PressurePros

Any contractor that has been around awhile will rarely step in to fix someone else's work. What appears to be one spot, quickly turns into ten. Then you are trying to blend areas that wll never blend. The only way to remove an alkyd and mill glaze is to get to bare wood. How will you be able to tell exactly how much to strip? How will you strip certain areas without affecting other areas? How are you going to duplicate the look of the old sealer? How will you predict the penetrating characteristics of the freshly prepped wood? There is no way you can do spot repairs. I think my and Shane's replies were on the same page. Start from scratch or nothing. Been there done that, lost money on the sequel.

Ron it's $125 per store, once in the spring and once in the fall. That's it. I am centrally located between the stores in the tri state area and there are ones I would have to travel 4 hours round trip.

This is a job for Dan's favorite.. TSP! Fences are tough, noone wants to pay nearly what they are worth. Use this link to get an idea what the job is worth. Click "no prep needed" and get your baseline to paint it. Go back and click "scrape and powerwash" and figure out the difference. I came with almost $5000 per side The pressure washer is going to be limited in what it can do. The process is going to be long and tedious if it is to be done correctly. If they just want to half azz it and give it a quickie paint job I would charge approximately $6,500. No scraping in that price though. http://www.costestimator.com:8080/contractor-consumer/categories.jsp

grizz, I think it was local. the job list I have lists about thirty stores. Some in NC, but most in PA, NJ, and DE

I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

In an email, it said "we are only responsible for a 15 foot square radius" or something ridiculously small like that. I'm guessing you could do all the stores in three days with most of your profit going towards gas.

I learn something new here every day. Great gathering place

Dan, unless the wood is new construction and just needs a breeze over cleaning, the rate is the same.I hear the same thing about the rich.. They didn't get rich by spending. Actually they value money and thats okay. If they can talk to some unsuspecting nice guy contractor into lowering his prices, they always will. More later, gotta run

Rick, I am in contact with many PO'd homeowners around the country. It sems many are experiencing the nightmare that is SPF. It's only going to take a few of the right people out for blood. Has Cabot's undergone management changes? Poor Samuel would be rolling in his grave.

Cabot's is on a downhill spiral. They are headed for a massive class action lawsuit with the SPF and STILL their technical lab monkeys recommend this junk. When a company's product line goes mass market it usually reformulated to meet demands of very high volume production and of course to meet margin demands of high volume retailers. My advice...steer clear.

I am Wolman Certified and I have never used any of their products. With water borne products you can get away with applying to higher moisture content wood. WTW is an oil.

You have to either measure all wood (what I recommend) and charge about $1.35 per s/fDan, I get $1500 for a deck that size (with the staircases) every day. And I earn every penny of it.

Dan, you know I love torturing you. Reading the above indicates to me why you cannot offer two year guarantees.

Cabot's is the worst for this.

Coventry has a 20% higher cost of living index than that of the national average (which means things cost 20% more than they do everywhere else). Average household income is $60K vs $41k for the rest of the country. Your demographic is not a bad one at all. The poorest sections of the country get $.90 to clean and seal a deck and a deck all in one smaller footprint and easier to work on versus a fence. Your rates should be more like $1.50 for doing a deck. Using the cheaper rate, and taking away half for the rails you won't have while cleaning a fence, that is $.45 per s/f. You come out to $907.20 per side of that fence. Your thinking is flawed. Things cost what they cost. It isn't your responsibility to offset the high cost of living by taking a beating on price. Even your logic of buying new fence makes no sense. That would cost her over $1900 and it still would need to be sealed. You could seal that whole fence with one pail of Wood Tux and she wouldn't have to touch it for 5 years. Pick your selling points and present them to her.

I did three deck jobs start to finish this week (smaller ones) and I only used one pail of Wood Tux on all three. Two larger ones were completed with an additional pail. We are right on schedule.

My warranty says PressurePros, Inc guarantees this workmanship for a period of two years. Normal wear and tear including, but not limited to, grease stains, paint, algae and heavy traffic wear does not apply.I have never had a callback and I have done this from day one. I explain upfront that fading occurs and I say to them, "obviously, if you have a dog and he scratches the surface or if people get rough with furniture the waranty wouldn't apply. People aren't stupid, they know what constitues poor workmanship versus negligence on their part. I will honor any warranty work if I ever have to perform it. I leave the door open but if I have one warranty job I have to do every three or four years, that is the cost of doing business.

Like a magazine showpiece. Nice job.

same here.. showed to me by a union painter I had working for me last year.

Rick are we the only two knuckleheads that are up this early on a Sunday?

The less colors you offer the better. I offer my customer three choices, brown, red, or brownish red. You have to get a feel for what they are looking and use your best judgement.

Is that a linear foot measurement? If so, you are looking at about 30,000 s/f (using 6' height) Even if you go the cheapest route and just clean with bleach and get $.15/s.f You are looking at $4500. I have done two fences in my wood career and those were both relativey small. I wouldn't touch any wood for 15 cents per square.

Believe it or not, the large decks are the worst. They are hard to bid properly. Everything that can wrong on a little deck times big square footage. My perfect job is a 400 s/f deck with rails, first story. We can do those in one day start to finish and make good money.

If there was no negligence on Jarrod's part (improper prep, crappy product etc) I don't see how he should rectify this. Keeping a customer happy is crucial but if this person is a nitpicker, she will call back every year. I would try to sell her on yearly upkeep if she is that discerning. The problem with this deck is that it cannot be touched up. I would guess all of the horizontals would need to be redone. The key is making a customer understand what they are getting. In this case, this lady has preconcieved notions and Jarod won't win that battle. J, do you have any pictures?Jeff and Lance, while the work is gratifying, I would drop wood care tommorrow if I could. It's sometimes a thankless niche and it is not the highest profiting one you could pick.

Very nice carpentry work. You did the deck total justice by using what I consider a perfect color and expert application. Good job.