PressurePros

And Ready Seal will stay "wet" and on those southern oriented decks can be picked up by bare feet and tracked into the house. Don't shoot the messenger, just telling you what I experienced. You can also use Wood Tux and keep the cool and moist with hose and sprayer.

::Laughing:: more times than not we end up getting free coffee and breakfast.

You got lucky. Working at the beach I had E-plus dry on a third story window. Luckily I had the lift because I had to use a glass buffing compound and a polisher to get it clear.

I had to grab the MSDS from the truck. This is a product made by a local chem house for me. It is an older formula of a parts cleaner that they modified so I could use it as a housewash or paint prep. Here is what is on the MSDS: Sodium Metasilicate TSP Sodium Carbonate Sodium Tripolyphosphate Alkyl Polyoxyalkylene Ether This stuff kicks. Since I went over to downstreaming I needed something with the ability to work well with 'chlorine' and get the job done. $2 worth makes 2 gallons of very potent concentrate. Add the concentrate, three gallons of 12% and 10 oz of truck wash with wax and that will do a 3000 sf house and melt the mold without drying tooo fast or streaking glass. Also leaves a nice shine.

Work in as small an area as possible. Have an employee to follow you and backbrush as quick as is possible. In mid summer we also get to houses by six a.m. and try to finish before noon.

Mel, there might be a difference betwen offering PayPal as a sideline and accepting credit cards as an advertised form of payment that would more than justify the costs. The areas I target usually have the cash for restoration but there are lesser areas in my market that need service and I am sure credit card financing would bring up the tally of calls in those areas.

The rich can be as tight as you let them be. They watch their money but they also know that high quality costs $$. Things cost what they cost. I used to be mildly intimidated throwing out estimates of five grand for a deck job. Now they can whistle, look shocked or throw an epilectic fit. My price is my price. They always ask.. "Can you come down a bit?" I look them right in the eye and say "no". I think the rich find it more professional when you give them the straight deal. As soon as you start negotiating price you appear starving and that's when the real negotiations begin. In that battle, the contractor always loses.

Would the school agree to have the painting done? The pictures are deceiving as the paint does not look to be in terrible condition. You did mention there was peeling though. Here in the US, schools and churches are on tight budgets. If you could get away with spot painting or perhaps proposing that they clean first and paint next year might help to make the sale a little easier. First step would be that roof. I'd rent a 50 ft articulating platform lift and have at it with a 4-6% solution of sodium hypochlorite. The biggest problem there is going to be your runoff. There doesn't appear to be any type of gutter system. I'd probably build the cost of sodding ten feet out from the building into the job just in case. The siding would be next with a fairly strong housewash mix. Based upon what I see, this portion of the job could be done from the ground using an X-Jet. The final portion of a thorough cleaning would be hitting that brick with a restoration chemical of blended acids. It wouldn't be mandatory, but the brick being cleaned properly would make the building look like it was built this year. (Is that desirable in the UK?) I would also bid the painting but I have the available labor to build scaffolding and have four or five guys working on it at once. The flaking paint would have to be burned off, the siding primed and then a couple layers of topcoat added. Looking at that one building (I'm not sure how many there are) Doing the roof, all the prep, Painting all windows and siding a customer would be looking at spending about $25,000 US.

The only problem is one of convenience. The customer has to setup a PayPal account. What if they don't own a computer, use the internet or trust sending their personal info over the internet? As a consumer I would be a little put off. Just take my credit card, swipe it or do whatever you have to with it and hand it back to me and we're done. This past season about five customers wanted to use a credit card. I offered them the PayPal option and they all declined.

Wait until you use the HD-80 you will realize that the Behr stripper is overpriced junk. That stuff runs ten bucks a gallon up here and it is strictly homeowner strength.

I don't blame you, Mike..NJ Troopers don't mess around. One weekend I had just finished installing Garret T5 turbochargers on my Supra and was itching to run it. So after two or three beers decided the casino was the place to be (I'm 22 at the time) So we pile into my 2+2 and get on the A/C Expressway. I'm doing about 130 and I look over at my one friend who has this big perma-grin spread across his grill. Music is blasting, I have invincibility flowing through my veins when I see in the very far distance what looks like top lights. I slow to 60 and wait.. about three minutes later he is up my rear flashing me.. What's left of my buzz faded when I see this 6'5" trooper bend sideways to get his shoulders out of his car. By the time I looked up from my mirror he already had me halfway out of the drivers seat. That asphalt did not feel good. At least he could have opened my door first.

Great story, Lance..very motivational. The key to any company's success is frequent, targeted marketing. There is a reason Budweiser, Marlboro and McDonald's are unrivaled in their segments. This is part of the reason I have a bad tendency to lay into the posts that say you can start this business on a nickel. If you don't set aside a first year advertising budget of high proportion you can count on setting yourself back about three years in growth progress. A first year company that spends $4k in advertising can expect a return of about $40k in gross income. That same company that spends $1k can expect about $8,000 in gross income. And as long as you know how to achieve managed growth I really don't believe there is a point of diminishing return. The more you advertise the bigger and faster you grow. PS: For what it's worth I used to use flyers but only in a small area where I complete a job. After we finished a job we would take a 20 minute ride through the neighborhood with a couponed flyer and place in the doors. I have since re-thought that stretegy..Many people have said they get aggravated or what have you when they recieve flyers so this year I am having a bunch of door hangers made up. They are more secure and more professional.

It depends upon the work you choose to do. The only categories of washing that I think HW are neccessary are kitchen exhaust cleaning and concrete work. If you do decks and housewashing and a small amount of residential concrete you do not need HW initially. You can always add a hot box later.

Those things are actually strong enough to reel in 200 ft of triple braided hose?

The carwash is good if the house isn't very dirty. I also use other detergents in my mix. In largest proportion is sodium metasilicate.

Looks fine to me, it's about what I charge.. some guys are going to tell you your upper rate is high but not up here in the northeast it isn't. Is the landscape company looking to mark up your service? They might balk a bit. I would get a smaller surface cleaner. Your gpm is too low for that size. You would have to move very slow to keep from striping the concrete..especially with cold water. You will move much faster with an 18".

The best of all worlds I have found is car wash soap. The water sheets off and if you get one with wax already in it, you're set.

When you have all the things mentioned above.. integrity, honesty, organization and discipline the keys to setting it on fire are marketing and sales. The more you advertise, the bigger you get. If your budget is limited in that respect, learn how to close all the sales you can.

LOL, you better let Rod know. I don't think he is aware of that. You must have meant a pressure washing gun <smile>

I understand your reasoning, Ryan. I carried for a few years when I owned and operated a small family owned retail shop. The shop was located in West Philadelphia which is about 90% ethnic, drugs on every corner and a population that could step right over a dead body without blinking. My grandfather opened the shop in a different era and never had any problems. My father was completely against having a weapon in the store. His logic was this.. the split second you make that decision to pull out the gun, there is no turning back. You better be prepared to use it. There are times when you're profession dictates it is wise to protect yourself. The unanswerable question is..when is the right time to pull it? Most people would have a very hard time taking a human life. Suppose the homeless guy had reached in and sucker punched you just because he was demented. Would you have shot him? You may be very well justified to do so, but could you live with it? There are obviously varying degrees of alarmist. You adamantly declare yourself opposed to that crowd that sits in a bunker holding an assault rifle eating a can of Spam. I say bringing a weapon into a theater is still a bit extreme. I know you to be a rational person from what I have read on here. But to be honest, it would put me on high alert if I happened to see you rounding a corner on campus unloading a 9mm (or even hearing the familiar sound in a bathroom stall). If I was carrying a gun, I'd pull it.. you'd probably be scrambling to re-chamber. We both could end up hurt or killed. No hard feelings, we just disagree on the topic.

Okay I follow you're train of thinking here but then you say... Ryan, do not take this personally but I am going to tell you how this reads to someone that doesn't know you.. The person carrying a loaded weapon into a movie theater seems to me very alarmist and more on the scale of the anarchist thinking. You posed questions to the officers in seeming logic but I pose to you similar questions on probability. 1) Of the millions of movies shown yearly in this country, when was the last time somoene stood up and opened fire on the crowd? 2) If it did happen, are you telling me in the ensuing mayhem that a citizen would have the training and self control you spoke of to calmly pull his weapon, and take out the shooter? A more likely scenario would be (if it ever happened in the firstplace) that you would pull out your gun, make more people panic and end up either hurting someone else or in the worst case end up being shot by one of the officers present. So much for the reasoning of carying a gun in the first place..to protect yourself. I would call carrying a gun into a theater a perfect example of creating elevated risk. If you can carry a gun, then I can carry a gun. If we can carry a gun so can that not-so-stable manic depressive sitting in front of you who is a little aggravated that your kids won't stop whispering to each other. Staying on your scenario, keeping the theme of self preservation in mind, even if someone stole your weapon from your vehicle at least you would be alive. I'm sorry, I respectfully have to disagree with you. I am pro-choice, so to speak, as to owning a gun but it should stay in your house. Unless you have a job where you are in constant risk of being attacked or robbed carrying a weapon should be left to professionals that are trained to do so.

That's an interesting picture because I wasn't sure what was going on there. If it were sealer it looks like the cutomer just grabbed the can and splashed it on like some type of modern artwork piece. Since I find that hard to believe, Rod's explaination seems more on the right track. I would guess since it's under an eve the problem was with runoff of some sort. Just a stab in the dark here but here are three scenarios I come up with: 1) Rod's explaination of improper prep. 2) Prepped properly, but some type of runoff came around the eve and changed the wood pH. 3) Person applying the sealer forgot to check the weather and before the sealer was cured it was washed downward. I vote number three because of what Ken described as "raining rust" on the brick below this siding.

Brent this is the issue I have with someone that claims they do a multiple story housewash in an hour and a half. Maybe there are some guys that have perfected perfectionism and can do a thorugh job and still splash and dash, I don't know. The keys to avoiding that dry soap streak are watching the angle that you use when you apply soap so that you aren't emulsifying dirt trapped under the siding.. and, to rinse, rinse and go back and rinse again. I pre-wet windows, apply soap, and rinse with very short dwell time. Rinsing from funny angles will also get inside the window and run down the other side (or inside double insulated which really bites). Sometimes that is very hard to avoid. Before I leave a side of a house to tackle other facades I go over it one more time with another complete rinse and really hit the windows. Before you put everything on the truck you walk everything one last time, preferabbly with the homeowner to point out potential trouble spots. When I leave a property with check in hand. I don't want to see that property until it is time for service again. I'm pretty sure the homeowners feel the same way.

Celeste.. posted a pic of it here http://www.thegrimescene.com/forums/showthread.php?p=49600#post49600

You know what? People are silly in the questions they ask. But don't always look at it as a distraction. They may well be considering getting a service done now or in the future. A couple minutes spent on company relations is a great thing. That person will remember you for it. I now keep coupons in the truck. When a person asks questions about a service I hand them a coupon offering a discount, quickly explain the service and let them know very nicely that I better get back to work before the soap dries.