Degraffreed

Steve, What a creative idea. You saved Thousands of dollars with that setup. Now Go Make That Money!!!!!!!!!!!

I agree with Jeff, we both are in the Atlanta area. AC, you will be out of biz in less than 6 month if you continue your current course. Atl demographic will handle a min of a $200.00 up to $350.00( in my area,) housewash. Man your working for free at $ 100.00 per unit. Figure you cost of material to be on the high end of 15-20 buck in Chems, Plus fuel, diesel if you have a hot unit. Plus on a average two story home, it takes about 1.5-2 if your detailed. Now figure you labor in at about $80.00-90.00 and hour. What did you make on a $100.00 housewash maybe $20.00 == OUT OF BIZ. AC raise your prices up slightly to around $175.00,see if they bite then the next home raise it to $195.00, see if they bite and so on until you see what the market will bear. Pick up a PT job in the meanwhile and you do not have to take those low dollar jobs to make ends meet. I was in your shoes less than a year ago. I know what your feeling. It gets better as YOU get better. Do not shortchange yourself and the others in the BIZ.

To those who are wood vets. I just received my Delhurst Moisture meter.. Jlite, from Sunbrite, Thanks Pete, anyhow. I was doing a sample test on my own deck this a.m., what I noticed is that I was getting different reading from the same area of the deck. Ex, used the meter on the first four boards from the door. First board.... reading 25-30 Second board.. 18-20 third board.... 15-20 Is my readig different due to the diffrent grades of PT Pine, which absorb moisture different or is the wood drying at different times due to the placement of the sun before I did the readings. Also when your taking readings to determine if deck is ready to stain, do you take reading in diffrent areas of the deck and do you wait until all testing area read below 12% moisture content before preceding with staining.

I know this may sound silly BUT is there a link or site,that can help you determine the specific species of wood out there. Reasoning is this, I recieved a call from a homeowner and she wanted the deck, fence cleaned but not stained yet. I looked at the fence and it seems to be Cedar( redish tint to it), it was not PT pine. I know different species of wood absorb stain differently. I have read post about Pine, Pt pine, Cedar, Western red cedar, douglas fir. Ipe, (what region is this mainly in), many different woods out there and I want to know the correct wood I am working on. Oh yeah, the Homeowner said, she wanted maybe a clear stain applied by fall. I educate her on the perils of a clear sealer versus a pigmented stain. May sell her on Wooddefender Rustic Oak. We see how she decides.

Man, Great debate. I am amazed that a question, I thought was Silly, turned out so much feed back. I think until I Master the Wood, I will continue to percarb and neutralize. Thanks all for the responses.

To all wood vets. Question. Was testing my new F-18 that I purchased from Bob, I was attempting to strip and old skid that I was testing from a past stain test. I applied 2oz of F-18 to strip oil based stain... started to see some brown stain run. Cranked it up to 4oz and a little more came off. I was trying to see what the dwell time would be on the test skid. I remember a past post that stated spray chems.. let dwell 10-15 min.. due scratch test.. Do you continue to keep the test area wet at all times? I came back into the house and hit Bobs site and noticed that I was to crank it up to 8-16 oz per gallon. Beth Chime in here and tell me your secret.

Shane, One more for you to ponder. When your just removing mildew and a weathered gray fence. I know you bleach it. Do you saturate the wood with the bleach and soap then rinse with the pwer. I was thinking could I apply a lite coat of say bleach soap, to remove mildew and not have to wait two or three day to stain because I did not Pw the fence therefore not saturating the wood or is this not a good Idea. Whats your thoughts?

Shane, is it possible to "Bleach" the color out of say "Cedar" or PT pine. I was testing an old skid and applied my percarbonate solution... cleaned it an also turned it somewhat black. I then rinse an nutralized it then rinsed again. I took 12% an adding 1 gallon of water = 6% now correct. I then applied it to the old skid and Whala it turned from an old dirty moldy skid to almost the color of a new skid. Will this process work on Pt Fence? What the mixture your using bleach/soap. I have studied all your post but never have seen any formula's mentioned. Trade Secrets?. I would really like to know more about your techniques if you care to share. Thanks for all the past post.... learning a lot this year.

Thanks to all that post. I figured that I was putting it on to heavy and this was causing it to run off. When your stripping a deck, spindles, floor, are you doing certain sections at a time? It appears it would be impossible to keep the entire deck, railings, runners and spindles "Wet " all at the same time. I might be asking some Silly questions here but I am determined to get this Staining Biz off to a correct start. Have deck staining coming up in about a week, if it ever stop raining long enough to complete it.

F-18 Is there something you can add to the F-18 mixture that will make it "Cling" or to thicken it up to cling to vertical objects such as spindles, runners. I appears to be such a waste of product to have it to run off the surface like it does or am I doing something wrong here. Chime in here Bob. Did not get a chance to call you today. Hopefully tommorrow. I thank you and Beth for the quick response on my question.

To all wood restortation vets. I need to know if I am doing something wrong here. I cleaned my deck with Restore ( percarbonate) and the used a wood brightner from Sunbrite. This is the scenario. I wanted to test and see if there would be a difference in the way I cleaned decks. 1. I started by using Restore to clean three steps, mix 1cup per two gallon pump up sprayer, let dwell 15 min, Applied a second coat on all three steps, let dwell ten more minutes ( Epec suggested the second application as a brightner step), then rinsed. 2. Used bleach and soap on another three step, brushed and rinsed. 3. On three last steps Used one application of Restore, dwell, rinsed then Applied Wood Brightner from Sunbrite, here is the results. On the restore steps I did twice. I had a lot of furring and appeared to be some wand marks in two of the three steps.( wondering if I let the Restore dwell to long or did I make the mix too strong. Can you make Percarbonate to strong to the point it furs the wood, with out using much pressure?) On the Bleached steps. I did not like the results. Step did not have mold on them at all before applying Bleach mix, just testing to see the difference in using the bleach mix. Appeared have left those steps with a whitish look after it dried. Now on the Restore and the Brightner process. I was not crazy about the results here either. I cleaned with percarbonate then while the steps were still wet applied the wood brightner( reading ingredients list as Oxalic Acid) as instructed on the container. Seems to do okay. I guess what I am saying " is I want the same Results that BETH and Rod gets after cleaning and Nuetralizing their decks even before they apply the stain. I wonder if there pictures posted results are different because of the different wood types. Mine is Pt Pine. 4 years old been cleaned few time per year. HOW CAN I GET BETTER RESULTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOOKING AT THE COST OF PLANE TICKETS TO HEAD TO MARYLAND FOR SOME OJT. DeGraffreed

Just hung up from Bob and I have purchasedF18 and F10 for my wood care cleaning chems.Very nice guy and very informative. Thank Beth for any info you can provide. Degraffreed

Sorry Beth. Let me clarify, I have started doing deck and I have purchased the Wooddefender st250 for fence staining. I was posing the question of the two products because I am going away from Espec product and looking to try different product that could help me excel in the deck rest / cleaning part of the business. I have heard good thing about Russ's and Bob products. For mold and mildew cleaning... No stain present... efc-38 or f-10 For stripping stain off..... Efc-38 or hd80( if needed stronger stripper that efc-38) or bobs f18 that could perform both as a mild cleaner or as strong stripper? Degraffreed.

Anyone know what 30lbs of Russ efc-38 costs these days? I am trying to choose between Russ efc38- and hd 80 or Bobs f-10 and f18. I have added fence and deck staining to my pressure washing service. Any woods vets please give me your thoughts. I have my first wood sealing coming up this weekend. I was told by one person to just Bleach it, take off the light mildew and Mold. By doing this with a pump up sprayer, would eliminate soaking the deck and having to clean one day and come back after the deck is dry(1-2 days). By just bleaching it would not soak the wood and I could stain in a matter of hours. Sounds like a winner to me. Wood vets chime in here. P.S the deck is .3 yrs old and is made of pressure treated pine. Never been sealed. Degraffreed Degraffreed.

Tim, I just went thru the same thing last month. Burner worked fine the one day it went out during a concrete cleaning. Here is what I did. I did all those test the Russ mentioned. but my was the regulator on the side of my engine. I guess it went bad and was not suppling the right amount of DC volts to my power switch. I burned up two relays until Delco help me thru it. Take it to a PW dealer and have them check the regulator. I had mine done at the hardware store here in GA that service pwers. Good luck. JayCam Pressure Wash

Celeste, are you using a Jlite meter to measure you moisture content in wood? Or are you using the ph strips? DeGraffreeds

Jeff, what going on bud? Glad to see you posting. Have not talked to you if a while. Keep in touch. Degraffreed Dolittle hit me via e-mail. Degraffreeds@bellsouth.net and I will send a card. New fences or deck staining.

Thank Celeste my thought exactly. Just one more for all of you to think over. How in the hell can you run away from the alter and lie to the police. and get a book and movie deal out of it? Georgia run away bride, that all over the news here and nationally. This goes to show that it is some sick people out here. I said it before and I will say it again,controversy bring income. I will bet anyone here 100.00 that Micheal Jackson will be back on top in 6 months, Any takers? People love controversy. Oh by the way have anyone turned on the news and all that was being reported was Good Stuff. NOPE. the first 10 minutes is all about who was shot, raped, killed, identity theft. Any body here seen any report of the pressure washer that posted here for cleaning the siding and cutting the grass of the elderly couple who were hopitalized, free of charge. Hell no, nobody wants to see that. It does not bring in RATINGS. So we can sit back and let thing happen or you can try and change things. Like making sure you supervise you kids sleep overs. Sorry about the attitude. I am just sick and tired of individuals acting like they live on another planet and seem not to understand why CELEBRITIES GO TO COURT AND WALK AWAY WITH THERE FREEDOM. For those who are still in the dark..... Its called MILLIONS IN THE BANK. STOP BIEING SURPRISED EVERYTIME A CELEB WALKS FREE. Move to the city and you wont be so sheltered.. Degraffreed Degraffreed

I use it all the time on my house jobs fir gutters. I just used it today and the stuff is great. I also use limolene for e-spec and it also work good. So I stock both. I recently had an issue with my heater unit. It was down for about a month. Delco people took care of me. Thanks Delco, also as I could not use my burner, I went back to using th PP and it was a job saver. Use it but use it wisely. I hear it will take paint of the gutters, I have not experienced it but have read it from these post. Degraffreed

Great Job gents. The world need more of this. I to feel that your closer to the Pearly Gates, when you help those in need. That scripture is in the good book too. Degraffreed

I agree with Ryan, I to have a 9-5, that I have been doing for about 18 years. I love the distribution industry. It is never the same thing. I also like the SALARY and benefits. I would like to one day MAYBE go full time. I treat my business like a business and come to think of it, I have not paid myself in over a year. I continue to reinvest my profits into more equipment, better chems and I just invested some earnings into equiptment for new fence staining and decks from Wooddefender out of Texas. Spent two days in Texas last month. If this goes good. I will sell my Rig for Powerwashing. Alot more money in staining. For any newbies looking into staining and sealing. Contact Brent or Todd from Standard paints out of Mansfield, Tx. Class act guys. Never tried to be pushy salemans or tried to sell me anything. Offer the 1 day fences staining and I was sold on the OJT. Look at there site. WWW.Wooddefender.com Any one in the Atlanta area need fences stained.? Degraffreed.

First, of all. We do not know if he was molesting these young boys. Yeah, he is a little weird, I will admit. But lets not jump to conclusion that molestation was going on here. I know all that post here seems to be very intelligent, so lets be open minded here. You can not always believe what the press says or do. There was so much more important issues going on in the U.S and the media seemed to be overly engrossed in what Micheal was doing. People have there opinions and I am okay with that. What I finally realize in these high profile celebrity is your freedom is based on the amount of representation you can afford. After the world was split on the OJ case all minority was happy that he was acquitted, even though many believed he was involved somewhat. What we was happy about was the fact that HE BEAT THE SYSTEM ,JUST LIKE THOSE THAT HAVE MONEY CAN DO. For all the Kobes, blakes, OJ's and the Ken lays of the world, Enrons, WorldComs and these other corporate robbers of the middleclass. Where is all the hoopla about the indivisuals making millions and the little guys walk away with nothing. So, who cares if Micheal walked, what we should be questioning is why these parents continue to let there children sleep over Micheals house? I can tell you why? FOR A FUTURE PAYCHECK AND A COMFORTABLE RETIREMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!! LETS WAKE UP AND SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS. SUPERSTARS= PAYCHECKS. Degraffreed

Classic, I used powerhouse for about 3 months from Sunbrite. I works really good, then I read so much about Citraclean and had the chance run out of Powerhouse and thought I would give it a try. I used it per Steve formula and I am a beliver that it is good as everone here says. I was on vacation and was heading back to GA and stop in Smyrna, Steves place and met him face to face. He is an incredible guy. Very knowlegable and very friendly. I bought 10 more gallons and now I stock it as my housewash. I was amaze that it cleans gutter streaks also. Go ahead and give it a try. DeGraffreed

What did you clean this fence with? Bleach and soap or the expensive stuff? DeGraffreed

I agree with you somewhat. Hey did you get the work from the apartment complex? Sub out. Degraffreed