PressurePros

John, make sure you play with it and do some samples. Set the spray pattern wide by twisting the nozzle and adjust your trigger until you get the desired flow. Any questions, give me a call.

Agreed. What a lousy thing to do to a guy trying to earn. You are not a finance company. Somebody will have to break out a cedit card or L.O.C but I would demand payment now. Explain kindly but firmly that you cannot and will not wait for payment. Unfortunately, they have you over a barell. They have made a good faith payment so you cannot take them to court. Draw up a contract with definitive terms and timetable. Clearly outline the penalties for any payment that is not made according to that timetable. I may be a bit cynical but I think she is going to play games with you in hopes you will take the partial and run. I have never heard of a company that size not having emergency funds. Patrick is right, go right to the top of the food chain. Good luck.

There are a bunch of factors to consider. Leasing depends on captialized cost and residual value. For cars/trucks.. I always lease. Pay the depreciation. Thats all you do when you buy a car anyway. The rule of thumb is never buy anything that depreciates. All points are valid here. I understand the emotional factor. I own everything 100% from vehicles to equipment. But it's also all starting to show its age and needs to be upgraded to keep with public image and perception. Keeping emotion out of it, a monthly nut is just a cost of doing business. I will lease from here on out. Don gets the prize for nailing it. If your capital is low (or even if it isn't), you need your money to generate business via marketing. The return on marketing far exceeds the interest on a lease. Paying a money factor on $10,000 worth of leased equipment for a 36 month term may cost you realized depreciation (Capitalized cost minus FMV at the end of the term) plus another $80 in interest per month. The interest (money factor) is your only expense as depreciation is the same whether you buy outright or lease your equipment. So for an extra 120 bucks or so per month (factoring in the residual cost if I owned the equipment outright and what it would be worth after three years) I get to keep my $10,000 in the bank and use it for marketing. Ask yourself this, again.. emotion aside. Which would affect my bottom line more over three years? A loss of $2600 in interest and having a boat anchor you would have to sell..or an aditional $10,000 to add to your marketing budget? For a $4600 loss (spread over three years and includes $2600 in interest plus not having any owned equipment which would have a residual value of $2000), I would have an additional $10,000 in hand to supplement immediate marketing efforts which would yield me an extra $60,000 in gross receipts (thats conservative). Using my marketing budget, that would give me an additional $3000 the following year to spend on marketing. That would compound of course. In my opinion, leasing is free money. Yes there is a risk of business failure but if you do things right and use your money wisely, that won't happen.

Deck is coated with Sikkens (two coats) This will be a difficult strip. Not for the faint of heart. Interested.. pm me please

You are looking for an amortization calculator. http://www.hsh.com/calc-amort.html

Low (initial) capital investment does two things. One, it allows non-business people to enter the market and drive down pricing. On the other hand it lowers amortized equipment costs. Also keep in mind a two-man crew can do 2-3 jobs per day bringing overhead percentages down. Here is an example of a typical deck job 500 s/f of floor measurement. Cost to customer $1,100: Billable man hours: 14 (Seven hours total project time) Labor cost per hr with workman's comp, disability insurance, health insurance and comp time: $23 (x 14= $322) Fuel: $5 Chemical: $35 Sealer: $150 Expenses such as legal, accounting, liability insurance, marketing etc: $75 per job Equipment depreciation: $15 per job Total costs: $602.00 Now take into consideration there are guys on this board will charge $600 total for that job. They don't have the labor tab I do. They also will still be a one-man show ten years from now owning a job versus owning a business. No thank you. Worse yet are lowballers who might charge $400 for that job. Their expenses are $5 worth of bleach and $110 in sealer.. no insurance, splash and dash. If they do seven jobs per month they make a couple grand. Not bad for working 14 half days with no education and total investment of maybe $700 for a Home Cheapo machine, some brushes and a pump up sprayer. Meanwhile customer gets a half assed job and by the time word gets out that this guy is an idiot he has already moved on to his next hair brained adventure. The following year I get that customer and have to explain to him why my cost is nearly TRIPLE what the last guy charged. Nevermind that his work looked like crap and he is nowhere to be found. Now for any homeowner reading this and thinking.. $500 "profit" for a day isn't bad. With rain days and winter weather one may do 115 of these per year. Woohoo, a pre-tax profit of $57,500. Call the travel agent! If I couldn't blend my margins with higher priced work I would be out of this business in a minute.

Hello Juan. Thank you for your reply. This project was referred and completed. I will keep you in mind for future projects out your way.

Thank you very much for the orders guys. (John I'll keep an eye on my gateway activity) Everything will be processed and sent out tommorow. UPS tracking numbers will be following.

John, I am not sure what Lowe's sells. I can tell you that anything in this price range (especially sold at a big box store) is not going to have the quality of what I am selling (stainless and brass nozzles and assembly, die cast cups etc.) Will the Wagner Fine Coat compare to the finish achievable with a $900 unit? Probably not.. I'd be silly to make a claim like that although I have spoken to customers that after they did their decks, they played around with the unit and were able to achieve factory like finishes in their workshops using lacquers. I believe these units retailed for about $300 when new. These are reconditioned units (made better with higher quality parts). I stand behind everything I sell 100%. If you don't like the unit and don't think its worth the extra $40 over what you would get at Home Depot I will gladly refund the entire purchase price including original shipping charges.

Steer Clear. It will not do what you want it to. The finish is erratic. The parts are el cheapo. They leak. The turbine/motor clogs with overspray. I've used plenty of them. You would be just as restricted with either unit as both are electric powered.

John, you make more than $95k per year at your other job? I think Scott is asking how much gross it would take to make the career change committment from daily grind to full time business owner. With benefits and perks I had to replace about $90k. To gross 90k in personal salary I would have to gross about 165k. Dare I dream? Maybe one day...

Mike, the finish, in my opinion looks better. You get more even tone. I always recommend backbrushing but on some very dry woods I didn't have to. Here are two examples. (notice the minimum of overspray on the tarp..this requires a bit of technique but you get the idea)

Yes, Mike. In fact I have sprayed latex paint thinned with some Floetrol. The downside of course is the type of feed a low priced unit like this provides. Without a pressure driven pot you are slowed by the quart capacity of the cup. We overcome this by having a production line of cups/sprayers ready so its unplug, replug and keep moving. Its not really practical to try and do a floor with something like this, though I have had guys say it still was fast enough on floors to make it worthwhile. You positively cannot beat it for the price especially when you see how fast you can move on rails with minimal overspray.

I hope this doesn't interfere with any of the supporting vendors, if it does, Beth please remove. John, I have had excellent success both selling and using these units. Several contractors from this board have purchased this low cost HVLP and have reported equally satisfying results. http://www.restore-a-deck.com/catalog/item/3109188/3238666.htm Email me if you have any questions.

Facts of the case: The window was in place before above mentioned contractor came onto the property. When that contractor left there was damage. I do understand and believe that Mike is right..the window probably would have been blown out by a good storm. But it wasn't, it was blown out by a pressure washer. This should be a no-brainer. Pay $100 and you get: a) a happy customer who will spend $300 per year with you. b) Peace of mind knowing the check will clear and that you don't have to read this thread anymore weighing your decision. Cutting your nose off to spite your face in business is deadly. Base your decisions on monetary loss not principal. The customer is always right. And even when he isn't, he is right then too.

I'm gonna take a hiatus from posting for a bit (was that a collective sigh of relief I heard?) but as a parting message I want to give some props. Every day people are quick to bash a company for bad service. I wanted to write a few lines to commend my supplier of the year. Hats off to Keith at KBK Graphics for being on time and on budget every single project. Recently I had Keith redo my layout of my business cards and do some tweaking of a brochure. The changes weren't intense but definitely ate up some of his time sending proofs, waiting for my response then doing revisions. Keith did not charge me a penny. The original designs were done 6 months ago and I certainly expected to pay for revisions that were outside of the original design. If you are on the fence or if you fancy yourself a designer but just can't get that professional looking edge Call Keith. You will not be disappointed. Thanks Keith. PS: I'll be here reading. I can't go 100% cold turkey.

John, I appreciate your candor. You have a point about every product/service being not right for every business. I don't want to badger you with negativity, I am just honestly not convinced whether I am in the segment or not. I appreciate you taking your time to break this down for me, I can be very thick sometimes. I think the key to unlocking this thing is the efficiency of application. I am not sure why it was mentioned that the product has to be backbrushed. If it is a penetrating sealant could it be sufficiently atomized through an HVLP or airless as to leave a decent finish? The contracor brochure states that it can be applied in less time than paint. Now we've never painted vinyl but we have painted porches and columns with some Penetrol and a S/W oil (via HVLP) and the finish looked baked on. Is your recommendation of backbrushing for the masses and CYA or is it mandatory?

Bill him for the cleaning and walk away. The job you perform will only be as good as whats underneath it. When a sealer fails, its gone..period. What remains will compromise the integrity of your seal job. Read some more about wood restoration on this site using the search function. Try to explain to the customer that what he spends money on today will not last. In six months he will be cursing you because of premature failure. In one year he will be telling all his friends what a lousy job you did. Trust me, I read this book, I know how it ends. If on the other hand the customer would invest in a little money upfront you can use Wood Tux and offer him a two year written guarantee with a maintenance coat that will cost him much less than than you will be charging him today. Over the course of six years he will clean and reseal this deck 6 times. Lets say that cost is $6000. If you set him up on a maintenance schedule, he may spend $1700 today and $1000 dollars two times. You just saved him $2300. Thats money in the bank. Explain the benefits of getting oil into the wood and how it will defer the cost of rebuilding the deck for a good number of years. Many customers think saving a few dollars today is what they want. They just need to be educated. Its not easy, I grant you that. People can be stuborn. I know the last thing I would want would be my company ame associated with a job like this. I'd hate to see you learn this the hard way.

Temperature can be a factor but I would think increasing the strength would compensate for that. The main issue I would venture is in the quality of the gutter. I had houses with 20 year old gutters that came up like new but with a section that won't come clean regardless of the effort. Invariably when I question the homeowner that section had been more recently replaced.

Keeping it as long as he can right away dictates the job neds to be done right. Try not to confuse short cutting a job by doing it incorrectly with meeting the customer's demands for low price. You have to strip the deck. Build into your proposal the cost of what you have already done and include completely stripping, ph balancing and sealing with a high quality, semi transparent, oil/alky based penetraing, contracor grade product like Wood Tux, Wood Rich, TWP, Ready Seal and the like. $1500-$2000 sounds about right.

John, I was at the ACR meeting yesterday and listened to the presentation. I am always interested in profitable add-ons but in determining viability I have several questions. It was mentioned that the cleaner was developed to work in synergy with the sealer/restorer. Profitability comes into question on a couple of fronts. Understanding that everyone thinks their housewash is the best lets say my formulation falls short of the Restora cleaner's ability to remove oxidation. I have two options. Change my technique and utilize your cleaner (which adds expense to my housewash cost thereby lowering my margin on it). Or, add a secondary wash for the areas upon which I want to use Restora. Again, this adds time especially since we are talking about going around all four sides of the house with equipment. The second part I question is in the margin of the service itself. Using Flood's example of a $300 housewash and a $300 add-on shutter restoration.. An average profit margin might be about 75% (on the housewash). Factoring in the cost of product, labor time, additional Workman's comp for having guys on a ladder, and realistic production rate I come in with an estimate of about 20% margin (for the add-on). So now to make it worthwhile, the add-on in Flood's example needs to at least triple in price to remain on the same plane of what we need to earn. How can I overcome this obstacle?

Tim, what was your production rate?

I second Paul Kassander and MobiClean for the above mentioned reasons. If you have to use E-Spec's products, he is a good bridge. www.mobicleaninc.com

The cleaner in my kit says sodium metasilicate. Since that is my go-to chemical for housewashing I am assuming my regular housewash is enough prep?

sodium hypochlorite/bleach