Barry M

That looks sweet, a job well done, congrats and keep it up.

It sounds like you applied some pretty good pressure to the wood, do you have any idea what psi you were blasting the wood with? Let me guess, you used whatever tip came with it, right? Do a whole deck with that kind of pressure and you'll damage the wood big time. I only use 800 psi to clean wood using chems and it comes out beautiful. So it seems to me, the chems do most of the work. Anyway, why do you want to sit here and argue with a whole board. It would be like me going to some paint forum and telling them that my way of painting houses is to use only a 1" brush, and that it's the best way and I make money doing it.

Uhhh, maybe lack of knowledge?

The problem up North here is the winter, the freezing and thawing. This SW product I used will last 2 maybe 3 years before needing some maintenance. In warm weather climates they said it will last 5-6 years.

I rented a 30" steel eagle last week and used it with my 4gpm machine. They changed the tips out to fit my gpm and it worked great.

I cleaned concrete like normal, then etched with muratic acid, which is basically mixing 20 parts water to 1 part muratic and spraying on and letting it sit for 4-5 minutes and rinse. To my understanding what it's doing is removing a microscopic layer of concrete so the sealer will adhere better. After that I rolled the sealer on with an 18" roller, two coats 12 hours apart. The hard part is dealing with the rain, it can't rain for 10-12 hours after application. The sealer itself has a bad odor and is a PITA to clean up, it's a Xylene based product and can only be cleaned up with Xylene. Lap marks are kind of a pain too, this stuff is real sticky. To help I added a few cups of Xylene to a 5er to thin it out a little, Sherwin Williams suggested it might help and it seemed to. I also applied the second coat it the opposite direction as the first which helped also. Coverage on the first coat was 200 sq ft/ gallon and the second coat was 250 sq ft. The cost for me was $24 dollars a gallon, total cost for this 1000 sq ft patio was $200, and it took me 8 hours from start to finish over a week long period. Hope that helps explain the process, feel free to ask more questions.

It looks almost pink in the sun but when shaded its a brownish red color.

Michael, I like to see someone that is business oriented enough to do a ton of research before taking the leap, keep it up. I was in your shoes all winter, contemplating quitting a good paying job to PW fulltime once spring hit. After getting a taste of PWing part time last year and seeing the money I could make, I started getting an attitude at work and began to see how much I really hated working for "the man". It really fueled my fire if you know what I mean. Anyway I still wasn't sure if I could feed the family off of PWing being only my second year in biz and the wife wasn't to thrilled about giving up a weekly paycheck she had become so dependant on. Well a month ago a got laid off and didn't expect to get called back anytime soon. So I had no choice but to go for it. My wife was not supportive at all and kept telling me to go get a "real" job. I had lots of support thru posts, emails, and phone calls from these good folks here at TGS, and they picked me up and told me it was my time. I had some advertising funds set aside from last year so I sent out 850 postcards to targeted areas and have picked up several jobs. I also had some jobs lined up already. It hasn't been non stop work but it's been good lately. It's real hard trying to buy things for the biz when I have to give my wife a good chunk of change every week. We've fought here and there about money, things are tight and a little stressful at times but it's working and I haven't regretted it yet. Give me a call if you would like to talk, I can give you some more advice. Good luck.

If it's not irrigation rust, it's doubtful you'll get it off completely. Hey Scott what mix of SH do you use to remove oil stains?

If you want details use the 'search function' it works great. I bet you won't find anything about dunking a deck scrubber. Maybe to save money you could just buy a toilet scrubber for a buck at the dollar store.

When I read Jeff's first post I really thought people would side with him, man was I wrong. Personally I think gas prices are bullsh*t, right along with too high of taxes, surcharges on my phone bill, transportation charges on my natural gas bill, illeagal immigrants that don't speaka english in my town, soon to be foreign cars in Nascar, and too many gays on t.v.!! Yea, I know I have to deal with it, and that's the way it is, and it won't change, but I don't have to like it.

Your such a Guerrilla Ken, good stuff.

Well since you don't have much of a customer base yet, word of mouth will be limited. I would send out postcards to targeted areas, but you'll need to send out about 1000 to get a response. It's normally a 1 percent return, so 1000 would land you around 10 jobs normally. One job will pay for your postcards. Good luck.

I like to do people's walkways for nothing after a house wash and it only takes a few minutes. I dont own a surface cleaner yet so I have to rent one for drives but I did this 1000 sq ft patio with the turbo the other day. Last time I did it with a 40 degree nozzle it took me 4 hours, this time I did it in an hour. http://forums.thegrimescene.com/showthread.php?t=6415

Good to know Jim, I just bought my first one last week and I love it.

I just set up a 6x9 landscape type trailer to haul my 4gpm portable, 100 gallon tank for roof cleaning, 200' of chem hose, shurflo, batteries, some chems, and step ladder. The back of my truck was just getting too small. Funny thing is, I have all this stuff on my trailer now and the back of my truck is still full, pressure hoses that I still keep in a hand coils, same with garden hoses, ext ladder, extension pole, more chems, buckets, and tool box. I bet by next year I'll need a bigger trailer once I buy a surface cleaner, hose reels, and who knows what else. Sometimes it seems like all I do is spend money trying to get set up to make more money to spend. But man is it fun growing in this industry!

Welcome to the board Scott. I can't tell you about the videos because I've never seen them, money was too tight for me when I started. I just reasearched and took notes for about 4 months and then bought the right equipment and practiced on mine and families houses and decks and went from there. Another great way is to trade labor for learning with another PWer from the boards in your area, nothing will teach you faster than hands on training. Keep using the 'search' button and keep researching these boards and asking questions, good luck.

I like the M5, but either will work. Some houses have walkout basements in the back which makes it 3 stories high, for these I x-jet off of a 10' step ladder with 4' wand and it's not a problem. I couldn't image trying to do these with a telescoping extension wand.

Mike, does doing it that way also get rid of tire (rubber) marks?

No disrespect Jeff but to brighten wood with a pump up the directions say to mix 2lbs to 5 gallons of water. So in my opinion he went a little strong with 1lb to 2 gallons water. The mix for brightening wood is a little weaker than it would be to clean concrete. Whether or not he stripped all the old sealer off is a good point though. In the 'before' brightening pics, the wood does look pretty dark but how would you know for sure that you got all the old stain off?

I feel like I need to clarify a couple things for Don since I am the "friend" he called during the rain strorm. Don was a little panicky at the time of the call, we've all been there, I'm a nervous wreck when doing something new. Anyway he told me he was getting ready to neutralize and it was raining. I suggested he go slightly stronger on the mix and go for it. At 1lb to 2 gallons water I think he accomplished that, oh and he did use oxalic acid from Rowlette (Deckbrite). Personally I see nothing wrong with how it come out, look at the first two pics, am I the only one that can see where he sprayed oxalic and where he didn't. The only problem is Don was just expecting better results which is fine, he has high expectations of himself. I do believe it will lighten up even more once it dries out. Rod now that you know he did use oxalic and we've looked at the pics again, do you think it could of neutralized better with more dwell time? Sorry Don, I'm not trying to take over your thread here but I just wanted to steer folks in the right direction before you posted back.

http://www.higherpowersupplies.com/page/HPS/PROD/PW-WA-PWA-CS/VM-12103X Scroll down and choose how many feet you want.

My neighboor is going to paint his aluminum siding on his house this spring and as we were talking I found out he was just going to spray it with a garden house, let it dry and start painting. I told him it has to be preped first so I kind of got myself involved. Who here has PWed aluminum to prep it to be painted? Can you give me a quick run down of the procedure, like what chem to use and what tip or how much pressure to use. Also what do you charge for this? Does anyone know of a good paint forum so I can give my nieghboor some pointer on painting it after the prep? Thanks guys.

I'm not sure. I'll have to talk to him some more about it. Maybe he was going to brush it.....lol

I've been leading them along for the past 3 weeks, they call about every day. I finally told them this morning I was not interested at this time. Of course they asked why, I said I've done alot of research and most of what I found or heard was not good. You don't give the contractor an option to buy leads you just give them and charge for it. A lot of contractors get bad leads and have trouble getting credit for them, and have to make numerous phone calls and waste time and it all seems like a bunch of crap I don't want to mess with right now thanks for your time, bye. Not to mention most homeowners that use them are just price shopping anyway, from what I've heard. What slander are they investigating? It's just people's experiences with them that's giving them a bad name.