Rfitz

If Home Depot, Lowes, etc.. sell these high PSI machines to folks that have no clue as to what they are doing, I feel they should have the responsibility also. in the event a deck, house etc.. is screwed up or even an injury takes place, if they would, it would take this out of a ton of peooples hands that. But we all know this will never happen, like Walmart they are all too greedy, but I will be the first one too admit I almost never get asked to show insurance of any kind when giving a proposal, I do however let them know I have it and what could happen if they do hire a low baller, that doesnt have it, lose their home, income retirement etc.. if someone gets seriously injured while on THEIR property, this usually really gets them scared into hiring a insured company.. Just thought this could help...

I hate to say it but people in general do not put a high price on our work, residential or commercial, most think they could do it themselves, so if they have to hire it out, get it as cheap as possible.. Until the states start making certification and licensing a must for pressure washing companies to operate, I only see it getting worse..

In the past 3 years or so I have literally stripped tens of thousands of square feet of wood, or should I say many many types of stains, paints from wood and I can say I have used just about every product there is on the market for the wood professional for stripping paints and stains, and so far, none has out performed F18 From Pressuretek for the money.. Not only is it the best stain stripper on the market by far, but it has so many more uses, concrete cleaner / degreaser, house washing booster, truck washing booster, roof washing booster, gutter scrubbing booster, engine degreaser, I could go on and on, but all I can say is if you are not using this product, you are wasting a ton of time & money, I have been called into redo jobs that other companies tried to strip or clean and failed, and walked away from the job, where as if I did not have F18 or the new F 18 Max I too would of had to walk away and tell the customer Im sorry I just cant do this job.. As a matter of fact, I bid on alot of jobs other companies wont touch mainly because I have a tool in my arsenal F 18 that does 90% of the work for me, a prime example is all these Trex decks and the knock offs, the vinyl wood composite decking that are sold as maintenance FREE...? these have to be washed at least once maybe twice a year, if it wasnt for F 18 I couldnt do these jobs,, and whats better is I get as much for cleaning these babies as I do for stripping and sealing wood decks, I sure hope they keep making these maintenance free decking systems, it is making my business explode... I hope this helps everyone out there struggling with a stripper that is just making them frustrated, try this stuff, you will never go back to using anything else, I didnt and thats been the best move I made so far, other than starting my PW biz.. Have A Great Day

Tony, I usually mix the F 18 at 12 ounces per gallon hot water mix thouroughly, and apply to horizontal areas with a pole brush, and spray vertical areas, my usual dwell times are about 45 minutes to 1 hour by the time I do the entire deck, but keep in mind if the product dries it stops working so you have to make sure you are always keeping all areas wet or damp while dwelling, maybe you may have gotten a bad batch, ? not sure.. but I have always had really good results with it, for the price, I do notice the trick is in the dwell time.. Maybe give that a try..?

I normally dont get too many call backs to wash and stain fences after submitting the bid, I think there is just too much sq ft and the customer freaks when they see the price, and I usually bid fences really low, most of the time I charge $1.00 a sq ft to wash and stain, and get very few fences a year, just too much money for most folks..? anyway, I went to bid a condo complex 2 weeks ago and here is what I found and bid, they have approx. 40,000 sq ft of wood (fence) it has been a long time since it has been stained sealed etc.. but there is still quite a bit of stain on there, anyway, my bid was to wash only no stripping, brightening etc.. removing dirt, mold etc. then re-staining with a similar color that is on there now, I bid the whole job at .75 a sq ft and they took it, the next lowest bidder was double my price, anyway when we wash and stain fences we average about 300-400 sq ft an hour washing, and a little more sq ft per hour when staining, I am figuring 3-4 guys approx 2 weeks to complete this job, but It is sure a nice way to kick off the season... with a monster like this, not to mention the pics I can show other big complexes when we get done, anybody out there do a job this size before..?

Seal Maxx, is crazy, they use a silicone based product, it was originally used to soak telephone poles in in nothern canada, any way here is the problem, they claim 25 year warranty, they have only benn using this on dipped poles so the whole piece of wood is covered not like decks where just the top of the board is covered so mold, moisture, etc can still come into the wood from underneath, another problem is they charge between $3 and $5 a sq ft and that is for clear based sealer only, it you want a tint added it is another $2-$4 a sq ft, so far a natural cedar color deck you are looking at almost $9 a sq ft so on a 1000 sq ft deck thats $9000, I have a hard time selling at $2.00 a sq ft, ? and one guy I know who is a franchisee, says he has more work than he can handle, I told him, do you also believe in the tooth fairy..? anyway, when they do go out of business in 2-4 years which they will, what are these poor folks/suckers going to do with these decks that are ruined, because you cannot strip this stuff,, oh and I almost forgot, there clear sealer they use, has no UV protection, so what do they do in 1 year when the deck turns grey and black from sun damage..? I know here where I live, they spend approx $5000 to $10000 a week on advertising, I would bet my house that there will be major lawsuits on this company just like there is on Trex maint free decks in a just a few short years, I get on average 10-20 calls a month from trex deck owners they hate their deck and cant keep it clean, but remember it is maint free for life like the manufacturer stated... sometimes people just need to use common sense

We almost always 90% of the time X-jet, you will always get much better results, soaping from bottom up rinsing top down, we average approx. 1 hour for an average 2500 sq ft house, usually more like 45 minutes, I use a 6 GPM machine to apply soap and my 8 GPM for rinsing with a 0070 tip, it cuts rinsing time by 50-70%, one guy is soaping 2 sides then the other comes behind him and rinses with the monster 8 GPM, on average 6-8 houses a day is pretty easyily done if they arent too far away from each other, now if we add gutter scrubbing in with the house wash which in molst cases is the same price as the house wash, you can add another 40-50 minutes to the whole process, but on average a 2500 sq ft home along with gutter scrubbing/washing averages around $450 to $650 for approx 1.5 to 2 hours of work... Hope this helps...

Hours per week as a business, is not really important, that is more of a hourly employee thinking, for example we dont work at all Dec. Jan. Feb. we shut down, but the other 9 months we are slammed, keeping machines running on average 40-60 hours a week, all biz have up and down cycles throughout the year, heck I know some retailers that make 95% of their income in 2 months of the year, and coast the other 10 months, as long as you save for the lean months, you should be fine, we vacation in the winter, going to Florida, California, next week we are going on a cruise, we try and take one nice trip a month in the winter. and wow does the winter fly by doing that, and because of having 8-9 great months in the biz, we can save a ton of cash and go on awesome trips, it is all about money management, if you think about it who really wants to work 12 months a year...??? for us 9 is more than enough..:)