Crownroyal

ken someone has taken your ball. saw it on the web. looked like yours a little.

Those folks are going to love their new deck and think your a god.

I guess everyone has a different way of cleaning and thinking.

I just want to clear what I meant. It was to sit down with a few pw'ers in the area and discuss how to do a better job, have better techniques, and to stop cutting your own throat. I didn’t mean that everyone sits down and makes a charging scale. NO one would follow that kind of structuring anyway unless you decide to buy all your competitions business and make them territorial managers. My competition can wash a house for 250 while I wash for 300 its all good, no price fixing. But when I educate my fellow pw’ers and tell them you are really hurting yourself when you wash a house for 70 bucks, because you’ll be out of business in a year they seem to listen. I want the standard for this type of work to go up so folks see that this is a real type of contractors job and not some elementary school drop outs business. (No offense) When I ran Brenner’s bakery here in Va I saw many bakeries open up and close in a few years want to know why…bad structuring and leadership. Can’t keep lowering your price per roll to get new customers because your OH gets bigger but you don’t make enough profit to keep a float. I have personally never lowered my prices to customers unless they bought more than a normal amount of bread and say that would be a few thousand a week. Point trying to make is low price brings bad product (most times). Make sure you have good practices in your company and don’t play cutthroat with competiton. I just wanted to sit down like now and discuss how to do an excellent job at what we do and charge accordingly. I don’t think I should wash a 3000-sqft house less than 300 dollars. I work to hard and try too much to see myself with a bad back, heart attack, stroke, and employees leaving because I can’ t afford health, dental, raises or anything for them. Look at how it breaks down $300 for a house wash lets see that in an 8 hr day would be $37.50 looks nice but faulty. COSTS 15 gas for truck and pw 3 for insurance 7 for workmen’s comp 6 maintenance on vehicle and equipment 20-house wash 15 for other cleaners other surfaces 10 rinse aid 8 food lunch 70 employee 100 are you paying yourself Total 254.00 House – 300.00 46.00 Now divide that by 8 hours $5.75/hr--- that is what your business made today. {Did you include taxes on your product? {What about shipping cost for cleaners? {Business loan? {Working out of you house? {Buildings total monthly charges? {All these are divided by monthly that will give you a daily business cost {This can give you a daily fixed price to try to stay above I’m sure the numbers might be a little off but gives you a idea.

I think everyone needs to raise the price. If everyone raised the price to say $350.00 as a min to wash a house you speak of, then it raises the bar for performance and income. Other wise if anyone in Florida decided to raise there price I think It would be like selling 500 apples for a buck or one apple for 500 dollars. I would think they might go out of business because it’s known that the markets normal price might be much lower for house washing. Selling quality only goes so far to some folks because of past performance of other pw contractors. Raise the Bar folks. Every house I wash I pretend as if it was mine. I have been to houses where the owner had another power washer wash his house last year and did a sloppy job, so now the owner thinks the power wash profession is a joke, and now thinks he should pay less and might not be willing to pay more than the last guy. That is why I say everyone in your surrounding area that’s competition or not gets together and discusses how to increase the price together and how to improve there washing techniques. That way if they decide to call on another company they will find the new price is the norm. But that also means maybe they help each other out and try to set a standard of performance. I've already called one pw and have spoken with him and he thinks the ideas great but he’s nervous to try. So I will be getting hold of other pws and seeing if I can take them all to lunch and have a mild discussion. All you can do is try. You know what I hate is the guys advertising to wash stuff for prices like these. Deck wash 12*12 for 39.99, single story 79.99, 2 story 110.00, roofs 199.00 I wish this guy would get on board and stop directing the power washing path down the drain. Cheap prices make you look cheap. But also gets you nowhere. My 2 cents and it may not have come out right because of a couple beers I just had. Happy Memorial Day.

Ill agree on maintenance but if you (drive correctly) you should have your brakes last a while they are much bigger too. Remember box style types of trucks are much heavier and larger than your typical f150, more stopping distance. Better use those mirrors and so on and so on. I really hated buying tires for those trucks bfgoodies for 175.00 mounted. We went though tires like it was oil changes. Yall would have loved driving with my father (god bless his sole)he would bring a egg (hardboiled) with him to train new drivers. He would leave it right on the dash. I have had to take many of our old bakery drivers through driving school to keep the insurance low but the main thing was to show them how to drive. I cant belive people dont like to coast to the stop light. lol. If you pretend you vehicle was full of dynomite like you should you would drive much more correctly. Next thing I will be buying is a enclosed trailer pulled by truck. Maybe a inline 6 for the truck better gas milage and good towing.

I have just bought a 351 ford ex fedex truck with shelves inside. I'm having It fiberglassed so no more problems with sodium hypclorite spills and easy to clean. My other trucks were a ford ranger , and two dodge duellys. I have inherited the Bakery trucks from the bakery our family just sold. But I will be selling them as they our old eagle snack trucks and they are way to big. Plus I think we averaged around 8 mile to the gallon on them. I am hoping I will get around 12-14 with the ex fedex truck. lol

What do most power washers do for income and to hold employees over the winter months? What things have you tried in the past? I found making contacts at industrial industries to be the track for my company hence inside work. I just wanted to see were the pw industry is headed compared to me. Large corps find different types of cleaning to be essential to keep efficiency up. Which cost money. Chemical Cleaning, Container Cleaning, Cryogenic Cleaning, Emergency Response, Facility Management, Hydro blasting (10K-20K p.s.i.), Hydro Excavation, Industrial Water Purification, Deionization Service Exchange, Filtration and Ultra filtration, Mobile Demineralization, Mobile Reverse Osmosis, Paint and Coating Removal, Ultra-High Pressure Cleaning, and Cutting Vacuuming Services. These are just a few things that I would like to point my company’s future direction at. I have experience in chemical cleaning, high pressure cleaning up to 50,000 psi, and dry ice or Cryogenic types of cleaning. Advise: Have a future plan (business plan) so as not to always be the man in the hamster wheel. (Never seeing where your future is going). I noticed after the first few months I did feel like I was running in the hamster wheel now I have filled that spot and I am trying to have more hamster wheels with more people other than me in them. We all know the more heads saying, two heads are better than one…..three heads are better than two.

Does it seem odd to ask questions so you can plan ahead? Im sorry Maybe Ill wait till november lol.

Has anyone ever tapped off wood decking or railing to make patterns with stain? (symbols,designs) Or can you do that type of work and have it come out right. I am going to make a deck and stain for a customer and She wondered if I could mask off parts and make a design in the wood with stain. I've never done it but Im willing to give it a try and she said she didn't care if i had to strip and do it again if it didnt come out right. Anyone with thoughts on problems or what might be a good product to use?

Thank you for some info and food for thought. I think I will be testing it out on a smaller make up of a deck to see how it comes out and how I can tackle this one. Yes she wants A design in the deck. Not sure yet what it looks like but Will find out soon.

Good job. I didn't have to strip anything so I guess I'm not to far off price like I was thinking. Did you have to tape things up? cover stuff? was it on the 2nd story? just wondering what was involed. I know when I first started and had my employees doing the first few decks I wasn't making a nice profit or should I say I was just paying the bills!! Since then and talking to folks on the phone and local guys and I have changed my prices. I think I've done that since I started this company. Everyone remember to call your Mother on SUNDAY.

Hey you know what, the owner looks like he has algae on his roof tell him 400. and you can clean it lol. AND the neighbor 425.

sorry forgot it didnt have rails and was a bout a year old

C what was the around about cost and what was put into this job? I just did a job like that with RS gold and was around 500.

excuse me cemeteries like Arlington National, I dont know about local cemeteries. I saw a gentelman using one of these on plastic ink Cartridges. You have to just try all sorts of stuff I cleaned grease off of all my old bakery equipment in minutes rather than hours.

The goverment holds bids on them but you have to use chems that dont kill the grass, and low pressure and other clauses. We bought a dry ice machine that shoots little pellets of dry ice.

I like the products from envirospec.

I Have A ? About Gray Paint On Decks. The Homeowner Doesnt Know What Kind It Is And I Was Wondering If Hd80 Takes Gray Deck Paint Off? I Will Be Going Back To Try A Sample Spot. I Know Carry Some With Me. I Was Selling Leaffilter Gutter Protection To His Neighbors. And He Came Over And Asked If I Could Remove The Paint. Gotta Love Truck Lettering. Also Have Another Job, What Do You Guys Think About Cwf Uv Cedar Tone Deck Stain? I Have Two Decks To Strip And Match To His Gazzebo. I Use Ready Seal And Would Like To Strip All To Match But He Likes Cwf. Is Cwf Hard To Strip? I Only Do Newly Built Decks And I Am Thinking About Going Into The Stripping Faze. Thanks For Anyhelp. Is There A Way To Just Search Your Own Last Posts? Beth?

How about caustic soda lol

Home and garden shows paid off for me you get the attention of the customer and if they fill out a form more than likely they will sell. You just have to know what your doing. Plus Pictures sell sell sell. ugly algae eating roof pictures and clean safe roof pictures sells me tons of buisness. good luck. just food for thought. Also the people going to these shows care about their homes and you meet tons of people to be connected with.....reality work (STAGING), brick people, contractors, other restoration companies, ect. I made out great from the last two shows.

Carlos Gonzales was wondering if you could send a copy my way too. thanks dmathis15@cox.net

how do you add pic's

Ive done two shows with great success, the first only had 48 vendors and I recieved 45 leads which I sold about 25 of them, the 2nd show had 571 vendors in the convention center and I recieved about 298 leads which I'm selling at the moment, it cost me 300.00 for the first one and 875,00 for the second. I did spend alot in advertising but it's well worth it. I even won an award for best uses of space lol in my first show. I try to post pictures of the first one.

Guys I install LeafFilter gutter protection. I have not had a problem with the product in 13 months of installing it and leaffilter has never had a call in 5 years of buisness to remove them. They have the best and only transferable, life time, money back warranty in the buisness. Your money back if your gutter evers clogs. Take a look www.leaffilter.com or www.leaffilltersouth.com