PLD

I second that advice. It will wreck good wood. And IMHO, anything the home center sells is crap...

Spiders/critters don't bother me, but I too must admit that the feel of a web wrapping your head combined with the unknown location of a rather large spider initiates an instant involuntary response that resembles a man engulfed in some manner of invisible flames. :) It's somewhat nutty if you think about it. If I see a black widow or other "baddie" on me, I brush them off gently and let them carry on in peace. But let a large, but otherwise harmless, spider latch onto my face and panic sets in.

Will do. Thanks for the lead. When we do the work, I'll make sure you don;t look bad for it.

I agree. Pass on this one. It'll look horrible and when it does, you'll probably be expected to make it right at original bid price. No good can come of this one...

Yep. And for me, gutters is a 1-2 hour affair. Spray, brush, rinse. Spray, brush, rinse. Or, X-jet, rinse, re-rinse the side of the house (and windows/bushes).I may be wrong, but I believe my chemistry and techniques are good. I'm using a good butyl caustic (at 1:3) that's about twice as strong as purple power from the auto stores. I know this thread has been done a dozen times before, but if anyone can advise me differently regarding gutters, please do so. For just 15min extra/house I'd raise my house only rates 10%, include gutters, and get 98% of my bids. Not to mention stomping my competition by including gutters at their no-gutter price point. Truth be told, 60-75% of them are telling customers the streaks cannot be cleaned.

I expect it done also at my home, but I seperate it out on estimates. Gutters ~= 1/3 total price. Once I started seperating, I started to recapture sales that I was losing before to low ballers. I'm still in the premium wash market, but I've got a shot at customers who want top quality service but are willing to make concessions to get within their budget. Also, all my estimates are al-la-carte. House, gutters, decking, driveway, walkways, pool skirts, etc. I let the home owner see all the elements, and decide what works for them. One thing I do not do is gutters only (yep, I get requests for that) or one/two side washes. Even if it paid enough money, the surrounding areas look like crap after cleaning solution speckles them with clean spots.

Check all your fittings and especially the plastic ball value (they go bad). If you are getting air in the chem line, you have a leak somewhere. The only other time I have seen air in the chem line is sucking fresh percarb mixed with hot water. It foams and creates air in the line.

I'd love the job and I will make sure that you look good for making the recommendation. Feel free to give 'em my contact info. I'm washing fulltime in fayetteville and surrounding areas. If it makes here feel any better, I can give here a few dozen ref's that live w/in a few miles of her house. I live and work in fayette co, so if you tell me the street name, I can probably give you directions off the top of my head. ;) Philip Doolittle PowerHouse Pressure 770-460-0469 P.S. JohnW. If you're out there we still need to get together and talk shop.

I don't know if I got this across in my previous message, but your situation and mine are frighteningly similar. $ amounts, advertising $, falloff timing. Feel free to call me anytime and compare notes. 770-460-0469

Guys, May I take you guys up of the offer of some phone time? I too though I had this thing figured out only to hit a brick wall last month. FWIW, I screamed all summer and the end of the first week in August, the well ran dry. We made it through Aug on pre-sold work and a week of well needed vacation but the last week was hour to hour. The first week in Sept was similar, and things have picked up sharply this week but we'll still only book about 80% of available hours. Also, I'm running two newspaper ads, one ad in monthly 32 page booklet, and two phone book ads.

Yours is a writing spider. Very common around these parts (N.Ga.). Wanna see something neat? Approach them with your finger or a stick. They will use their body weight to swing the entire web back and forth in an attempt to scare you off. Pic link: http://greennature.com/gallery/spider-pictures/insect33 Interesting critter you've got there. Perhaps even a cross breed between a banana and writing spider. Banana spiders are not common this far north (unlike Scott's turf where they are common). Also, a banana spider typically has somewhat evenly spaced legs while writing spiders are "paired". But, I've never seen a writing spider that had brown/orange like that on it.

Someone here mentioned burning some K-1 to remove soot. Is that mixed w/diesel or straight? How much/how long on K-1 is good and how much is too much? If it is ok, why I should not burn $1.99 K-1 kerosene all the time instead of $2.89 off-road diesel? If it's just a setup issue, can I re-tune/re-jet for K-1?

Finely divided aluminum does appear grey\black. Polishing creates finely divided aluminum. Aluminum Oxide on the other hand is clear. And it is one of the hardest substances on the planet. That's why it is used for sandpaper. Ever wonder why aluminum cans do not rust? Or teh insides of aluminum gutters? Actually they do. A very thin layer of clear aluminum oxide forms and prevents further decomposition. This is a great thread. Obviously, painted aluminum appears to streak regardless of proximity to oils. Atmospheric dirt seems plausible, but gutters and downspouts should be just as suceptible. Obviously they are not as succeptible. Overflows do increase the effect, but blackness is not directly coupled to overflow as some overflows do nothing, while others make very visible black patches. And gutter bottom spouts which see the most water have the least streaking. Yet, the top of the downspouts which should not see much water streak badly and in clear flowing patterns. All that said, I'm not sure what compounds form the streak, but I do believe ES bonding keeps it there. And there are unknown situational circumstances which increase or decrease the streaking significantly. Philip

Never been to Georgia, eh? Most likely it's the red clay. It gets tracked everywhere from the worksite during construction. Post construction on most homes requires a good head to toe and driveway scrubbing so the owner doesn't move into an orange house. Philip

Even if the material is white? This trailer is sealed with what looks like household caulk. I'm sure it's something else, but it isn't black or grey.

Wondered that myself, but there's one problem. The fascia covers are made from the same coil of aluminum. Roll through a machine for guttters, cut and break for fascia. And they don't exhibit the same problem. If we can find the root cause, we can perhaps make a more sensible approach to tackling it. Oils may be the cause as we have always suspected and told others. But why are some parts of the house affected while others just inches away remain unsoiled?

I an see the water flow, but not the link to tar. If that is indeed the cause, then why is close proximity fascia not affected? That's one hell of a bounce. At least 7ft vertically.

One more thing. I just walked around my own house and looked at the gutters that are in need of de-streaking. I looked UNDER the downspout bends. A good bit deal of oil laden water drips under the elbow before landing in the splash block. Outside of some algae, Nothing. Yet this area should be the blackest section of them all.

Rod, I had the exact same school of thought until I inherited a 5x8 trailer was for the band this year. Now I'm not so sure. The trailer is 100% white baked aluminum and all caulking is white. Just like a gutter. It stays with under a brick overhang (sometimes) or on a wide open parking lot(mostly). It streaks identically, and the streaks respond just like gutter streaks. And by respond I mean butyl works, soap/bleach do not, applied dry works better than pre-wetting) With no asphault in sight (other than the parking lot itself), and less than 10 miles between cleanings, it has no significant contact with tar and/or road grime. Take now for example, it has not moved all summer and it's streaked since our last cleaning in July. Nothing on the front (dirt, exhaust), no horizontal stripes (road grime, etc), just thin black stripes that expand over time into larger grey/black discoloration. It's certainly anecdotal, but here's why i think there is more to this puzzle than we currently believe it to be. For starters, examine the aluminum facia covers on the non-gutter side of (mostly vinyl) houses. They too are anodized aluminum and experience roof runoff (albiet to a much smaller degree) but exhibit almost NO "tar streaks". In fact, the aluminum trim/flashing is usually formed from the same roll of material as the gutters are. But even under gutters that are badly streaked, the blackened fasica almost never needs degreasing. By and large, the only black that ever appears on fascia flashing comes off with bleach. Also, flashing that that is in close contact with the roof almost never shows evidence of tar splashing as would be expected if it was in significant levels in the surface water. I tend to believe that surface temps are a major contributing factor because the trailer and gutter stay relatively hot while the flashing has a stud behind it to act as a heat sink. Anyway, rainwater containing oils from the roof should not be reaching the gutter surface in any great quantity in a properly installed and maintained gutter. In a normal situation, far more fresh rainwater would reach the face than contaminated water. Yet I've seen many clean free-flowing gutters that were heavily streaked, and clogged gutters that were clean. Also, the degree of splash-over should vary with roof pitch. Yet based on the degree of streaking, the levels of gutter tarring are not closely tied to either roof pitch. All that said... It certainly responds well to degreaser/hydroxide/metasilicate which indicates it is an oil of sorts. Yet it fails to respond to bleach is a decent mild degreaser and will draw a great deal of tar out of asphault. All in all, I think there is more at work behind gutter streaking than simple electrostatic bonding of oils. Anybody wanna work on a project to collect some data?

FWIW, I paid $2.71 in Atlanta this morning, $2.89 at noon, and $3.29 at days end. There are confirmed reports here of $4.50, $5.50, and $6.00/gallon at various locations. This afternoon, the governor showed that he favored votes over free-enterprise and declared a state of emergency to impose a freeze at price current levels. In the same speech, he made these statements. <SP> Georgians should not panic. There is not going to be a gas shortage. The rise in gas prices is merely a product of public hysteria. We [Ga] get a great deal of our gas via tanker ship. The Colonial pipeline which represents 80% of our gas supply should be back online this weekend. </SP> Will someone please explain to me how 20% = a "great deal" of our supply? Or how 80% of our supply being down for 5-7 days is not a problem? Or why he declared a state of emergency if the problem is all in our heads? Or why my local station was out of gas at 5pm and told me that tomorrows truck is a "maybe". Seems to me that supply (reportedly not a problem) and demand (quelled by high prices) would rectify this situation pretty quickly. That is unless either supply is/gets constrained, or demand increases further. And I can tell you from the lines that demand can't get any higher... His doublespeak and rhetoric made me so mad that I smashed out the window at a local retailer or two and took what I wanted. :(

Jon, I own rental property and I can tell you that you would do this exactly ONCE. Especially in Ca. where the landlord-tenant laws are much more onerous toward landlords than they are here. First, once they move in you must EVICT them if they choose not to leave voluntarily. That can take 4-6 months in a worst case scenario and 45-60 days in a best case scenarion. Second, once you provide utils you must do so until they are evicted or until they sign a lease that indicates that they are not provided any longer. So, if they run the AC and lights 24x7 to the tune of $1200/mo you can not stop them from doing so. Third, without a lease you cannot regulate who may live there. So,they can move in 50 of their buddies, violate all manner of local ordinances (for which YOU will be fined) and tell you to pound sand. Oh, and remember the eviction process? You must serve each adult person to be evicted. If you just serve the initial two, the others may stay until evicted. Even those who moved in AFTER the eviction notice. Sure, you can go get an injuction to halt the inflow, but that is yet another legal process. Finally, with no agreement for damages/repairs/move out condition you will have a very hard time collecting for anything. They will argue that it was "wear and tear" and that "wear and tear" was included in the deal. Bottom line, I hate to be the cynic but NEVER allow squatters onto your property without a written arrangement. Even if it is just $0.01/month, spell out the terms and accept payment in case PRIOR to letting them cross the threshold.

My point exactly. You cannot believe "I am all for free enterprise" and "the government should set prices" at the same time. By definition those two positions are diametrically opposed... Oh, and to keep the debate on point the question was "who do YOU think SHOULD set prices" not who is setting prices at this time.

Ok, I'l run with you on this one: Who determines "prices within reason"? Who determines what the operational costs are?

I am humbled. You are a true American and a gentleman. You did what SHOULD be done in an event like this. I do still stand on my position that constraining supply is the wrong thing to do in hard times. Giving of yourself so there is no need/room for "gougers" is the honorable/right thing to do, and you are doing just that. And you will receive your reward for for your selflessness.

Thanks. I'm not trying to be insensitive to those who are suffering. But the reality is that a capitalist society is driven by "greed". We have more than anyone else on the planet because because people recognize a need, see an opportunity to make a profit, and attempt to capitalize on that need. I'm not saying that capitalism is perfect. And from a spiritual perspective it may not even be honorable. But when it comes to building a vibrant society, it's the best means. Just look back at history to judge the alternatives. Price freezes, rationing, government ownership, socialisism, communism. They have been tried in a hundred locations all over the planet. And they have all failed time and time again.