Don M.

The propane tanks are producing propane because when I went to start screwing in the hoses it was coming out. I took the tanks to my full time job and had one of the maint. guys fill it. He got all the air out of the tanks before filling them. I will look at taking the panels off. Its hard for a fat guy to get underneath that thing!

Looks Great!! What kind of stain did you use?

That's what happend with my Aldi deal, they saw my YP ad. Thanks Jeff

Is staining a trex very difficult. I have to give a guy a bid on about 2200 sq ft I would like to know what I am running up against. Thanks

Jeff, did you just go in and talk to the manager about cleaning or did you have to go to someone at the district level?

Got home from my full time job went on 2 job bids, landed both jobs and the cool thing about it was it was almost $2000.00 dollars worth of work for both, plus the possiblity of a deck job on the first bid. This may sound like chump change to you big guys, but this was 1/3 of what I did my first year (last year). I took Jeff's advice on mailing postcards to the same area over and over and over. This was the third time I send the postcards with a different picture on it and bingo. I landed a house wash and maybe the deck. My newspaper ad landed me the $1700.00 job. I am pumped!!

I talked to a couple of companies around here (American Family and Shield of Shelter) and they wont touch the pw business. I sent in my premium for $300,000 GL policy to Joe Walters. Is that who most companies are with? Thanks

I put on some solid gutter guards for a woman at church 2 years ago and every time a windstorm comes through some pop off. Is there anything I can do to prevent this? This has been going on for 2 years now.

Hey Ken and Greg would that 250-300 include the cost of stain?

I just got a sprayer and I have been spraying/backbrushing 2 coats on. I take my time with the sprayer and make sure I dont go too fast with it. I have been using Deckscapes so far, but after reading some of these post it is making me leary.

I agree, the photo book does wonders. Just this week alone I have went out and done 4 estimates and closed one. The other three were wives saying their husbands were not home and they need him to make the decision. How do you guys combat that. I beleive in the next couple of weeks I will be at half of what I did the entire year last year working part time. I have a shot at getting 10-12 entryways and shopping cart areas for Aldis. If this happens I am on my way to the bank to get set up with a trailer and the whole outfit with hot water. We went up to a high end area shopping center and all the concrete is filthy. I thought to myself if I could just land some of those on a monthly cleaning as well as Aldi, I would pretty much go fulltime with this business. Its hard working 50 hours a weekfor the other man, going out in the evening and doing jobs, and finding time for estimating.

I stripped and brightend a cedar deck today using RM and Deckbrite. The RM was about 2 and 1/2 gallons left over from the end of last season that was out back in the shed. I mixed it 1 part chem to 3 parts water. The Deckbrite I used 1 pound to 2 gallons of water in my pump up. A rain shower came between the process of stripping and brightening. I made a call and a friend told me to mix the deckbrite heavier (which I thought I did.). Here are my results. The one picture the left side has no oxalic put on it yet and the right side does. To be honest, I am not happy with the brightening results. Maybe its because I am new and still learning my wood, but there was a 2 guys working out of a pickup truck that was across the street doing a deck and theirs brightend 30 times better than mine. When the wood actually dries out, will it make a drastic difference and look better? Thank for your help

Barry, Yeah I came out on it, but I earned about the min. wage rate per hour on it. LOL! Chalk it up to lesson learned. Thats like the picket fence I am doing. I thought 5 gal would to the job....wrong. I have used 8 gal so far and have some more touch ups to do. When I get done with that floor of the deck and the fence I will have 10 gals in it. But man, that airless has saved me time. Its just going to take some time to get use to it. I sprayed the first coat on a floor yesterday 12x16 with a 3x3 landing and 8 steps in little over an hour.

Well between all the rain storms I finally got this thing done and put to bed.

Barry, I tried downstreaming a house once and I thought it took longer. I liked the idea of only one hose but I hated that I had to wait for 125ft of line to clear befoore I started rinsing.

The last house I did was about 2300 sq ft and I only used a little over 1/2 quart of GS. I usually mix 1/2 quart GS and 1/2 quart water and fire away with my pump up. Tons better than a xjet!

I've been using Gutter Shock 50/50 and spraying with a pump up, apply my chems for the house wash, rinse windows, brush gutters, then rinse the whole thing. Just be careful of mixing GS too hot. I have done that a couple of times.

Barry, that looks very good. Keep it up!

Okay, I got back to the job today. Here is a pic. I was very happy. I am going to stain using SW Cedar Bark. So far the customer is very happy.

Jeff, I use a pump up because I didnt want SH to get on the wood siding and I didnt want ox to get on the sliding glass doors.

I guess some people are getting my pictures confused. The one picture with the spindles...the right side is after I applied ox, the left side is after I rinsed the SH off and not applied ox on it. Yes, I am using a color very similar to what was on before. The homeowner had no idea what was on it before so I opted to try and start from scratch, apply a Sherwin Williams product on it, put the homeowner in my database and from then on I and the homeowner will know what it is and just do a maint. coat. BTW the left side looked identical to the right after I applied ox.

Two more pics. By the way. Just to strip and brighten took me FIVE hrs. Something was really wrong I felt.

At lunch today at my full time job, a couple of workers were talking about washing their houses and one said he uses clorox, dawn, and sodium phospate in his mix and he swears the SP keeps the mold off for 4-5 years. Is this true or is this guy full of bunk? Thanks

I have done a couple houses here and there but it has started off Slow. I have 2 phone book ads, I run 2 ads in 2 newspapers that go out every two weeks (no daily paper around here), and I have 200 postcards that are going to hit a high end subdivison the first week of April. I've been on 2 bids this week (decks) which total almost 1700 in work. I would be nice to get those I sure do need a shot in the arm right now.

I did a search on this but couldnt find an answer. I xjet gutter shock on with my machine (3gpm). What should the mix be for GS. I was told 50/50 but that is too weak. If i used it uncut (I'll practice on my own gutters first), what kind of ratio would I have when it came out of the M5? Thanks