i mentioned earlier, please tell me. The last thing I want to do is start out underbidding.

You guessed it. Wish I had got these yesterday. I decided to tinker with it and try figure out the problem. In the process I lost the spring, and the ball had a little crack in it. On top of that, it looked likme someone had torqued the tip down too much, the ball wouldn't come out of the tip. At this point, the chemical tank was getting filled up with water. So I went to my local small engine place and they ordered a replacement (shipped for $28, maybe i got taken, but i was desperate). It's just the, sorry I don't know the proper names, the part that hooks onto the pump and the whole assembly that the hose hooks into. Anyone know whatg kind of ratio this thing mixes? Do i need to adjust the cutoff valve on my water tank when using the chemical tip? I will probably buy an xjet, but i've got to get some work first. Also, I can't can't find anything other than krud kutter and simple green, locally. I tried the krud kutter for concrete on my driveway, before things went south, and it didn't help much. It didn't seem to help the cleaning process, did seem a but brighter than the section i just used water on. Didn't seem to cut through the grime, break surface tension. I guess I'll have to keep a case or so of whatever i SHOULD be using in my garage. Anyone know a place online, where shipping won't kill me? I've heard simple cherry and 12.5 % sodium hypochlorite for vinyl. What should i use on concrete, brick, and decks ( i realize that this should probably be on a different forum, the chemical part anyway, just didn't want to explain everything again). Thanks for the feedback, more would be great. I must be able to make money here, no one advertises, population is somewhere around 20,000.

I bid on a house today, for a guy that some of family knows/knows of. Anyway, I know for a fact.he's well off. The peak of the gable ends on his house were 32 feet from ther ground, and he only wanted 12-14 from the ground cleaned (to pinch pennies). I told him I would do the whole thing, and priced him at $330. You should have seen the guy, studdering and just shocked apparently. I explaIned to him that if he really waNted a clean house, that was the price. If not, i'm not the guy. We talked for a while, then he started second guessing himself, mumbling about how it really needed done and such. I don't know if he'll call back, but he's in a nice subdivision with all types f requirements on color schemes, square footage, etc. Did he reaLly think I would do my first job there, and only wash the bottm half? I'm sure that would draw all kinds of attention. I'm just getting started, but i've learned from another trade that bidding low to get the job only digs an early grave (for your business, and considering the stress later on, probably yourself too)

Don't know if it will help, but here are some pics. I gotta get this straightened out. P.S. I don't know how these will look on a desktop. I took the pictures, and uploaded them from my handheld.

The problem is that I can't get something right with my downstreaming. It doesn't seem to be drawing much from the chemical tank, or far too much from the water tank. I don't have any idea what kind of ratio this SHOULD be mixing between the two tanks. Therefore i don't know what to mix to even put in the chemical tank. I've got to get this mess straightened out. The mix of 4 bleach to 1 water was hardly doing anything. Seriously, that mix felt more like 8 water to 1 bleach, it was pointless to use it. Must be getting too much water even with the chemical tip. Don't know if this has any effect, but the line from the water tank is about 1" inside, and the chemical about 3/8" inside. Maybe just some adjustments are needed. As I said, I just this rig on credit from my in-laws, i'm still fairly clueless. I tried to attach some pics of how its all hooked up ,but its not working out right now. I'll try again later.