Scott Paul

We are now doing the neighbor's house. I'm curious to what other people would charge for this. The HO thought I was to high in price but accepted the proposal. The details are as follows: 4800 square feet of wood siding. 600 feet of decking Price includes Stripping, Brightening, and Staining with Wood Tux. The Wood Tux will be airless sprayed and immediately back brushed for a "wet on wet" application. There will be no need for sanding or defurring the wood. The 60' lift will be included in price and cost $600 for the first day and $300 per day after. We personally are only using the lift for the washing. I think he got a good deal from me and I wouldn't be surprised if many of you would have charged way more.

Final Pictures:

It was a little scary hanging a metal cage from the boom lift over the wires and shooting a few hundred gallons of water on the house. That's why you want to have Worker's Comp.

I sub-contracted out the house staining to a painting crew company that has been buying from us for many years. They love ladders for some reason. We did all the cleaning and we will stain the decks.

Thanks. We only used 1 person for the entire wash, no need to have more then that. We downstreamed the entire project with the DSI PowerSolve Stripper and Brightener. No sanding or defurring was needed. We tested the window trim for a reaction with the cleaners. Nothing happened so we did not protect the trim, just constantly rinsed. The same with the landscaping.

Stained pictures thus far...

A Bucket of Diamond clear costs $100+ and only covers 500 feet. So its a Free Install for the Fire Pit and Free Labor! What a deal!

Customer service is key. 12 years ago I had a major problem that almost put me out of business. It was our 3rd year and we grew extremely fast. That year we did 700 Deck Restorations. Back then we had very little competition and it was easy to grow. The problem, I wasn't make any money and my customer serivice and quality was declining fast. The only way I could stay in business was to increase my prices by 50%. The next year we did about 300 decks but profited 3 times as much money while giving superior work and excellent customer service.

I cannot speak for other markets but 15 years and 6500+ decks in the metro Detroit area I can defenitley say that I have experience. The problem Jarrod has is legitimate. Unfortunatley the majority of the $99 deck wash and the $179 deck stain companies in our area do not play fair. They advertise false rates to get the call and go up from there with increases for items like: cleaners, strippers, brighteners, size, height, etc.. What it does is send a false message to the homeowner that these are established rates. I had a customer last year who tried to call me out on these prices after we washed his deck. How it panned out is as follows: He was a past client that had a 300 square foot deck that we charged him $450 to clean, strip, brighten, and stain with TWP. After we washed and stripped his deck he came across a coupon for $99 to wash and $179 to stain. He called and yelled at us for ripping him off since it should only cost $279 and not $450. I have a 70% overhead and I tried to explain that to him how it would be impossible for me to do it for that price. He couldn't comprehend that, so he fired us and sent a check for $99 for the wash. Did I take him to court? No it wasn't worth the time but it did **** me off. Ed I am sure you do quality work but you have modeled your pricing after companies who cheat in our area. Example: There is about 6 of these guys who offer a product called Cedartone Gold. There isn't such a product on the market. It is actually TWP Cedartone mixed with mineral spirits to water down the product. I am sure you do quality work and make a fair price at these numbers now, but it will become very difficult for you to grow your business at these numbers. Your margins will shrink as you grow so you most likely will need to "cheat" like the other guys or raise your prices. The $99 guys don't bother me as much as they used to. I have come to the conclusion they will never go away and they will still be offering the same deals in the year 2050. There is a market in our area for all different price levels. We prefer to go after the higher end clients and offer a fair price and service at the $1.50-$2.00 price level.

That's a good way to put it. It will act as a pre-sealer application for your wood prior to staining. It is actually very easy to apply. You can apply right after washing while the wood is still wet. It will change the pH balance so you should neutralize after a 30 minute period. Do not get it on aluminum, fiberglass or any type of glass! It will etch these type of surfaces.

These type of products soak deep into the wood and the silica petrify the interior of the wood. The silicas will turn the wood's interior cell into glass(no it will not shatter). The product forms no visible film or non film-forming coating and can be coated with with either an oil base or water based product with no problems, at least in our experience with applying TWP over some. The whole point to these products is to stop internal rot and also stabilize the wood. Does it work? I really have no idea, but I do know that you will need to clean and stain the deck with a tinted stain just as if the product is on there or not. The product does not need to be stripped since the wood is still porous and seems like it is not even there. The problem is not with theses Silica/Silicon type products but with the companies that market these products. They spend a ton of money marketing a product that really was made for concrete. There isn't alot of data supporting their claims that it will stop wood from rotting for 25 years. It may do that, but the SealMaxx companies of the world try to promote a 25 year end all solution to your wood problems. Obviously this is an impossibility. We carry a version of these products. We brought it on for a couple of reasons: 1. We have/had a company called SuperSeal that was a friend of Sealmaxx's founder start up in Michigan a few years ago. They would charge upwards of $5 per foot and basically lied to HO about the product. We brought it on as an option for my clients since I advertised against them on the radio. Funny how it worked out. They either stopped advertising or went out of business this year. Since they were gone I have had no one request it this year. 2. The product actually does petrify the wood. For how long I do not know, but I do believe there is advantages to this in certain cases but not all. CretoWood Permanent Wood Sealer Here is a picture of a SuperSeal's deck that I took a picture of a few years ago. They applied the Seal-It out of Canada. This picture was taken 1 year after they did the work. We came in and stripped the gray/dirt and applied TWP 3 years ago. The gentleman called this year to schedule for next spring. He said the TWP still looked great and had not peeled or lifted at all.

SRS was around when we started 15 years ago. Sorry to call you out but you didn't post a signature or any correct info that stated who you were.

Well the zip code is for a city called National City, MI which is 2-3 hours away from Southfield.

The pails that you ordered from us that were seperated were probably either Brown Sugar or Western Cedar. I believe we have finally sold all of the seperated pails and everything is now the classic formula. The seperated pails did have extra Cobalt added so that is why you probably didn't have any issues with drying.

We have been doing decks in SE Michigan for 15 years and I personally know of only 2 Deck restoration companies that have been in business longer. Neither one is in Southfield. Never heard of anyone called quickestimate.

Yes I missed the long debate and I'm sure it doesn't want to be started again. I was just posting a legitimate reply to why you could have problems with bleach. Sorry if you were offended.

Bleach is not good for wood. Here is an article from a Glenn Haege Column: "Unfortunately all deck cleaners are not created equal. The cheaper deck cleaner/brighteners usually include some form of chlorine (household) bleach as their brightening agent. Quite often the ingredient list does not say bleach, it uses the chemical term, sodium hypochlorite. Using a product with this ingredient on your deck can be a problem. Years ago, I used to recommend cleaning and brightening decks with a solution of TSP and household bleach in water. I stopped doing this when I learned how hard the bleach was on the wood. The bleach took away the gray and killed the mold spores, but at the same time it mangled the wood fibers and left a residue which keeps stains and sealers from penetrating the wood properly. I first learned of this phenomenon when the owners of Bio-Wash Products, showed me photographs of microscopic blowups of cedar decking taken by an independent Canadian chemical testing company. The magnification was 43X. The first slide was of weathered cedar. You could see how a combination of dirt, mold and dead wood cells had turned the surface black/gray. This jumbled, blackened surface was not only unattractive, the cell structure was so clogged that not even penetrating stains could be absorbed by the wood properly. The second slide showed how a bleach based cleaner lightened the wood but destroyed the lignin, the natural glue that bonds wood fibers together. When the wood fibers were no longer bonded, they became a loose mass to which stains and sealers could not adhere properly. This is the reason why so many hard-working homeowners only get a single season out of their deck stains and sealers. They do all the work, but the cheap cleaner/brightener used makes it impossible for the stain or sealer to stick. The stain walks or weathers off in just a few months. The final slide showed weathered cedar brightened with Bio-Wash WoodWash restorer. The citric acid used in the cleaner gets rid of the dead wood fibers but does not effect the natural bonding agent in the wood."

We have shipped Internationaly before but the shipping charges can make the product more then double the cost. Your best bet would be to buy in bulk(pallet of 36 pails) and have it shipped via ocean freight.

Shane is correct. ACQ PTP wood when stained/sealed the first time will not last as long as the second time. Doesn't matter what product you use. We tell customers to expect 12-18 months on new (stained) ACQ and twice as long the second time arround.

Dads will work but unfortunatley it is pretty expensive and sometimes hard to find in 5 gallon pails. A single gallon usually will run about $30+. It is also not enviromentally friendly and you should use a chemical respirator when appying. The use of a turbo tip will help alot.

Sodium Hydroxide will not remove previous coatings of concrete sealers. If it is a film forming acrylic (wet look) type sealer you will need a methylene chloride type stripper to remove.

It is not advisable to seal flagstone with an acyrlic "wet look" type sealer. The sheen level can be extremely blotchy. If you want to seal it you would want a sealer that would not enhance the color or add a "wet look". I would suggest the SuperSeal-M. SuperSeal-M Concrete Water Repellent

Was the overall color/appearence/application what you expected from using the Wood Tux "Classic" in the past? Good to hear that it held up from the rain as expected.

Shurline has different grade of products. The pads used to be made by EZ Paintr then switched to Rubbermaid then bought out by Shurline. Technically they say Shurline on the packaging but are made at the same plant where the EZ Paintr's were made. They are not the same pad as you see in HD. Those pads fall apart when dipped in an oil based product. Cheap bristles and glue.

Never seen bristles and you are the first who has ever mentioned it. I can get 16" Lambs wool pads. We have had negative feedback on them though. They use alot more product.