PowerPlay

I have a customer that wants to change from a Medium Brown to a bit lighter brown. I do not currently have light brown ready seal in stock. Would adding more oil or anything lighten it up a bit and be OK. Of course I do not normally do anything with their stain other then put it on. And I wouldn't want to effect the stains performance in a negative way. Linseed Oil?? I dunno?

Would that be a bad thing?

Attn: Looking for sub-contractor to remove AF with magic eraser. I will pay $20 an hour. You supply the erasers and the elbow grease. Must be able to remove at least 200 SPH (spots per hour). hahaha From the other side, I'm not sure why everyone was so persistent in NOT believing you. I mean over and over again you were told that it is spider poop. Like there is NO way you found something to remove it! Isn't that how everything found a "cure"???? Anyway, GREAT THINKING, and I will have to give this a try if I find it on a small scale. My problem is when I find it it's on all 4 sides and then one side will be worse then the others. I can remember a couple instances where homeowners would have paid big bucks to have it removed. One couple was in there new house for about 1 year. The entire one side was covered!

Hi All, I have a job coming up where the homeowner applied two coats over three years of a Thompson's product. The stain on the deck still looks very solid on the rails and spindles. Usually when I see Thompson's it is semi transparent. This is the first Thompson's I have seen that looks pretty opaque. Does anyone have experience stripping this? I looked at the metal square can and couldn't find ingredients anywhere. I don't know what I am up against. I will be working on it late this week. Thanks for any opinions.

Oh I see. So if it comes off with the alcohol be prepared to put another coat of paint on, lol.

Thanks everyone. I was mainly hoping to hear if anyone has experience with a Thompson's product like I was explaining. However, the alchohol trick is good to know. I usually just avoided jobs with acrylic in the past. So if it is acrylic, can you strip the entire deck with the alchohol? Thanks.

Anyone use a sand (what type is best?) to take old, starting to peel paint off a car? If so, how do you protect the windows and weather stripping? What is the best process? Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hopefully he isn't reading this. He will go and trademark it before you do. Then you would be really pissst.

Hay Shane, I have the same quick connect setup on my braided hose. Where did you get the brass pieces for the wand? Thanks mon

Just got our 2nd truck. Here are some before pics. I have several ideas on how to set this little guy up for both equipment and image. I would like it to be easily open or covered bed. Picked it up because of the great gas mileage it gets, so far I'm getting 17-18 cruising it around. We will use this truck for the jobs that are farther away, making us more competitive with the local guys in those areas. It's a 96 4cy turbo diesel with 114k miles on it. I got it for 6200, do you think that is a good deal? If this was your truck, how would you set it up? Any ideas? Thanks

Thats crazy, hope your buddy is allright.

I just read this post about the bus fleet and would love a shot at it. Please call or message me. MUCH appreciated. Nate Harman Power Play 717.314.2360

I use the Palm T/X and love it. It has Wi-Fi so I can check Internet e-mails from anywhere in my house. I use it as a scheduler and if you used a Palm and try to go to a smart phone you will miss some functionality. I love Plams for organization and if I lost it I would be lost, so I back-up often.

Danster, I'm confused, you thought my pricing was too low. On maintenance cleans your looking at 30 mins on the small guys ($49 bucks) as stated in my original post.. I do six, which takes me three hours I am at $294 bucks. You are at $225 for three hours of cleaning. The degreaser is such a small amount of the cost I don't see why you would charge it out as extra. To do six pieces you are looking at like two gallons maybe. So what 10 bucks total degreaser cost. If you're going to go with that logic then why not charge extra for how much gas you use. Unless you are selling the degreaser like an auto mechanic sells parts. Up charging the hell out of it. Please explain....

Those are on the low end, the easy maintenance cleans. That does include the degreaser that when you buy in bulk isn't too pricey. To speak from the other end of things. We do some very large cranes at the local recycler that only get done on an emergency basis. Over heated and broke down, now they need to work on it. We charge $350. I am convincing them it would be better to keep them clean all the time so they don't overheat, less repair. If he gave me all 6 on a bi-weekly, I would do them for $150 each. Pricing varies largely from job to job and I probably shouldn't give my prices. Just have an idea of what your business needs to gross per hour to make you happy and stick with that.

We do a lot of this work. We charge by the piece, however these are accounts we do both weekly and bi-weekly. You will need a good degreaser, hot water, roto nozzles, and a squeegee for your safety glasses.:lgbounces It deffinetly depends on what kind of dirt they are getting into. Limestone, clay, standard dirt, and then there is that dirt / grease mixture. MMMM yummy. We average the following: Hauler / EUC $69 Loader / Dozer $49 These are weekly prices at a quantity of 10 or more. Takes about 30 to 45 mins (depending on the type of equipment) to remove the bulk of the dirt, grease, and clean the windows.

Hi All, I have been in business for about 4 years now, and all is going well. We are mostly commercial work. However in the spring, summer, fall we do a lot of residential work. Mostly houses and decks. I had a current customer come to me this week wanting a very large wood house restored (this year yet). We have done a small log home with great results but besides that we are new to the wood house market. I am looking for advice on both the procedure and pricing side. Also, we are very open to working with another contractor on this project. If the house was logs I would be confident but it is a wood siding. Not very thick probably around 1/4" or whatever the standard is. It presently has a very dark stain, the homeowner has no idea what it is, it was applied once on the new part of the house and twice (two different times) on the rest of the house. I think it is a behr product just by looking at it, but am not sure. We restored a pavilion on their lake/pond that had the same product on it and had to strip twice. However when we washed their house last year (efc-38) the stain seemed to want to release rather easily. We are performing some maintenance work for them next week and I will be testing a portion of the house. I really don't want to strip this thing twice, I also don't know how the ready seal product would hold up over time because there are trees above. I have notices that with the semi-trans, sap does a killer on it. I have estimated the wood siding at around 5,500 sf which seems to be a little on the low end. I have attached pictures which represent about 2/3 of the entire house. Any suggestions by someone with experience in this type of wood restoration would be greatly appreciated. I have also considered recommending a lighter (since the customer wants to go light) opaque and having a painter come in and spay it. I think every 2 to 3 year maintenance will be a hard sell considering they have been in the house since '81 and only had two coats ever. The initial and another about 5 to 6 years ago. How would you tackle this project, and where would your pricing be? Thanks so much!

last pic (close-up)

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I have gotten many of these calls as well. I go to these estimates with an open mind. In most cases, the entire house does need washed. I point out the areas of concern on the opposing sides. If the costumor insists I explain to them that I can wash one side however our minimum is $. This part is key in my opinion, don't just tell them my minumum is X amount, explain to them why. Mr. whoever, unfortunitly whether we wash one side or four sides. The time associated with setting up the right equipment, high pressure hose, cleaners, etc., is the same. So the entire house could be washed for just (double $). In some cases, you walk up to a house that really does only need washed on 1 or 2 sides, usually newer homes. In which case I charge my min. and wash only 1 or two sides. just my .02

Hi All, I don't get many redwood deck in my ares. In fact I believe I ran into my second one. The first one the customers were aware that it was redwood. Could someone give me some pointers in spotting redwood. The only reason I believe it is redwood is because the coloring was so RED when we were cleaning it. Reminded me of the deck we did two seasons ago. It didn't have the bright color when we washed all the dirt and mildew off like I am used to seeing with the pine and cedar. Thanks for the help.

This information is on time! I always enjoy reading more on these subjects. Keep 'em coming Ken, and thanks!

Ken, I think the major difference here is your using the music for a commercial business. Most artists have no problem with personal use. Even royalty free music on the internet is only free for personal use. You have to purchase it for use in any type of business setting. I wouldn't use popular music on a website. Maybe a live presentaion, such as a Home Owners show, or something like that?

I hate GUTTERS! Can't seem to make much money on them either unless I'm doing the house or roof wash also. Love everything else including our most profitable services Houses, Decks, and Fleets. I like the Fleet work even more right now, it's keeping me warm through the winter. It was really interesting to hear everyone's opinions. I was surprised how many do not enjoy deck work!

Very nice Ken. The music is what makes it. I had wanted to use a song in the past, did you purchase the music from a website or something? If you did, could you share that website with me? I found some royalty free music before but it was all boring stuff, nothing anyone would have ever known. Thanks!!