CLASSICPW

I hate to ask the question, but how many of the contractors on here hire non english speaking help. illegal or not. A friend of mine runs a painting biz and has about 6 spanish guys working for him, only his foreman(2) speak english, which he pays well( abot $18 hr), but they are all from South America. He offered to get me a guy as a helper, which I need really bad, but I cannot speak spanish, so I'm forced to hire college kids who so far are lazy, never show up, and just always have an excuse not to work.

The pool was from last year, so the chlorine level was not that high, but I did notice that when I mixed my HD-80 stripper with the pool water my sprayer was warm to the touch....I guess the 2 were interacting. It didn't really matter, the job came out beautiful after I neutralized it. It took 10 hours to complete the pwash part at which i bid at $750 so It wasnt that bad, I usually do much better, but it turned out so well that I can't complain. I'm not sure why it matters, but my machine is direct drive. As far as the pump, it just kept tripping the gfci and the only thing we could guess is that it went bad somehow(grounding out somehow? I don't know) when I brought the new one the next day it worked fine. I'm going back Sat to apply a Sikkens semi, I hope that goes well. The best part about the job is that the pool is not covered and she's replacing the liner after the deck is done so it doesn't matter what gets into the pool.

I don't recall a thread on tips on brushing and rolling solids. I hope everyone can give up some secrets to help this process go by faster. It takes me and my helper about 7-8 hours to solid stain a 500 sq ft 2nd story deck with steps. We use a 6" wizz roller 4" stain brush and 1"nap 9" roller. Is there anyway to make spindles go faster? I really hate doing this, I charge a pretty penny, but i still feel that it lowers my profit margin. I much rather spray and back brush semi's, but there's always that job.

I used to use Olympic Maximum and this exact thing happened to me. Luckily my deck turned out fine. The rain was fairly hard, but it was in the middle of summer and about 2-3 hrs after I finished. The customer called me to check it out, but all was good. The worst was when I had to solid stain a deck with puke yellow Behr(the customer insisted) and it poured while I was doing it.......... nightmare.

I've never used this flood product, but what if you could wetsand it with mineral spirits then reapply.

Back to the original topic for a sec, I washed the deck today, well, at least half of it. The Roberts river kit from Delco was a major disappointment. It was about $45 with $20 3 day shipping, when it came in the mail I realized that I could've made it myself for about $20. I siphoned the water from the pool into my washer, but that was nowhere near enough gpm for the washer to even work. I went to home depot and bought a submersible utility pump that put out 1400 gal per hour which worked great until it grounded out halfway through. On top of all that right before the pump gave up a thunderstorm was brewing with lots of lightning. Days like this make you want to throw in the towel, but I see it as a learning experience. Oh well, I'm going back tomorrow with a better pump and a more level head. BTW the job is a referral and 45 min away.......lovin it!!!

I get my chlorine from a pool supply near my house( very lucky) they have 5 gal jugs with 12.5% for $10.

I love the nautical look, that would be sweet, light and dark boards. I've never thought of that. I might do it on my own deck.

I'm very thankful for the info on the hydrant issue, that'll come in handy, but back to my question. Has anyone used the robert's river kit to suction water from a lake, pond, or in my case a pool? If not can a sump pump be used? thanks.

You like those water brroms? I bought one and never used it.

I wish I could use a hydrant, the houses that I do are in nowhere land, but then again how do myou access a hydrant? I'd like the info for future reference, thanks.

The pump will pull water? I thought that pw machines needed water pressure to work properly.

I've had 2 jobs this year to remove dark grey runs coming off windows on brick. I've tried everything except muriatic acid, any ideas?

The concrete cleaner or the 800 stain remover? I like their site, thanks.

I agree with Aplus, it's mildew from attic moisture, I encounter it almost daily. I use pool chlorine in my house wash, it usually takes 2-3 wash and rinses with the x-jet to remove it.

Is their house wood? I won't touch a strip job if the house is wood or oxidized aluminum.

I would think that the nicer decks would be in a more temperate climate. Around ere it gets up to 100 in the summer and down to the 20's and 30's in the winter which reaks havoc on wood. Especially people who douse their decks with salt when it snows.

I stumbled into a place called Namco one day to look for patio furniture and found 5 gal jugs of pool chlorine for $10 a pop. I've been very happy with that, Dawn and a little jet dry.

I forgot to add this question. Has anyone ever targeted grave yards? I've seen some very dirty graves and even those large statues are always covered in grime.

Hey Ken, it's possible, my wife's brother, father and grandfather are all named Dave and all have the same birthday. Very weird.

I've never stripped Cabot's before, but I've got a bid on a deck with multiple layers of semi in natural. I thought the guy layed down some king of poly or clear acrylic, the deck is shiny, brown and black.

Does anyone use any methods th screen their estimates? I did some amazing advertising this spring and I am overwhelmed with calls. I'm getting sick of wasting my time on some calls where you know they probably are just calling to see what it will cost. Sometimes they are 30 min out of the way. I group my estimates together so it saves time, but you still get that feeling at some places that you're just wasting your time when you could be out working on the jobs that you have piling up. A friend of mine suggested that I ask them what they would be willing to pay for their job to sort of feel them out. Then again I've had bad feelings about a bid and got the job on the spot.

I've been through quite a few different advertising in the few(3yrs) I've been in biz. The problem for this question is that advertising varies immensly from state to state, even county to county. In my area I use the yellow pages($300/yr) that I get a few jobs from, when I first started I used the Pennysaver, which got me alot of work, now it's overwhelmed with pressurewashers, that was $36 a week per area. In the fall of 2004 I went with VALPAK which was 50,000 homes/month for 3 months @ $4600. I made good money, but later learned that a good majority of their clients were apartments...........furious. My new ad is called RSVP and has so far been phenominal.

Are these real small, protruding and very hard? If so, I've never been able to remove them. They're always aroung bushes and trees. Someone told me they have something to do with spider mites, but I don't believe it.

That's unbelievable. I've never had a mahogany job...........yet.