CCPC

I just recently washed my brothers house, driveway and back porch. I charged him $50 just to help off set my chemical and gas cost. When I wash my parents house I don't charge them anything, but my mom makes me take money anyway. Gotta love mom.

I sometimes forget how different things are from state to state. No wonder everything is so expensive up there.

One thing everyone need to keep in mind is that it is possible that those marks already existed on the siding, but did not become noticable until after the cleaning. I've personally experienced this myself. I've cleaned dirty siding, and when finished, and sometimes not until after it drys a bit, I notice the handy work of either the homeowner, or a past idiot contractor. With that being said, even if it was this guy who damaged the siding, it would be very difficult to prove it in court. Hate to say it, but you may be out of luck on this one.

I think he was just trying to "sign off" on his work. I hate to see stuff like this.

It almost sounds like it would be more cost effective if you just tear down the old one and build him a new one.

Oxalic. Recommendations on where to buy at a good price. Thanks.

Thanks for calling Russ.

Looking to buy some more oxalic acid, anyone know of a good place to order some at a fair price?

The kicker is when you call them and they answer the phone with "hello" instead of "Clay County Pressure Cleaning, Lance Speaking", or something similar. Either commit and do it right or go away.

"two thieves and a truck":bullistic

Funny you posted that becuase I was just about to post the same thing. There's a moving company here also called "Two men and a truck". I always thought it was just a small local company, but maybe not. The truck (or trucks) that I see are just plan white with just "two men and a truck" moving company or somthing in black lettering.

Yes, I can pull chem with all three of those tips with 250' plus of hose. I do use a ball valve on my chem line draw hose. Most of the time I rinse houses with no more than about 400psi. I also sometimes use my remote valve system, so I can turn the ball valve from a 100 plus feet away saving on all the walking back and forth. Mostly though, I just walk and turn it by hand because I haven't gotten around to refining the motor/ball valve design yet. http://www.thegrimescene.com/forums/tools-equipment-basic-maintenance/6652-remote-valve-shut-off-downstreaming.html

Do you all do follow up calls on work that you have completed? This is somthing that I've never really done, but have thought often that I should be doing. I've even thought about comment cards of some sort as well just so I have somthing in writing that is easy to refer to.

A bit slow for this time of year. I've had a lot of weird calls/requests lately. Must be somthing in the water around here.

I got beat out by a "$99 special" house wash myself the other day. It was a lawn company, and the house was also nearly 3,000 sqft. It was the first time that I've actully heard a customer refer to a competitors $99 house wash special. I'm getting to where I hate these hack lawn services. I find that most of the lowball bids I here of come from lawn companies. Most are so used to having to hack there way into the lawn business that they use the same approach while devaluing our trade with minimum wage bids, and without proper insurance to boot. I hate lawn hacks, and don't get me started on painters.

Hi Nate, I run a 5.5gpm 3500psi machine. I use a 0030 for applying chem, and usually rinsing as well, for areas 25' - 40'. I use a 0540 for applying to areas 15'-25' I use a 1540 for all areas 15' to ground level. hope this helps.

I've never gone that far under the chlorine gas bomb, but some situations pretty close to that. These days I always where my repirator when working in enclosed areas such as screen porchs or pool enclosures. Only about 50% of the time on house washes in the open air though. I guess I need to tighten up on that.

I don't understand how some of you feel comfortable giving blanket prices based on square footage anyways. In my opinion there's way to many variables to be taken into consideration that can effect the pricing up or down. I've cleaning 4000 sqft houses in an hour, and cleaned 2000sqft houses that took over four hours. To me, you have to price according to time and materials, and you can't do that with a blanket price. My best pricing guide is experience, and I get better and better at figuring accurate estimates every year I'm in this business. With that all being said, usually no matter how small the house, I don't clean any for less than $200 with the exception of the occasional vinyl double wide that can be cleaned in about 20 minutes. I also don't think it's fair to assume that just because somebody's price is way bellow yours that their quality of work is sub par. It true some of the time, but not always. Maybe they do good work, but don't mind making less money. Maybe they are far more effecient than most other companies. My rates are about average for my area, yet I probably make a lot more money than most of my competiton (per hour) because I'm able to do the same work, usually at a higher quailty, and in a lot less time. I know this just by my own observations of watching a lot of other companies at work over the years.

I've used Quantummail, they seem to be a good company, allthough If you want the best bang for your buck I would recommend just buying a mailing list and mail out flyers in envelopes. My experience with this method has proven much higher returns; usually three of four times the call backs as postcards.

Thanks for the heads up. I host through them right now, and was already planning to switch when I get my new website ready. This was good to know. Thanks.

Belichick left the field before the game was even officially over. What a losser. I'm so glad they lost. The only downfall to Patriots lossing is that now I have to here that idiot Mercury Morris run is mouth again about Miami's perfect season over and over again for another eternity.

No customs, but ones that it seems most suppliers don't seem to carry. Like 9510, 8020, 11010 Which I use for rinsing on a lot of jobs, and a variety of shooter tips for applying chem like; 0540, 1540. These are nice because you achieve a good fan pattern which speeds up chem application, while still being able to reach a good 25' up. I don't like using 0 degree soap tips for applying chem up high when possible, because the stream is to narrow, and seems to waste more chem on a given area compared to wide fan shooter nozzles.

GO JAGS!!! Smack those Cheatriots in the mouth!!!

I've ordered them directly from Spraying Systems in the past. That way I can get any variation of pattern and size that I want. Last time I ordered from them, there was a fifty dollar mimimum order, so I stocked up on many of the common sizes I normally use, as well as some specialty odd ball sizes that I use less often.

I was a bit curious about this topic. I for one had some loose notes about what I wanted out of this, but nothing formal, or to detailed. I have a feeling that many who start this kind of business don't have a formal business plan, at least in the begining. It would be interesting to see what everyones plans are for their businesses down the road. It seems that some are out to conquer the world, and others wanted nothing more than a bit more freedom from their regular 8 to 5. I know that in my case, I dreamed of starting my own business since I was 11 years old, and now (30 years old and in business for 3 years), I've been as happy as a sissy in an all boys camp. For me, I take it day to day, and feel not urgency to try too grow to fast. I like my one man show, do very little advertising, and now have the freedom I've longed for since I started putting money in someone elses pocket when I was a teenager. I regret all of the effort and life I wasted for peanuts over the years. In all honesty, if I would have known it would have been this easy, I would have started out on my own years ago.