Joel Hawley

You have helped me I just don't realize it yet.

Beth what have you done in the past when there were drought restrictions? How does it effect your business?

I know this is the wrong forum to ask but since you brought it up, what is the diffrence between being insured and being bonded?

Thank You, Thank You Thank You, I never even considered what effect more GPM's would have on the burner. I shudder to think how much $$ I would have wasted if I hadn't have found these BB's. Kind of makes me feel bad for the old timers whou had nothing but trial and error to figure it out.

Thanks Beth Frostburg is 21532 Cumberland 21502

Actually an in-law floor. the whole basement is hers

Offer accepted, we close on 05/28. To say the least my wife is very excited. We got lucky it was only on the market one day. The other houses my mother in law looked that she liked all had contracts. There is enough room on one side to build a pretty good sized detached garage. This will be the second house I have bought with out seeing. The last one I was at work and my wife called me on here cell, I asked her if I liked it and she said yes. This one my mother in law did the same thing. Luckly I hang around with women who have good taste:D :D

I have never hired employees for a cleaning business but I have interviewed 100's of people for sales positions, and I am here to tell ya if you can find a good way to get a good employee every time quit your business and write a book because it would make you rich. If you want to actually go through the hiring process I can give you some advice. First thing is look through your local employment adds and see how many business's are looking for people in that occupation, if there is allot of demand you will have to do A little research and see what the competition is paying and if they have benefits. If it looks like you will be one of the few then it won't be such a problem. Once you run the add don't try to pre-screen people on the telephone except for the very basic requirements you may have i.e SSN, Drivers license, Green Card. Other then that do your best not to pre judge until you have gone through the interview process with them. Have some sort of application made up that each prospect can fill out. Pre-plan your interview and try to ask each prospect the same questions. If you plan on doing any back ground checks make sure you have a signed privacy act statement or you can get hit with a $25,000 fine. This may be a little more then you want to do just getting started, if you a just basically looking for some manual laborers from time to time check out your local job placement agency i.e Labor Ready or Work Force Ready and see what they charge per hour. Normally they will charge you around $8-$10 per hour and they intern pay the laborer minimum wage. That may very depending on your local economy.

Looks like you got it down to A science Henry. Sounds like a pretty good technique. How long would a 1.5 gallon container of cleaner last You?

What would be the possibiliteis of finding an OTR driver that might be coming back your way empty or with half a load? Another idea (this may not be cost effective) is to contact these folks www.movex.com or www.upack.com I have been talking to them about my move to Maryland and I had mentioned a trailer to the lady at movex and she told me as long as I could get it on the truck they would move it. For all of my household goods the quotes ran from $1300 to $1900. I guess in both these scenarios your biggest problems would be not being there to load it and the $$ now that I think about it I am only going 600 or 700 miles and you are going cross country so that would probably knock the movex and upack out ofthe question.

Beth, or anybody else who cares to chime in, How stringent are they in the MD area about re-claiming water? Does it very from county to county, or town to town? Is it something I need to be figuring into my business plan as far as acquiring some sort of reclaiming apparatus before I consider any commercial flat work?

That is one place where I am quite lucky. Having a wife who is 2 semester hours short of being able to sit for the CPA isn't hurting matters at all. She already has a 4 year degree with a major in accounting and a minor in ethics so hopefully she will be able to carry the non-business load on her shoulders for the first year or two. Ron P No I have not invested the quarter in advertising yet with the exception of the logo I had Beth do. I am in the process of moving. I live in Nashville now and still have a 60+ hour a week job as A finance MGR at at A Ford Dealership. Once we get to Maryland (Frostburg) in late May Early June is when I am going to be starting my business. Right now I am just trying to get my equipment straight so I can hit the ground running and have most of the logistic figured out. I am not going into this with rose colored glasses, I know it will be hard to get started and I will probably lose money before I make any and i will make mistakes, its how you learn. I used to be a brick and block commercial/residential Mason by trade and the first two jobs I ever got subbed to me on my own were brick work on small additions. I got up early Saturday morning fired up and ready to go. Went to the first job knocked it out in 6 hours, had me one other mason and a laborer. Went to the next job and had to use the headlights on the truck to finish but left feeling proud of myself, I made good money and had feeling of self accomplishment. Until the next morning when both home owners called me within 30 minutes of each other. I got the delivery mixed up and had the wrong colored mortar sent to each house. They were within 4 or 5 shades of each other but I was so excited about working for myself I didn't check. Had to tear both walls down salvage as much brick as i could from each job buy new brick for what I couldn't salvage, and do both jobs over again. My first venture as A self employed man cost me a little over $3000 when it was all said and done. But those mistakes made me $1000's over the next few years. My time as a Mason is also what got me into the pressure washing business for a couple of years back in the early 90's till one thing led to another and 9 years ago I landed behind this god awful desk job. Been wanting to get back out in the field ever since.

Well I guess in a perfect world I would be able to start out with the biggest, the best, and the fastest equip but unfortunatley I am not in that position. Like Morgan I also am on a cash and carry basis with my equip. Here is what I have to work with now. Excuse the pics, I just went and snapped them earlier and the garage is a mess I have two houses in one right now with two trailers in my basement taking up all the space. Though I may still give this whole GPM thing some more thought

Jon, thanks for the links, looks like I have something else to research for 3 or 4 hours. What is the cost associated with a reclaim unit. I am sure there are some $8000 units out there, but what about for the guy just getting started back up again after 9 years who is on a shoe string budget? Can you get buy rigging something up with a shur flo pump, drainage hose, and a tank to capture it in? This may sound stupid but it just dawned on me. What do you do with it once you have re-claimed it?

Beth, your site looks great. Look forward to gaining and sharing allot of knowledge here. If you get a chance could you put up or tell me how to put up the logo you did for me in my signiture box? By the way you did a great job on it. I haven't had time to really talk to you about it been real busy getting ready to move to your part of the world. Selling/trying to sell houses, buying equipment, trying to find a house in Frostburg. But I am looking forward to meeting you in person.