the_GUNN_man

I actually broke down and low balled a house last week for $225. $39.95 is what it costs to do the job.

It has been awhile since I have been to the forums. I have a house that is using lake water to water the lawn. It is leaving a white film where the water hits the brick on the house and the front walls near the driveway. Nothing I have used so far will take it off. I look up stuff up on the Prosoco site and it say they have Hard Water Mineral Remover. I was thinking of using that. It has HC and HF acid in it. I know the HF acid is nasty to use. The problem being is that I call a brick company and they said that it cannot ship UPS or FEDEX because it is so hazardous. It has to ship by freight. Is there anything else that can be used to get this off? It is pretty thick and been building up for years. The price of this cleaner is $167 for 5 gallons with another $130 to ship it. The money isnt the problem because this home owner has very deep pockets and has said that all he cares about is getting it off there. I just dont want to have to charge the guy over $500 to go to his house for 20 minutes spray on that stuff it doesnt work and say sorry. I will lose his business for other work I do for him. Would using HF acid used for fleets work the same? Would it be wise to use a couple ounces of that in a small area (1' x 1') and see if that makes a difference? If it does, order the stuff for $300 or maybe just use the HF to wash the wall and back of garage. This guy has been asking me for a few years if I have found anything to take it off and I tell him no. One more question. I have about a gallon of old HF acid in a container from 5 years ago. Would that even still be good/effective?

For the moldings, dryer vents, and other rubber/plastic I use 12.5% SH straight. I use a spray bottle to apply it. It only takes about 2 minutes. It works about 90% of the time. Not always does it completely get rid of the discoloration. I am very careful with some of the streaks on the window panes. I have gotten them to come up sometimes but a large majority of the time if I use a gutter cleaner or something similar what happens is the black streak lightens but the area that was white is now even whiter and it enhances the streaks.

I have a 36" and for me it is too big. I am using a 5.5 gpm pump. I have to walk so slow with it. I have made a check valve tee to hook two machines together so I can use my 5.5 gpm and my 4 gpm pump. I have a two bar spinner now but was thinking about going to a a three bar if I run it with 9.5 gpm. I still have to get the right sized tips. For commercial it would be ok but I wish I would have bought a 24" instead. If you were to get a 60" would that have to have tips in the middle of the bars as well as the ends? Also what kind of gpm's will be going through it to get that bar spinning? I know that with 5.5 gpm a 36" doesn't clean very fast although the path is nice and wide. I know this doesn't help with your situation I am just putting info out there for others who may look into buying one.

First of all try and do it on a cloudy day if possible. Windows look much better when you wash on a cloudy day verus a sunny day. I use a water softner so that also helps with getting away with using less house wash and the rinse is better too. I have tried rinse aids and they didn't work very well for me. I also have a mixed bed DI tank that I use on my car lots but that doesn't seem to make them much better then just the soft water since there is so much water dripping after the wash. DI works great on the cars though. Plus it cost me $75 per exchange on the tanks and I get about 1500 gallons of 0 ppm water. That is about 5 cents a gallon. Risning @ 5 cents per gallon can get expensive. That would be 25 cents a minute for me. Another suggestion I have is to get your house wash down to a science. What I mean is never get a recipe from someone else and just stick with that. We all live in different parts of the country and the stuff we are washing off can be different. What works for one may not work for others. I live in West Michigan and it is very humid over here and we have lots of mold issues. We also have spiders very bad and their webs can cover a whole house. I took a recipe someone else had on these forums and used it for awhile. Then I noticed I had bad spotting and rinsing took forever. Slowly over the course of about 10 house washes I played with the formula. I kept lessening the amounts of each chemical I would use. I then got everyhting down to where I had just enough to get the job done. When you have the mixture right and are not using too much of one chem spotting will be reduced and rinsing will be easier. Depending on how dirty the surface is adjust your ratios to fit the job. It is no different then on deck jobs changing the strength of the stripper.

I pay $3.00 a gallon for it in one gallon containers. I don't see it being that much since I use maybe 2 gallons per house and I can get $260 to $300 per house wash.

This has probably been covered before but I was wondering is a gallon of 12.5% sh(pool chlorine) and a gallon of water equal to two gallons of 6% bleach? Well minus the extra .5% from the chlorine. I always use the 12.5% because it is easier carrying less. It would seem to me they should be equal.

They called me too saying someone called in asking about me but I found out they were laying because they called me this past week when I hadn't worked in 3 months. I asked how long ago did the person called and they said about a week ago. I think they are calling random people from the yellow pages and trying to get new members

My off air antenna through Directv only gets one HD off air channel and that is ABC and even then it only comes in for March through October. I am in a prime spot to receive all the channels but for what ever reason I don't. They have been out multiple times to try and have nothing but one channel for half the year.

Cannot even get a $1 a sq. ft. in my area. I am forced to do a super fast job and use cheap stain. I tried bidding at $1 a sq. ft. a couple years ago. Out of 30 bids I got 0 jobs. I tell people up front what I will be doing and they are fine with that. I will do no sanding. If stain doesn't come off first time I will just go over it unless they want to pay for a second stripping. I have to use stain that is less then $20 a gallon. I give them the option for better stain and the have chosen that 0 times. It is either do that or lose a lot of other work. Most people want the house and deck washed. I lost a lot of houses because I priced the deck so high. So now I price the house a little higher. I am in a real catch 22 because I would like for once to do a deck the right way. I have noticed that in my area if I go over 80 a sq. ft. for a wash and stain I will not get the job. I also tell people that with cheap stain it will fail quicker but yet they still don't care. I guess what it comes down to is if they are happy I am happy(kinda). I know people think I am crazy for taking on that work but being in Michigan and only being able to work 7 to 8 months of the year, I have to accept most jobs. Everything else my dollar per hour is where it should be and even higher on some things. What else can a guy do?

This is some good info. He is right on about Plasma tvs and video games. On many video games there will be life meters or on screen maps that always stay in the same spot and that can cause "burn in". About the DLP and Rainbow effect. I heard that with the DLP some people expeience the rainbow effect and others don't. Two people could be sitting next to each other on the couch and one will see it and one won't. It is a mystery. The low down on high definition gets tricky. Just because you buy a HDTV doesn't mean everything will look good. Actually the opposite will be true. Anything broadcast not in HD will look crappy. If you take a football game for example. If it doesn't come in HD it will actually look worse on a HDTV then a normal tv. You need to buy a HD receiver for your tv. Unless your cable or satellite provider gives you one. I bought mine and paid another $400 for that. Then you have to pay for a HD package to get most channels in HD. Just because a program says it is HD doesn't mean anything if your provider isn't offering it in HD. Right now there are very limited HD channels. Be sure to remember all this when choosing. I bought a 50" Sony Grand Wega LCD HDTV. It makes my NFL Sunday Ticket football games that are in HD look incredible. I prefer games broadcast in 1080i over 720p.

It always seemed to get rid of it for me. I figure if it can eat my skin it can eat mold. And since my skin is 95% mold it must work.

I am currently using a Shur Flo pump mounted on a dolly with a 15 gallon tank. I use about 30' of hose. It is a 1.8 gpm 100 psi pump. How much hose can I put on that before I notice a big drop off in pressure and gpm? I was thinking about leaving it on the trailer but then I could need up to 150 to 200' of hose on some jobs to reach the back of homes. I would just think that would be too much. Am just curious what is the max hose people have used.

I used to have problems with water dripping form the weepholes in the siding. I use the X-Jet to apply chems. I now use a Shur-Flo and have been for the past two years and have had zero problems with weeping weepholes. X-jet had too many problems with forcing water and chems. I also like my shurflo so I can control the ratio better. I use the shurflo to apply while the other guy rinses off. 95% of my houses are washed using no more then a soap tip and they turn out very nice.

We just had our 3rd child last month. I have been lucky with my kids pretty much sleeping through the night right off the bat. My wife went back to work this week so I am on my own with a 5 year old boy, 3 year old girl, and a 1 month old baby. A baby swing is the greatest invention in the world. Our newborn loves it to death. She will sleep for hours in that thing. One thing I always suggest is limit the use of a pacifier. I did that with my first two and they never really depended on them. I hate it when I see 3 year old kids still sucking on a pacifier. Break habits before they start. Bouncy seats are another life saver. You have to get the ones with music and vibration. They are nice because they are smaller but they do not take the place of a swing. A swing is hard to take with you. Guys have a harder time especially with infants. Just because the infant will cry doesn't mean you are doing something wrong. Infants have a special bond with the mother and is amazing that you can hold a baby for an hour and it could scream it's head off and then hand it to the mother and all of a sudden it becomes very quiet and goes to sleep. Babies can detect their mothers smell. When Jenny is away I will try and find her biggest shirt and put it on so she can smell her and I have noticed that will help calm her. I would rather where a pink girly shirt and be holding a calm baby then wearing a my own shirt and have her scream like mad. Another problem we have is that my stubble can irritate the baby's face. Pay attention to that. Even after you just shave it can still poke babies skin. There are tons of little tricks and advice people will give. What works for my kids may not work with yours. It doesn't hurt to try different things and find out what works for you..

I had a thread a few weeks earlier about this and was just checking if anyone could help out. Long story short Pepsi is running a contest for a new video game system that is going to be hard to come by this year and Mountain Dew has a contest where you can win one. I was wondering if anyone had any of those orange caps if they would mind emailing the codes to me. I am trying to win this for my son. Every place says it will be sold out until after the holidays. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a ton.

I need a big favor. Do you have a copy of a MSDS sheet for Emulsifier Plus? I have a bid that has to faxed first thing in the mroning. I should get the fax out tonight. If you have a copy could you either e-mail me or fax me a copy? Fax # 616-786-9667 email the_GUNN_man@yahoo.com Thanks a ton

Thanks Tony.

I do know that when I called Delco about the pressure gauge being bad they made me send the old one back. I thought that was a little strange because they were inexpensive ones to begin with.

I bought a RK-43 about 2 1/2 years ago and I have had only minor problems. The pressure gauge never would worked right even after getting a replacement. The relay in the burner went out and I had to replace the unloader. I have had no problems with the pump or engine. I paid $4,000 for it when I bought it.

Here it is: Linkified

When we did a big church last year with tons of limestone we ran across many sections that had stains that wouldn't come out. Most were heavy stains that left shadows when we were done. That church had never been washed before so some stains were probably there for over 75 years.

Did a church similiar to that last year and it was limestone. The oldest part was over 80 years old.

I am sort of in your neck of the woods. I am in Holland, MI. I am a little over an hour away. You should give me a call sometime.