John T

I'm in total agreement with all the above. There are a "Flood" of companies here where I live that spring up every year. There's mutltiple social sites such as Facebook,Twitter,Myspace etc. that thin out what was on these bb's.....but if you look closely there are upwards to 2000 lurkers and members that come here daily alone. So what do you do? Its a tough call because we all can become spread thin by getting to involved with so many different sites. I don't have facebook(I hate it but I am going to have to cave in there soon for my website to rank better) and personally I like going to 4 Industry bulletin boards every day. Besides the show Boardwalk with my homeboy Steve Buscemi(Ex firefighter company 55) and the show Shameless with William Macy I hardly ever watch TV. I spend 2-3 hrs a day on these bulletin boards because I like them. So what do we do here? Start threads. Challenge the lurkers to get involved. Next thing you know more of them start posting. Then eventually some of the "Oldtimers" come back because they see the activity. Promote the heck out of Roundtables,orgs,stains,strippers(That don't dance),idea's, etc here on TGS or whatever sites you like to go to. This is a good thread Rick. Your are a wood specialist as Diamond Jim and Rod above are. You guys have helped more people then you can possibly imagined. The proof is in the pudding which are in the numbers below the TGS forum which are closing in on 2000 daily. You started this thread so I'll start one here on Garage cleaning that we've been doing the last bunch of years. If Time allows I'll put the Ruth movie review and some pics there for some people that may be interested. Start good threads. They'll come back or at the very least some of those lurkers will start to become posters. Become "Proactive" and the Charlie Sodens(He does do excellent work and is very passionate about it for sure) start to appear. Competition is always out there but ones who do good work and are passionate about it the better the competition is the higher this industry get's elevated. Since there are so many hacks out there it best to network with the pro's like we do here on TGS.

Excellent advise Rick!! I am going to consider what you said. I did wish I bought yrs ago at the Jersey shore when houses could have been had in the 130g range in the early to mid 90's then the prices exploded. My wifes family have been going there for probably over 80yrs if not longer. Generations of the Downes & the Boyd's have vacation there. Myself going for 20 yrs now since I first got married to Kathy has made me love "the shore".Even thru storms, to me there is nothing like either being on the Ocean or a block or 2 from it. The draw for the tranquility of the ocean air and surroundings is where anywhere in the world I want to be which was the main reason I joined the Navy from 82-86. Like many we were devistated seeing our memories of the fun times at the Jersey shore getting washed away in the hurricane... One way or another.. We'll be back and maybe I get lucky and find a place that I can afford to possibly fix it up and vaca again at "the jersey shore" to continue on our enjoyable family life experiences. Storm or no storm-We will be back.

Does insurance cover any of that? We vacation every yr down by seaside heights and those area's got devistated as well. I always wanted to buy a house down there but every yr we rented pretty much up. I still want to buy there one day but this storm has me rethinking all that.

Nice area Rick. Looks like a great place to enjoy some cold Hineys and soak in the "Country" lifestyle. I bet your neighbors have no idea that the "Bleach Bandit" has arrived :cool-new::cool-new::cool-new:

Hey Mordy--Your area got hit pretty hard from Hurricane Sandy. We go to Lavalette every summer and rent a house on or by the water right down the road from the Seaside Boardwalk that got blasted. It was heartbreaking to see what happened. That area besides all the devastation they have to deal with, there going to need some serious Powerwashing to be done. If you have a decent Powerwasher especially a hot water Powerwasher there should be a ton of work in there.

Mordy best thing you did here was to not only listen to some great advise but to also follow thru with what some of these seasoned pro's here are recommending by going to see Tom Vogle at his shop. ACR Products, Inc. does a great Roundtable at least once a year and Tom and his wife Barbara are excellent host. Many of us have gone there for years and besides making some good friends there, on the business side of things to be there is priceless.

If your trying to make money with your powerwasher Its not worth it to upgrade your pump on that machine. You need the very least a 3.5-4gpm @3000psi Powerwasher to start making any real coin. New is the way to go but for you if its not feasible at this time look around on craigs list or ebay for a used Powerwasher with the above specs that is belt driven so the pump will last the longest for you since its only running about 40% RPM of what a small engine runs at which is usually around 3600 rpms. You'll see some decent deals right about now because many in this business do not make it and they sell there equipment now because they need the money. Its an unfortunate thing to say but it is reality. Good luck.

You need some Florida guys to respond here since you guys deal with rain more often and Mold that seems never ending. We did a few jobs today with the last one being a roof. A lot of guys tell me even where I live and even further North they don't do the last step we do which is rinse the roof clean with black tips on our wands. This works for us because we leave all cleaning jobs completely cleaned when we leave........ But....... In Florida especially it seems most guys leave the chlorine mixture up on the roof and then leave after they rinse the landscaping etc. Apparently the rain activates the dried Chlorine again to keep killing the mold and cleaning the roof.

It's that much more you can put the claim in for. A hunch is your shop owner is hurting for cash because the attitude in here is wrong. You left your equipment in his care to be serviced,fixed or whatever. He was in possession of it and it's his responsibility to return whatever you left him with in the very least in the shape you left it in. On another bb you said you were going to talk to the owner of the shop today. What did he have to say?

My sister JoAnn and my Brother inlaw Mick DuRussel along with Kathy and myself*received a special Invite by Linda Ruth Tosetti and her husband Andy for* the premier screening of the Babe Ruth documentary film called "Universal Babe" by Linda and some others at the Time square Bldg Executive screening room on Nov 2nd. * The word is the Sundance film festival wants this film for potential Academy award considerations in the Documentary film division. Linda has provided a ton of information for this Movie and She's in it as well. There's stories in here that many know about and some stories in here that very few people know about.*A lot of*Factual documents and information that was collected thru-out the years*from Linda's hard work in researching her Grandfather Babe Ruth's past, is in this film. This is a dream come true for Linda that is finally happening and I know that Kath,myself along with my sister and Mick are very honored to get to see this firsthand with some others. I'll keep ya's up to date for anyone interested as this progresses. John T.

This is back on. Kath and I are going to the screening for this movie "Universal Babe" next Saturday Nov 17. What's this all have to do with Powerwashing? I'm only going to be there because of Powerwashing and if all works out right the end result is the payback for Linda and her Grandfather Babe Ruth because of the Powerwashers.

If you wash roofs like we do where we use alot of water for rinsing and keeping gardens and surrounding areas soaked your roof mixture should so diluted when it comes off the roof that the surrounding area's should be fine. We always have two guys per job but back when I did the jobs myself I learned that rinsing and rinsing and rinsing again was key when dealing with chemicals. Roof washing since your chlorine mixture will be higher then most other types of cleaning there are things to watch out for without counting the obvious stuff such as the siding of the house,people etc. One of those things is the down spouts coming off the gutters which drain out on the ground which is what your referring to here. If they dump off let's say to a blacktop driveway you may want to redirect it to where it dumps out onto the landscape area's because you can stain the blacktop. Also if your a 2 man operation doing the job or a solo doing the job find a way to saturate those area's where the roof mixture will end up at. The key is to have your chemical mixture so watered Down when it hits the ground so nothing gets killed or affected around that area. As for you bagging those down spouts where the solution reaches the ground that maybe one of the ways guys do it in Florida and other area's because from what I understand is that they keep the solution on the house when they leave because it always rains in Florida so the solution keeps cleaning for a few more days. That works there but for us since we deal with so much mold growth on the roof because people don't clean them nearly as often as a state like Florida that we have alot of lichen growing on the roofs that in my case my customers want the roof clean when we leave so our process is a little bit different and probably a little more time consuming then where your at....because we put the roof chemical on the roof and after a short while after we keep misting the roof so the chemical doesn't dry we then power rinse everything off. Hope this helps you some. Good luck

Thanks Beth and the ones who text me to see how we were doing. That means Alot to me and my family. How bad we were hit. This # is going to go up. This is why I consider myself lucky today. Pure luck to not even have s branch fall and I'm surrounded by trees and state land that is all tree's. Someone was watching over us I suspect. LIPA estimate: 100,000 LI-area homes, businesses devastated

For the ones who support there Industry organizations such as Powerwashing, Window Cleaning, Hood Cleaning etc. Do you support the idea of them having an internet interactive presence such as there own Bulletin board? How about Them Having Facebook,Twitter or those type of net places? Or are you more old School where your happy just belonging to the org and them having an internet interactive presence is something you wouldn't support? Check off your answer on the Poll and elaborate here in this thread as to why you picked what you did. Be advised that your vote can be seen by others but that shouldn't matter anyway if you respond as to why you picked what you did--Thanks.

I'll start since I put this up here. I'm not really a fan of Facebook,Twitter and those type of sites but yes I can see the upside to incorporating them into an Industry org. Bulletin boards on the other hand I always supported because it's the easiest way to promote the org, for members to interact,org. Vendors to advertise and also to help the organization grow by marketing what there up to and how they benefit there members. A bulletin board takes work but if done right with enough volunteers and a strong admin who stays on top of whats going on like some of these bulletin boards have now....works. As you can see right here on this bulletin board. So what do you think?

A few of you were attached to my emails for the Nov 9th Charity event in Manhattan for "A Journey for a cause" Charity to help find a cure for Breast Cancer which I was helping my brother in-law with was postponed today due to the damaging hurricane Sandy that caused some serious flooding and power outages in Manhattan. There were over a 1000 people coming and almost a 100 celebrities that donated or were attending themselves. This bites but what can you do? The city is an absolute mess where they can use all the help they can get to clean it up. I heard even the World Trade Center area was compromised possibly by all the water that spilled into that area. As soon as I get the new date which is looking like the first week of Dec. I'll pass it on. If they can't get this show going I'll find out from my brother in-law what's going to happen to all the donated money that was raised. I'm hoping it all goes to help find a cure and to also reimburse the people who paid to be there as well. Just another fallout from this storm but my Brother in law and this Charity will be back for sure.

The screening in Manhattan Later today was just canceled due to Hurricane Sandy. Undetermined now when this movie will be released. I feel terrible for Linda and her family but there resilient and she'll be back.

I'm on thru my Droid away from my house. My block got spared. No phones,cable vision or Internet, lost my Uncle in a car accident over the weekend right before the storm came in, one of the schools here the roof collapsed and the school Bldg is closed for the remainder of the year so there going to combine that school with my youngest daughters school which is closed all week. A few people were killed by falling trees in the nearby towns and 90% of the people lost power. Flooding was another problem. If I had to guess this will be considered the worst overall storm in our history here. Our Jersey shore Vacation area was devistaded. Thankfully no one in my immediate family was hurt and non of my personal property or equipment was damaged so all in all we got unbelievably lucky.

The guy was smart to buy those generators and it's his right to make a buck. The thing with this is unless someone desperately needs to buy a generator for almost any cost because they need it to keep a breathing machine running for maybe there parent, child etc most people don't want to hear how someone is making a quick buck off of others desperation. These are the same type of guys who went out to sell the American flags on sticks in the parking lots of stores right after we were hit by 9-11. Since it's a free society those type of people fall into the scum bag ranks. -Just sayin

Where due to get slammed. We have 2-3 days left to finish that parking garage that is right in the line of fire right next to the water.So I took some machinery back today to get ready such as my generator,another generator thats used with a Powerwasher(will disconnect the pump if I need this generator. Also Grabbed a few sump pumps we had at the garage and numerous extension chords tools etc. Oh yea also grabbed about 100' of water bags if I need to berm up my house from flood water getting in(you see I did learn something about berming things. We also had a few cancelations already from our residential side and I have a gut feeling where not going to get them back this year. So that's money lost right there. Also we have another parking garage scheduled to do in 2-3 weeks and that one is for a Large apartment complex that is also right in the line of fire. They get hit I'm sure the garage gets canceled. It's now the calm before the storm. Thankgod I didn't go on the PWNA 20th yr. cruise. Those guys are still at sea until Sunday(Tomorrow) and besides them having there island stops canceled because they have to stay out at sea to avoid the storm, some of them are going to find out that there return flights to anywhere around here is canceled until further notice. All else fails-- Drink.....but try not to get sloshed(those dumb days are over)

What does "Babe Ruth" have to do with Powerwashers? This is the question I have been asked the most. There are alot of people who see this like I do and much more who don't. Charlie Arnold the PWNA chair on this committee understands my thinking on this completely. He actually explained it to me yesterday via phone call better then I can explain it and I am the person with the information of it all(POI) So this is it. There is no common ground with Babe Ruth and Powerwashing itself. None. But what Powerwashers do in some aspects then there is a tremendous similarity with Babe Ruth. Maybe on a different scale but all with the same meaning and that is.... "To give back" to Volunteer what you can do to make others feel better for it. That's the common ground. From the presidential folder I have and read to other documents and just doing my own searches there was a life outside of baseball with Babe Ruth that is possibly more phenomenal than his un-parallel baseball career. In baseball alone Babe Ruth is the only true 6 tool player who excelled at everyone of them to be considered a star 6 tool player(Baseball terminology) There's way to much info that I can lay down here but in a nutshell Babe Ruth gave back. He volunteered himself to be the ambassador of baseball on his own to go around and visit kids all over the place. Whether they were sick in a hospital, numerous ones being kept at a disease hospital or even going as far out to a leprosy camp when he was ordered not to, so he can give himself back to the people is remarkable. What he did in dealing with Hitlers Nazism Is extraordinary and keep in mind George Herman Ruth was German. What he did for this country when it was down and also what he did for this country when it was going to war is one of the reasons when the Japanese kamikaze's came here to kill there line was "let's kill Babe Ruth" There's alot here. As I am in flight to get to the PWNA Convention it still makes sense to me the connection to the Powerwashers. Plenty of Powerwashers give back by volunteering, doing philanthropic things, helping people when there down or just helping people who helped us as a country www.cleaningforheroes.com Is an example. In turn the Powerwashers have a chance to help rewrite history by being part of a potential and historical thing involving Babe Ruth. Linda Ruth Tosetti has given us this opportunity and it's working both ways where it's only a win win. So this is what it's about. It may never be clear for some, never accepted for others but it was never meant to be like that and for the ones who think like that your not alone. If there was a perfect solution believe me I banged my head over and over trying to find it. I exhausted myself to get to that solution but I couldn't find it. So this is where we are today. Could it have been much better..sure. But just to be clear I have never given up and hopefully one day this Industry can help Linda get her Mothers wish who happens to be Babe Ruth's only blood related child he ever had, and that is to get Babe Ruth recognized for the true man he really was. A man who was like a big Kid who just loved giving back especially to children his gift of never giving up and his natural ability to star In the sport he loved which was baseball and to also give that back before during and after his career ended to many from around the world by him just showing up to be with......them. I'll report how the PWNA Convention went in the next few days.

Thanks Tracy-- I do try and I appreciate what you said as well.

Thanks Bob. I actually had 2 guys tell me at the Convention they didn't know I'm a Powerwasher. 1 guy was convinced that everything is about money so this has to be a money angle. It's exhausting no doubt. At times I feel alone with this. I don't fault anyone with anything in here. I am honored that this became a PWNA volunteer recognition award and when this goes into high gear now that a few of us have more time coming up where every single person/company will get something next year that does a PWNA volunteer project along with the one person/company that does the most impacting volunteer project and receives the award--- that all works. It promotes volunteering. It doesn't lessen the impact of people that volunteer who never want to be known for there good deeds. What this does is maybe promote volunteering for the ones who do it anyway and others who are on the fence about doing something where money is not the end goal. You got that plaque because I know something's that you did and your a good person. Does that mean others who didn't get one any less of a Powerwasher or person you are?? Of course not. So here's your answer when people ask you what's this all about. In your Powerwashing field there are contractors who do Humanitarian things such as volunteering there services. Linda Ruth Tosetti does that as did her Grandfather Babe Ruth who was off the charts doing that. That's the connection and what brought that together was a small Powerwashing thing that was done. That's it.

Yup I recall that. Never made sense to me because I was bringing something positive to the industry at large at that time and if some didn't believe in it that's OK but why I got somewhat beaten down over this...well I left that in the past as "it is what it is" and moved on. Thanks for the reminder..lol

Yup I recall that. Never made sense to me but it is what it is.