John T

Happy Birthday Joel:) How's the move working out?? Did you start your business yet?? Oh yea don't forget to enjoy your Birthday.

Forget the Pump ups. Been there done that. Get a Surflo or Flojet. You will never look back. Take it from me. Pump ups Suck Suck Suck. Joe Home owner uses those. We as Professionals use the real deal. Get those Pumps and don't waste years like I did with Pump ups. Flojets along with Surflo's, Surface Machines, Hot water, Chemicals etc. are the biggest reasons why my Business has really been Kicking as far as Equipment goes. Good Luck

I would have plenty of plastic sheathing available to cover any thing you don't want to get stripper on. Maybe even a Rake or broom along with a blower to Pick up any loose Paint that landed on the ground. Plenty of HD-80 to strip the paint. Last but not least.....where protective Clothing aong with a resperator and especially Goggles when dealing with Strippers. Good Luck

Don't e-mail Joe Walters you will be just wasting your time. Call him instead. You will probably get one of his agents. The one I dealt with her name is Sue. I got an excellent Policy with 2,000,000 coverage and also insured some of my Powerwashing equipment also thru them. Total for all of this is $1265/yr. Great deal considering my own agent was trying to get me to insure again thru him for $3,000+/yr.

Beth, Are your online store prices current as in there are no other better deals going on thru you?? Does your online store except American Express?? How long for delivery on average to Long Island NY?? Thanks

My Extenda-Wand doesn't bend much at all. I bet you he never used one. Like Tony Said You get what you paid for. Hey Tony, How's the blue Fiberglass extension wand holding up?? I thought that was a great wand.....untill I purchased the Extenda-wand. I bet you feel the same.

I stripped 3 decks(all in one back yard) Yesterday without covering any of the plant life around these decks. I used hd-80 at full strength(8 oz per gallon of water. Man this stripper works great. The solid stain just fell off the wood). Of course I Brightend the wood afterwords. As to the reason why I didn't cover any plant life around these decks was because it was raining all day along. Actually been raining the last few days. I figured since the plant life was so saturated with rain they should be all right. I even soaked the plants some more after I applied the HD-80 and the citralic brightner. Would you think the plants will be OK?? Also its great to strip in the rain because the stripper stays nice and wet and works like a charm.

Best of Luck Morgan and I hope your kids are doing better also.

Best of Luck to you Joel. I think about it all the time on doing the same thing that you just did. I can retire from my one job next year and just do Powerwashing as my sole job. I just may do that because I don't know how much longer I can do these two jobs fulltime like I'm doing now. Of course If you ever need any help from us where here for you.

I have a deck to do in the near future that has about 4 old coats of Benjamin Moore Clear(Actually has a tint of Cedar color to it) that needs to be stripped off. Can EFC-38 work for this or should I go with HD-80?? Also If I go with EFC-38 does it need to be Neutralized/Brightend afterwords like HD-80 needs to be?? Thanks

Since EFC and HD-80 are identical in price wouldn't I be better off in just using HD-80 since I know it works just about everytime??

Hey Morgan, I have always enjoyed reading your posts over the years. I remember when you showed that Sweeper that you purchased. After reading your post about that I became interested in possibly adding that to my business. I still may down the road and if I do you would be the first person that comes to mind when someone asks me as to why I got into that end of the business. As of late I did noticed that you seemed to be uptight in some of your posts. We all get like that at times. Since you explained how things have been for you lately who could blame you. You have a beautiful family and I hope that all goes well for you and your three beautiful girls. I have 2 girls myself ages 8 and soon to be 3 and they are everything to me as I'm sure yours are to you. I wish you nothing but the best of luck and if there is something I can do to help let me know. Your fellow Powerwasher.

Why would you have to Strip off the old solid stain when your just going to recoat the Deck again with a solid stain??? Most solid stains are made to be able to go over previous stains. Why waste the time and MONEY to strip the old stain off when it sounds like all you have to do is Powerwash the Deck Clean then put the new stain on it. Solid stain not only covers the wood grain(Why most people don't like solids) but also covers other stains(The beauty of solid stain). Strip when you have to but no need to when you are putting down a solid stain.

When posting a picture why is the size not allowed to be bigger then 100,000 bytes?? Is this so not to bog down this site causing it to work slowly?? Also how was I able to post a picture that was much larger(And clearer) before I was stopped when posting another picture of same size??

Hands down that I would rather have a stripper and other chemicals in a powder form. Reason is very simple. You can store alot more of the chemical in powder form in your trailer. ALOT more!!! Also you can mix what you need at the jobsite and not worry about lugging around the Liquid form out of your trailer all the time. Liquid form chemicals take up a TON of space and most of the Liquid in all chemicals is water anyway.. Why waste space carrying around water for these chemicals when you can just get the water at the jobsite. To me it makes perfect sense to have chemicals in a powder form. One more thing, when you buy most chemicals in a liquid form you are over paying big time because you are paying for the water that they put into the mix and its dollars to cents when you have your chemical in Powder form. THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A MOMENT. But as they say....Whatever Floats your Boat.

I could be wrong on my assumption about this but its what I've been hearing over the last year or so that insurances will go up all across the board due to this tradegy. Also some insurance companies along with raising there rates bigtime are also re-thinking about what they will and won't insure in the future. Its like a ripple effect that is going on here. Powerwashing insurance was probably effected by this due to its considered risky in the first place(I never agreed with this) and now with a major tradegy Insurance companies are dropping what they consider risky insurance or at least raising there rates alot. I also heard this from others. Its Ironic how Insurance in general has gone up so much after 9-11 and how some companies won't even insure things that they use to insure. What do you suppose is the reason why our insurance has been dropped??

The post effects of 9-11. Insurance in general has sky rocketed because of this tradegy. When you put it into proper prospective its miniscule compared to the other tragic stories surrounding 9-11 but never the less a pain regardless.

1-Most important thing I learned from the bb's is:Let the Chemicals do the work as others have stated. 2-If I had to start from scratch I would've bought a Hot water PW in the beginning instead of the 2 cold water ones and yes I would still get into Powerwashing because its what I like to do. 3- In five years from now I plan on having alot more commercial work(Contracts) and myself along with other employees doing the cleaning. I say I because I love doing Flat work and I like to do physical labor along with Mental labor.

I got the exact same notice a few weeks ago stating that when my Insurance expires on May 16th(My birthday) I no longer will have Insurance thru Nationwide. Some Birthday present. :mad: I Don't know what I'm going to do about this yet. I have a guy looking into this and hopefully I will have new insurance soon.

Tell your brother I said thanks also. He is a brave man that is a true blue AMERICAN. Best of luck to him. US Navy 82-86

how much is in a pinch or a smidgen or a dash?= a dab or a touch.Maybe even a droplet.

I have no reason to fight the EPA. At least not at this time because the restrictions they have been putting on the Powerwashers are not as stringent here...yet. Cutting grass impacts everyone just from the lawn mower engine's alone(A counter point to above post). I can see how distributors would LOVE to see the EPA require us to invest in very expensive equipment. Why should they fight for us when they stand to make money. I personally don't like unfair rule changes and that is whats starting to happened.(Kendra where is your story??) When you give in without a fight to groups like the EPA then you give them way to much power which they, like anyone else would take advantage of. An example of this would be to pass certain regulations such as forcing us to reclaim the water and failure to do so would be a $10,000 fine etc etc. In a perfect world thats fine but since this is not a perfect world then maybe they should go after more important Pollutants then just us "NO POWER" small time powerwashers.

Yes I'm sure at times water recovery isn't that complicated or expensive but for Commercial flat work cleaning it could get pretty expensive and that is money that I wouldn't want to spend. Just think the cost alone to run to Surface Cleaners where the water has to be reclaimed. Something like the Fury comes to mind here and that piece of equipment is not cheap and you would need 2 of them. IF I had the time and the expertise I would try to fight the EPA on certain issues but of course I have neither. I hope someone could stand up for us small guys and make a stand.

Obviously I'm not an expert when it comes to what the laws are when it comes to dealing with the EPA. I'm just like most here who would like to get a better understanding on what is going on with this topic of Reclaiming ones water. I can see that the EPA would want one to Reclaim there water if they are using Chemicals with there COMMERCIAL cleaning. Fair enough. As to the part about loosening up the dirt and grime and then having to reclaim it that seems to be asking a bit much from us. The reason I say this is because for example, people fertilize there lawns on average 4 times a year and there is no problem as far as I know about that being illegal even though everyone knows that most Fertilizer is bad for the enviroment as in drinking water if it goes deep enough. Automobiles pollute a gazillion times more a week then all the powerwashers can ever do probably in a thousand years. Since most of my Commercial work at this time is Flat work, I hardly ever use chemicals. 5GPM Hot water at 3000psi is all I need and if the day comes that I will have to reclaim it then I think we got railroad!!!!!!!!!!!

Everett, How come we can't get the PWNA convention to meet in Atlantic City?? Whats in Dallas besides the Cowboys??(Just Joking) Maybe I'll go to Dallas. I have to agree with You about Robert Hindeliter"s Passion concerning this Industry and I never even met the man and only spoke to him once via phone while placing an order from Delco. I was impressed that he would even take shipping orders himself considering who he is. That tells you something about the man. I hope none of you guys that represent the PWNA feel like I think that Robert is doing a diservice to the industry. That could not be further from the truth. I'm sure Robert is doing alot of positive things as far as helping out States with there regulations rules(EPA) to our advantage(Powerwashers). Te only thing that irks me is that he is also in the business to make money off these reclemation set-ups which of course is no fault to him. ITs actually extremely smart of him to get involved. Considering that I have NO way to reclaim my water with the equipment that I have and invested alot of Money in why would I ever want to reclaim anything if don't have to?? Thats my point. Thats it. Of course when the day comes that I have to reclaim my water then I will have to either comply or move on to other business opportunities if it just isn't worth the expense and headache to change. I'd be willing to bet rain water on average(Especially in big cities) is more polluted then the water coming out of my powerwasher when I'm cleaning commercial establishments. Does the EPA expect to have the Rain water reclaimed?(Just making a point) I think were getting a bad rap from the EPA which of course is no fault at all from Robert H.