PLD

I sense more to the story. What if it IS new construction brick?

FWIW, the butyl caustic I'm using is purple and removes tar streaks at 1:3. About $6/gallon IIRC. I keep a 5 gallon (uncut) on the truck for use with the xjet.

Very true, but that's why I quit a high paying job in network engineering. Too much travel, too little family. PW keeps me in the neighborhood so I can be home on short notice if neccessary. I also schedule around the kids activities like basketball games, etc. Rain days, I play with the kids. I have done well in my life so far, but life's too short to die wealthy with kids who barely know you. That is a great idea (thanks to all who offerred it) and I may captalize on it. fayette co. is one of the wealthiest counties in Ga. And in my experience, the richer the customer the cheaper they are. I can get $100 from a singlewide owner far quicker than I can get $200 from a 500k house. At Ken's suggestion, I have pondered this alot. And one thing that has crossed my mind is that 95% of my bids are to homes where no one is home. I never get to speak with the customer except to get the address and schedule the date. I leave a written bid and call back to follow up. If they don't like my bid, they simply don't return my calls. If they call back, it's to schedule a job. So, my sales skills probably need work but my face time needs more attention. Thanks, I appreciate it. Email me first. It may already be in my sizeable library.

Prince, I know that it sounds like everyone here just wants to have you call them instead of DIY, but they are telling you the truth. Pressure washing is a learned skill, and requires more than just a pressure washer. Many of learned at the expense of our first customers (often our own home). That said: Store bleach comes at 5%, you need about 1% to be effective. Your home store washer will dilute it to between 0.25% - 0.5% which will be minimally effective. To do this yourself put aside the pressure washer and get a 5 gallon bucket. Add 1 gal bleach, 4 gallons water, 1 cup dawn. Apply to the house with a pump up sprayer. Wait 5 minutes and reapply/brush tough areas with a 2.5" bristle soft brush where neccessary. Once that is all done, use the pressure washer or a garden hose to rinse throughly. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Purchase and use a respirator designed for use with organic acid vapors. If you don't you could wind up in the hospital with burned lungs. Also, read this: http://www.odordestroyer.com/5_reasons.doc

Any iron based stain will need acid to reduce it. I don't know what's in your alum brightener. I'd start with Oxalic and get stronger in steps from there.

I tend to my injuries as they occur, but only see a doctor if I cannot fix it myself or the outcome will be worse if I do not. I don't have a good example now, but... If I had a gash on the back of my thigh, I whip out the needle and thread. Same thing on my face, I see a doctor. Sinus infection, Eckerds. Pneumonia, doctor. Broken toe, tape. Broken finger, doctor.

You probably know it by it's brand name "OxyClean".

I may not be able to offer much, but I will offer what I can and take with me all I can digest.

May I join the list? If so, please send a copy to: pldoolittle AT bellsouth DOT net

You may well be right. I have not had success, and considered it to be my environment. It may well be me. Which raises the question; Can a crazy person tell they are crazy? I did exactly that, and I am no doubt suffering for it. There were other motivations besides money that greatly affected my decision and in those areas I have profited handsomely (sp?). I always knew that it would require a great deal of sweat, and that remuneration could be less than expected. I did not expect to cross paths with hoardes of people perfectly content to build a rig and work for $10/hr gross. Don't apologize for pointing a finger. I started this rant, and asked for comments. You responded to my request, and our comments have great merit. Never apologize for the truth. Particularly when it lifts a rock and lets the sun shine on a tender white underbelly. :)

Sounds great! 30214, 30215, 30269

Nothing that serious, but I had a good bone head move today. I was backing the trailer into my uphill drive with a 28ft ladder in the back of the pickup. Anyway, best I can guess the ladder became ensnared in the tote tank cage and stored up energy like a spring. I never noticed anything except that the trailer jack dragged (it never does). About 10 seconds later, I hear a clunk (ladder releases) and then see the ladder cartwheeling over the trucks roof. The front of the ladder strikes the ground and the back (still secured by the rope) falls squarely on my drivers side mirror snapping it off. The mirror is fixable, but the roof will forever have a small spot where water ponds... No one's life was at risk in my little mishap, but I thought it might make you feel better to know that kids aren't the only ones capable of being stupid and tearing stuff up.

Heck, I wouldn't mind if thet just gave me 1c for every burger. I know them well. Will do.

Yea, and I gave up $75k a year sitting on my butt designing computer networks... I still love being my own boss and I can schedule around my kids activities. Those are my most important goals, the latter being first. True. I do need to retune. BUT... Gotta make money till I get known as a premium washer... Oddly, I can get $100 out of a single wide trailer much faster than I can get $250 out of a 750K house. In two years, I have run many quotes and only closed one sale in our exclusive gated 1MM+ community. All rejected for the same reason. Too much money. All were very reasonable quotes. That's very kind of you to say. Thank you.

I am getting into that, but being green my success ratio is low. I'm reading here profilically in hopes of making the initial contact look less like a greenhorn. I do not. Here, driveways are only mildew and algae so 4% bleach and cold water make them look very nice. Healthy competition I can stand. But these are DOZENS of beer money washers working for $10-15/hr gross. They have no overhead and $10-15 is probably on par or greater than their day jobs. Online, I understand. I'm not cheap in my online business, nor do I try to be. I market premium products at premium prices. I can expand my market fairly easily, and cost per aqcuisition is easy to nail down. As long as CPA doesn't exceed 25% of gross I'll take on any ad channel that solicits me. That, and my customers repeat much more frequently than once every two years. Referal discounts are next on the agenda. Flyers are problematic. Where they are allowed (about 50% have HOA's with prohibitions), your flyers hang alongside the $90 any house since that is their primary "ad" channel. That I need to start doing. Generally, yes. Expectations are low, and that contributes to the success of the hacks. As long as the mildew is gone and the facia is clean, they are happy. Underway. I'm just taking a rainy day to vent...

I agree wholeheartedly. That, and she'll expect you to deduct a hundred bucks or so for the wash that's already done. I had a customer this week who got me to quote washing everything. I gave him a good price since it'll keep us busy a whole day. Then, he wanted to negotiate. Rather than lose a full day booking, I haggled to 10% off (he started at 50% off). The price was still too high for him, so he started deleting items to be cleaned. But he wanted to deduct the full price on the quote from the negotiates job rate, resulting in a half days work at ~25-30% off. I said no way. Anything less than the whole job was at quoted prices. Anyway, during the price negotiations I mentioned that it was a big job and would take 7-8 hours. Before we shook hands, he asked again if it would be 7-8 hours. And he wanted to know the exact date and time so he could be home to supervise. I fully expect him to nit-pick all day and then argue price again if we finish any earlier than 7-8 hours. I needed the money, so I booked the job anyway. But some customers just need to be passed on...

I agree. Today was a thunderstorm day....

Then that's about $100-120 per house. I couldn't agree more, but in a territory where those types of customers are few and far between it becomes quite difficult to keep a steady business. Well, that would save me some driving and probably increase my close rate dramatically, but I'd still be facing a bare calendar... For the most part that is the general expectation level here. Lawn svc, pressure washing, construction (any field) = high school dropout making $8/hr. Desperate men do not walk away from a sale AND smirk... :)

I agree, but I'm not sure I have that in me. I've been known to brush gutters for free when a customer turned the option down and I decided afterward that the house just looked crappy w/o it. I'm certainly not going to do their roof or driveway for free, but if an extra 30 minutes doing a patio or the lawn furniture makes the difference between "ehhh..." and "that looks good!" I'm going to take the extra time. When you grow up with a name like "Doolittle", you gotta learn to either love it or hate it. I decided to love it and protect it. And I'm very peculiar about anything that I associate with it. I don't know if I can "bleach and blow" and leave my sign in the yard... Anyway, I'll reply to some other posts later. I'd like to discuss it more now, but my 2yr old boss is calling me...

It's not being undercut so much that's the problem. I can sweat a little competition with the best of 'em. It's the degree of cuts that are skewing perceptions market wide. Bids of 50c on the dollar are common and bids of 25c on the dollar are not unheard of.

Rod, That's the source of my frustration. Selling the benefits of a quality contractor, licensing, insurance, photo book, etc. seems to have no effect. It is as if the public sentiment is that PW not a profession and even below being a trade. Nothing more than manual labor. Labor that they would do for themselves if they can't find someone to do it cheap. Like grass cutting. "Easy, anyone could do it. But since I can find someone to cut it for $20 I'll let them do it." I think part of it stems from the home centers selling PW's but the thousands every spring. Every homeowner thinks they can do it themselves for just $399. So, anything over $150 (2yrs payoff) is out. Add a competitive environment and you're down to $100'ish... That's part of the drive behind the "dangers of doing it yourself" document published earlier. To educate the customer that this is a profession that does actually require some skill. As for what they are doing: Typically they are just blasting away with HP water. The only chem they own is gasoline, and that's for the engine.

Speaking of fire extinguishers. Here's a tip. Large high occupancy buildings like hotels often find that it is cheaper to buy new ones than have the old ones pulled, serviced, and rehung every 2 years. They throw away hundreds of perfectly good extinguishers. My fathers neighbor is a mechanic at huge hotel and I got 4 last year. My dad has two, and almost all his neighbors have at least one on their shop. If you know anyone in that trade, ask.

Beth, We do, and I wish it helped. People seem quite happy to hire any old joe who ambles along. I just has a conversation with a potential roof customer (lost to a low-baller) who sells insurance for a living and knowingly hired an uninsured person to clean their roof. Philip

I like coffee in the evening (and really bad mornings), but I'm with Rod. I like my caffeine cold and Coke is my carrier of choice.

This thread started in Resi-PW but I wanted to explore it further so I moved it here: My sister (a pro acctountant) does my taxes each year but I've been doing a horrible job of bookeeping myself. She and I both dread tax time each year. I have three seperate businesses and need to get someone else to handle it. BUT, I'm so small that I cannot afford to hire an in house record manager/bookeeper. How much/month is typical if I want someone else to handle all the paperwork/ records management but writing checks/making deposits? Perhaps an answer requires a little more explanation. For my PW business I want to give them hand written estimates, notices of completion, deposits and check registers. In return, I want a monthly financial reports, est'd taxes due, and a customer DB for mailing purposes. I 1099 my employee, so that's not a big issue. For my online business I get 10-15 transactions/day. They get posted to the processor who either funds them (visa/mc) or sends them to another processor (Disc and amex). For every batch submitted (~3x/week), three deposits (less xaction costs) are made to my account. Each batch needs to be audited to make sure that all funds are accounted for. For my rental property there are no more than a 1/2 dozen transactions per year. I just want financial reports and tax work. It gets more fun: I have three seperate bank accounts, but none of the three businesses are substantial enough at this time to fully support me (PW and online are both seasonal). So, it is not uncommon to see irregular draws and/or xfers from the accounts to balance things out. For example, nov-feb the online biz pays for the truck, office, and cell phone. Mar-Oct, PW does. Salary to me varies by week and may come from any and/or all of the businesses. Now that I have spilled my guts, if anyone can give me a decent idea of what to expect to pay I would appreciate it. I would say that it takes 4-6 hours per week, but that's what it takes me. I suspect that an organized person who does this alot may get it done in just an hour or two. I say that for two reasons. One, because I do it monthly and there are stacks and stacks to organize, file, then deal with. And two, I tend to save everything because I don't know what not to keep. Why not hire my sister? She's already buried with job and kids. If I wasn't her brother, she'd probably tell me to find someone else to do the taxes.