Mike Williamson

Oh hell no! Usually the sun is back out shining within an hour, but everything has been watered, including the mold! What's depressing is knowing that the highs will be in the mid to upper 90s, with a few 100+ days thrown in, until sometimes in September!

Hey, at least I've never woken up to the house shaking in an earthquake! I get a little advance notice with hurricanes! And boy does a good wet summer mean good business next year!

Here's what we have to look forward to Monday evening/Tuesday morning! The first named storm of Hurricane Season!! That last "S" is right over my house. LOL

He paid you to do a job, and that includes no streaking up his windows. Doesn't matter how dirty it WAS, our job is to get it CLEAN! That includes at making the windows at least reasonably clean. Sure, he COULD go clean it himself, but hey, he paid you to do it! That's where he gets off. True, he walked it with you, but then again it is hard to see a streaked window from the outside sometimes. Now, if he was nasty about it on the voicemail, there's no reason for that. I doubt it had anything to do with justifying the purchase, but rather getting what he paid for. If you haven't already, call him back, apologize for missing the window, and go by and clean it for him! That's what I would do.

What'r you doing watching tv in the car?

I wasn't suggesting it was too steep. That's for you to know, since I don't know your market. Heck, I have a $700 roof clean/housewash/driveway Monday that shouldn't take me and a helper more than 4 hours. That's not a normal 4 hour day, regrettably!!

The thing you have to be careful of when pricing a bunch of small things is to not price yourself out of a job! I have a tendency to price each item as if that's the ONLY item I'd be doing, meaning setup and teardown time is factored in, drive time, etc. I wind up with an over-priced bid, and I have to re-calculate things a bit.

Well, it isn't the technology, it is getting a county department to totally re-vamp their systems for basically no benefit to themselves! In most cases, I wouldn't bid jobs from a picture. Roof cleaning...how do I know how much debris is on the roof...how do I know how heavy the algae is, etc...How bad is the screen enclosure, etc. It'd be nice to see, but it isn't a huge deal.

Cool site. I like the MS Virtual Earth pics they have. Looked my house up, and there's my truck/trailer parked out front, and this is from at least two years ago, since the lake was down.

Here's what I have to work with...very nice, but lacking pics!! http://www.acpafl.org/search.asp

It rains here all the time in the summer months, or at least it is supposed to! Been a dry spring, but we've had more afternoon showers lately. Thank God for them! Mold won't grow when it's dry. Good thing about the rain here, it usually blows through rather quickly...very few "rainy days".

Not if I don't have to! But yes, I will. Never had a customer ask about it, or express an opinion.

Oh, they don't hurt that bad! Unless one sneaks in above your mask and nails you right in the forehead! OUCH!

LOL, 55 gallons will run my machine for a grand total of 7 minutes. I keep a 225 gallon buffer tank, and sometimes that isn't enough.

Then again, some of us have come across that way to others (I certainly know *I* have), and aren't really that way most of the time...we just had a bad day, something that was said hit us the wrong way, etc. Maybe the guy just had a huge arguement with his wife about whether to do it himself of hire a deck guy, and he stormed out to go buy some Thompsons, and then here comes some deck guy agreeing with his wife that he doesn't know what he's doing! LOL!

15% is 20%. stronger than 12.5%. The percentages are the amount of sodium hypochorite that is in the solution. 12.5% is 12.5% SH and 87.5% inert ingredients (usually just water). 15% is 15% SH and 85% inert ingredients.

That's usually it! And some of those old guys have some stories to share! Keep in mind that these folks are retired, have a lot of time on their hands, and LOVE to talk to their neighbors and friends. If you indulge them a bit, they'll love you and walk away feeling like you're their new best friend. They'll tell their neighbors and friends what a great guy you are, what a great job you did. As someone else pointed out, most of us do the same thing when it is OUR stuff getting worked on!

In a case like you mention, I wouldn't charge extra. If I showed up and the water supply was inadequate, my fault...I didn't check when I priced the job. In answer to your questions, Yes, and Yes. I charge extra for jobs where I have to supply the water, and I plan that into the estimate.

Keep us updated on how they do in the next couple weeks. 13 calls on 1000 mailers is great for a 1 day response! If you get quite a few more calls in the next couple weeks, I may be bugging you for the name of the company where you got your list!

Well, our county does have a pretty comprehensive website, and the way it is laid out, I can download certain neighborhoods, all the houses on a particular street, etc. I have access to all the sales info, house size and layout, etc. It only take about 15 minutes to download the neighborhood, convert it into Excel, clean up the data, and import into a Word file to print letters or mailing labels. It is MUCH better than most appraiser websites I've seen, but I do wish they'd have pictures! On the other hand, I've been to appraiser websites that have pictures and more info, but you can't search by area, only a specific address, owner name, or parcel number, meaning I couldn't do my mailers in the way I do that. That's much more important to me.

Or there's this one...

I assume this is a website that is local to you? That's one thing that is very lacking in our property appraiser's website. We have a diagram of the house layout, but no pictures. I can find the size of the house, and whether it is 1 or 2 stories, but not how steep the roof is, how large the driveway is, etc.

Captain: by the way, excellent first post! Welcome to the board!

ExACTly! I can tell you what God has done for me, I can tell you how I've experienced God, but unless you experience Him for yourself, my words are just words...A skeptic will either think me a liar, or delusional, or both. God is a personal, one-on-one God, and the things I have experienced leave no room for doubt in this non-delusional very analytic mind.

WOW! Stuff like that is a clear reminder that He is able! And that He cares for us. Thanks for that story.