PressurePros

Rick, as long as your spread rate is at 300 s/f per gallon with back padding you will be good to go. After ten minutes the deck should not look overly "wet".

good Lord, Scott. You stripped a solid from that monster of a deck? You are a brave man. Nice job. Look sweet so far.

The flash point of a rag or tarp is much lower than that of wood. Spontaneous combustion is a result of a bunch of factors coming together. Those combinations cannot come together on a wood deck or siding because of the rapid rate of heat dissipation and higher combustion point.

Its been said the "going rate" is often the "going out of business rate". You charge as much as you need to support your lifestyle and stay in business. Its best not to worry about what anyone else is charging, especially on an internet bulletin board. I don't care if my neighbor starts a PW'ing company at $.25 per l/f, I will start charge what I charge. I owe it to my customers to charge a certain price so that I don't have to cut corners and they don't have to worry about finding a new cleaning contractor next year or the year after that.

I get the same tropical formula blend for decks that Shane (Woodsavers) uses. It has added mildewcide.

Cabot's, Benjamin Moore, Thompson's.. these are billion dollar companies with annual R&D budgets that exceed what many of us will make in a lifetime PW'ing. My feeling is that if a product like Ben Moore wood sealer would last longer with paraffin (wax that is Thompson's Water Seal) added to it, it would be in there.

I agree, Beth. Having this type of product is just an insurance policy of staying on schedule. We have been using Baker's and it has been a wet May. We got a little off schedule here and there but nothing that would make me want to go backwards and use something with questionable longevity. Rain every other day would make me look towards an alternative wet-wood friendly product.

Any waterbborne product can be applied to damp wood. Here is another product that is an oil based product that can be used on wet wood. IN-WOOD, Solvant-based stain for fences, decks, docks, log homes and much more. This is the product my main competitor was applying to decks. The decks I have seen looked as good or better than the WT. The only problem is they actually do adhere to VOC laws and will not ship this product to the NE or CA.

Its probably going to peel. Its generally a bad idea to put two different kinds of products over one another.

I agree, Rick, that redwood is gorgeous. That must be older growth.

Matt, awesome job my friend. Especially in avoiding the bleach monster. This lady is going to fall over when she sees the transformation.

ACR products handles distribution and will ship. I'm not sure if they have an online store though. Beth would know better.

welcome to the world of acrylics.

The text book answer is hire people as soon as you can so your business can keep going if you get hurt. The reality is you may want to systemize all your cleaning and staining procedures so that you can train someone quickly. Plan on spending about 25-30% of your gross on labor if you want to get out of the field.

Ron, I think you may be misunderstanding how Google works and returns results pages. Using a tool called keyword discovery the term "pressure cleaning company's 10 years old" was searched for 0.00 times. Google looks for keywords, matches tha to how many inlinks a site has containing those keywords and spits out the results. Work that can be expected for ranking with this particular phrase? $0.00 When someone searches for a site it usually localized. It might read something like "commercial pressure washing services AZ" or "concrete cleaning companies AZ". These are examples of the types of keywords/phrases you should be targeting, Ron. If someone finds your site and isn't committed they may then go back and research your company name. That's where these boards usually pop up.

I've known John for a few years now and he is a real business person and good friend. One spin I want to add, John. I take the approach of 'no deposit' and sell it on my website, print advertising, and during my proposals. http://www.pressure-pros.com/index/faq.html (I just noticed a few mistakes on that page as I have not edited that one in over a year.. we now take 1/2 at cleaning time as half the project is complete)

Bryan a quick bath in mineral spirits followed by one of those waterless cleaning goo's you rub into your hands. I can't guarantee there isn't some chemical reaction going on that is removing skin, but it works. Make sure you put lotion on after a shower or you'll have lizard arms. As far as the laundry with stain on it, if its the same day, sodium percarbonate is the ticket. Don's solution is more foolproof and is utter genious.

Kevin is the neighbor that you dread when he comes over to ask if he can borrow a tool. I recommend using a better quality truck brush. I prefer a finer bristle as it holds more stain (and yes, it does drip but that is easily controlled and brushed over)

Add a high quality car wash (one with wax) to your mix. The windows come out nicer and the wax in the wash adds some tone and life to siding. My mix calls for 20 oz in a fiver for downstreaming. Adds about $1.50 to the cost of the housewash if you use something like Meguire's Gold.

Ron invented bartering.

LOL, Rick. When Chris buys me clothes the first thing she says is "and don't go staining in it"

I'm not touching that one :seeya:

I just started bartering and like anything in business, you try to tilt the favor to benefit you. This season I traded 100 multi colored, double sided silk screened Hanes Beefy Tees (about $11 apiece if I bought them elsewhere) for a housewash that took me and a helper three hours. Even taxed at 15% I write off the chems and payroll and made out like a bandit.

Jeff: http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420.html You have to be careful. It may seem like hidden income but the business with whom you are bartering can declare what they traded as an expense and the paper trail will lead right back to you.

Bryan, bartering is a great way to control costs. Having said that, I would not exchange a $2400 service, especially one I wasn''t actively seeking. You might consider taking off $500 for 5 visits or something, but dollar for dollar, that's too much income to give up on a service you could live without.