PressurePros

Your machine with an X-Jet will be lucky to get 25 feet. The X-Jet also creates a mist that is susceptible to carrying pretty far in a breeze (or neighbors car) Bleach would be the only chemical strong enough to get diluted through your machine (or X-Jet) and kil the mold. It will also discolot the shingles dramatically. The solution is to spray on sodium percarbonate at maximum strength, let it sit for awhile then rinse it. You either have to tie off with safety and repelling gear to do this or rent a lift. That is one HUGE roof, you are right to seek professional help on this one.

F18 = designed to clean concrete, is it effective at removing sealer? I guess so, since people claim it does. HD-80 = designed by wood restoration professionals for wood restoration professionals. Is it effective? It has never let me down and I have tried it as low as 2 oz per gallon. Coming up at the end of this week will be pictures of an acrylic deck stripped with HD-80.

If you can't find one, Mike, just holler and I will pick you up one and ship it out.

I see both sides. I started with all commercial work. I came to dread the hours and I have to agree with FullBlast.. A couple of re-schedules and you are palying hell trying to stay on target for everyone else. The very worst thing about commercial... on any given day I would have 5-10 grand out on the streets. I wear enough hats for this company already..bill collector is one I'd rather discard.

Lance, that's why I go with the 65 degree. The pressure leaving the nozzle may be the same but the characteristics of the dispersion get you lower pressure at the same distance.

I get mine from a local supply house called Equipment Trade Services (ETS)

I find a 6510 to be the best all around nozzle for wood care and close proximity housewashing.

I would think twice about the two step process for doing a home with aluminum siding. It involves using an acid, followed by caustic. There aren't really any "brand names" available. You'd have to get in contact with specialty chemical suppliers. You could do that, but you are: a) looking at expensive specialty chemicals and b) if you are looking to save money (and space) starting out, you will likely need extension poles, truck brushes, protection gear and a specialty pump to apply the acid c) being a newbie to exterior property cleaning, you will have an enormous learning curve. Those are the negatives. The upside is, if you decide to go forward, you could have a niche that other contractors cannot fill. There are many that won't touch AL siding. Your machine question. The Karcher pro units are good machines, but they break down as much as anything else. If you are talking about ordering a Karcher through the internet, forget about it. Parts for the machine are proprietary. You break down, you may be out of the cleaning end for a good while until you find somewhere to get the parts. Same goes for service work, you'd need to locate an authorized Karcher dealer for repairs. Take someone else's advice and grab a machine from Home Cheapo or Blowe's. If you take care of the machine, it will easily last as long as the Karcher will and you have the luxury of returning it around the corner. They have no way of knowing you are using it commercially.

I think most of us are in agreement that a super penetrating moisturizer like Wood Tux DMC or Ready Seal followed by more of a surface building (cringe) product could be the best of all worlds. My question is, how much of an upcharge would you consider for doing this type of work. More importantly, how many of your customers do you think would allow you to implement the system? I can just see a customer's face when I explain how beneficial the two step process is for their deck life and then tell them that their 20x20 deck is going to cost $1500 to clean and seal. I am not adverse to working up a sales pitch, but now I have to warehouse another product and I am concerned my ROI will not warrant the space and money that are tied up. Thoughts?

Every multi-step Sikkens deck I have seen looks like that. Nice job on the restoration guys. Has anyone ever seen a Cetol DEK deck that was properly prepped and maintained and wasn't a peeling, flaky mess?

If anyone has a hot water rig, at least 350 ft of high pressure hose and is slow I have a stone fence job. 760 Linear feet (x7' high). Lady is very eccentric and I'm guessing, very rich. Job is in Chester Heights. Call me if interested.

Problem with that is, time is also money. Extremem Solution's HD-80 mixes at 4-8 oz per gallon and will liquify just about any oil sealer in under 20 minutes. When I do an entire deck and it's going to dwell for a long time, say an hour, I can usually mix three ounces per gallon. I'm not knocking the F-18 as I have heard many have success with it, just questioning the notion that one product is the be-all-end-all of wood strippers. I've tried them all too. Based upon my experience, I find the HD-80 superior. For the record, Trex and other composite companies will void a customer's warranty if a stripping product is used. Not a big deal, just throwing it out there because I did some warranty work for a composite manufacturer and spent some time in communication with them.

wasn't it developed as a concrete cleaner? I am unsure but I recall seeing F-18 as being touted as a concrete cleaner and not having anything to do with being a wood stripper. Now any good concrete cleaner will indeed strip sealer from wood, but is it at the cost of the life of the wood? Just curious if you have always used the F-18 or f you switched from other products on the market. ....

I hate undersides. If you don't have stripper or acid dripping onto you, you are covered in a cloud of VOC's. I discourage people from doing them because I charge about double the price per sf. I would be over $2000 doing the underside of this one. Maybe $1100 without it.

Oh man, that's ridiculous $35 per gallon? I used to use the Cabot's when I first started. I got it for $22 but it wwas still ridiculous. I second Beth's choice for HD-80. It is made to strip decks. There are some other products out there that are made to clean concrete and while they may work they are a bit harsh. It has also been proposed to use straight sodium hydroxide, again a bit harsh. I may sound like a commercial for Extreme Solutions but I believe in the product. It has a synergistic combination of soaps that is not only way more effective than the Cabot's but it sprays easily and it costs about a dollar a gallon for most jobs.

Unfortunately I have an early job and can't sit down with the math but I'd say it's safe to say you have about 1100 sf there, give or take a hundred. (Your underside measurement is more like 500 sf)

They might be different brand pumps Cat/General etc

Awesome, John. My wife would be walking around with a certain part of my anatomy in a vice if I attempted that.

I frikkin love it, Littlefield.

Edited for posting Top Ten things learned from the media after Hurricane Katrina 1-Responsible people don't make interesting news stories. 2-The hurricane only hit poor families' properties. 3-New Orleans was devastated. Thankfully no other area in the Gulf was affected by the hurricane. 4-Mississippi was reported to have a tree blown down. 5-New Orleans has no white people. 6-When you are hungry after a hurricane, steal a big screen TV. 7-The hurricane did 23 billion dollars in improvements to New Orleans. Now the city is gang free. The bad news is your city just got 3000 more unskilled people to collect welfare and start local gang chapters. 8-If you want to make the news, don't give thanks to the thousands that came to help rescue you, instead ***** because the government hasn't given you a debit card yet. 9-In some strange phenomenon, only black family members got separated in the hurricane rescue efforts . 10-Ignore warnings to evacuate and the responsible folks will come get you and give you money for being stupid. I swear I didn't write this

What are you guys charging for repairs to nailed floor boards per lf (cedar)? I have been doing it for customers for $5 per lf on cedar for doing boards here and there. This guy has 140 lf of repairs that I am going to do, with some of the boards running 16'. Boards are 5/4" x 6". All of the boards are angled cross cuts.

Just another note... on those trailer mounted booms, make sure you have the clearance and flat ground for the outriggers.

Here is what I have experienced. 1) Churches are notoriously cheap in my area. Their budgets are planned a year in advance and their allowances for cleaning/restoration are skim. 2) The good news, based upon not doing the roof, that's an easy one. Your's appears to be vinyl siding. 3) I would do the majority with an extension wand/downstreaming. 4) From the pictures it's a little hard to ascertain, but while it's big, it doesn't appear humungous. (20,000 sf?) The bell tower and awnings are going to be the PIA factor and might require an articulating 40 ft boom. How did you come up with your estimate for chemicals? Again, unless I am misjudging the pictures, it looks the size about seven houses. That would be 120 gallons of mixed solution. My downstream mix gets 1/2 chlorine, 1:5 sodium metasilicate concentrate and a 1:10 surfactant truck washing soap that has wax in it. I figure I must be missing something if I come up with 60 gallons of chlorine and you came up with 220. Do you have a picture of the whole church taken back farther?

You know it seemed such a ridiculous request I figured I read it wrong and figured he meant the roof. Edit: Jon, look at the title of the post.

Good thread, thanks for the info Adrian. The contractors I know that went to Florida were the owners of a local handyman service (a successful one that does nice work) It is owned by a Father and three brothers. The two oldest brothers joined with their father after closing a home building general contracting firm and are skilled framers. They also have put roofs on some of the houses around here so I have seen their work. I talked to them about their conducting business down there but at the time I wasn't really interested in the details. As I don't know what they would usually gross or how much their expenses were, I canot tell you how lucrative the work actually was for them.