StainlessDeal

Just a DIY on www.printsmadeasy.com . I left the back blank because I write on the rear of business cards constantly, and noticed that I often retain them in my wallet because of that. It is pretty common for me to say, "I've got a card here from somebody in that field," and then produce the card when some business comes up in conversation. I thought it would be a handy tool. The pic is scanned, so forgive it being askew, better copies are locked deep within an ancient computer I'm battling with these days.:angryfire

I was in Phoenix on or about the 19th of January, and they were about to set a new record for days without rain. I think it was something on the orderof 106 days then. I wonder if they have had some since.

I use a 24" Steel Eagle with a 4gpm hot machine. I love it, but frankly only because it is SOOO much better than waving the wand at my work all day. I have to move pretty slowly to avoid the dreaded swirlys. I'll be buying a larger machine as soon as possible. I might have saved a nice chunk buying more GPM's from the start, but didn't have this valuable board as a resource then. If you already have the lower flow machine, it might well be better to get the smaller surfacer. I'm not positive as these are the only ones I've used. I hope this comes near to an answer for you, and good luck!:)

I love to hear stories like this one. It is amazing the number of people whose lives can be changed by one chance meeting. Just the other day, I ran into a guy I haven't seen in years. I was cleaning the dock area inside a warehouse and he was delivering there. At one time I was behind this guy in seniority at a local moving outfit, and he used to constantly tell me about his plan to open a mobile truck wash with his father. They had the name picked out, and knew all about the equipment, and the father was an owner/operator with a lot of money and great industry contacts. I used to get bored listening to them drone on and on about this crazy (I thought) plan of theirs. I imagine that was in '94 or '95, and I hadn't thought much about either of these guys since. Something stuck though, because when faced with the need to find a way to make a living, I thought of this business. When he stepped out of his rig, I remembered that this was the first person I'd ever heard talking about PWing for a living. He called his dad down to see me, and he showed up in a loaded rig. I cut them both good deals on washes right there, and they quizzed me for an hour afterwards over a lunch they bought me so they could pick my brain. They met a guy that did mobile washing in another state, and got interested, they passed some (mostly bad) info to me. I forgot the info, and where I got it, but not the idea. I got wrecked by a drunken kid, and needed work. The voc-rehab tells me I can go for self-employment, if I have a plan. I write a plan (with a consultant) and get a grant. I start out, and find The Cleaner Network. Celeste finds me stumped, and sends me to The Grimescene. I get good advice and become a tiny part of an industry I enjoy more each day. A great deal of things come to pass from the strangest of chance happenstances. Makes you think a little about how you speak and act with strangers, doesn't it? Thanks again Beth for this thread. Today was a bummer, as I was ill, but this has rehabilitated the day for me!:)

If I could change one thing about my start-up, it would be to buy a machine with more GPM. I started with, and still use, a little Tuff hotwater rig. Just 4GPM and direct drive. It gets the job done, but not quickly. Spend the extra now, reap the reward in quicker job times right away. Inefficiency is always expensive.:)

Standing proud on the prairie, out here where the East peters out!:)

I don't think I want to ask... oh, nevermind.

Before you go and spend 52 large on a glorified crew-cab pick-em-up, go to www.truckpaper.com and find a used fleet tractor with a full sleeper. You can remove the saddle (if you wish) and mount a bed of your choice and a pintle hook. The clear advantage is that you are NEVER going to overload this rig with a pwer setup. The mileage won't be a lot different than the crazy uber-pickup, and the price is lower.:) The drawback is the license (not really a big deal) and ten tires rather than six. Oh, did I mention that it is really easy to get more than 600 ponies out of just about any Detroit Diesel or Caterpiller? Along with enough torque to make your trailer a joy to pull. And it has a portable office with a bunk. And rides like a bucket full of ...well rides easy anyway. And for those of you unfamiliar with unsynchronised gearboxes, you can find them with autos and auto stick ten speeds as well. For those that want to, fly me to where you are, and I'll teach you the finer points of ignoring your clutch for the rest of forever. If you're gonna stink of diesel anyway, let the smoke a-roll and the jakes a-rumble! (That's Authentic Trucker Gibberish right there.):lgkick:

I bought one last year toward the end of the summer. It is a pretty cool tool, but I've never used it for gutters. I have pumped some weaker chem solutions and even some Ready Seal through it and had no problems. I think I was able to get about 20 feet out of it, but I had some dispersion problems at that range. I was only testing with water, and was looking for 12 feet. I have been switching tips quite a bit on the factory wand, but still haven't dialed it in. I think it sprays a little hard, even at low speed for real precision jobs. It is great for chem on foundations and drives or smallish rooves. I plan to work with it some more in the next few weeks as we get rolling, I use it to spray down the tools for dog waste removal. Basically boots and shovel/scooper. People want to know you aren't going to leave some doggy-disease in your wake.:)

Lou, if you did, how did you do for price? If you don't mind me asking.;) I'm just curious about how your customer responded to you doing the whole thing. Did it go well? Were you able to educate them about housewashes, or were they sure you were trying to separate them from an unusual amount of cash? I face this often with prospectsd that are unsure what I do.

I'd be there often if there was a local shop to meet up and have some coffee and conversation with others in the field. Kind of a standing roundtable. Here I just have Dultmeier's and the local Hotsy guy to shoot it with. The Hotsy guy is decent, but expensive and Dultmeier's is busy and friendly, but have never heard of the things I want to do in this business. I'm jealous, I've bought from Sunbrite and spoken with Tracy and Pete. They seem like decent guys. Russell Cissell being there and demonstrating is just the icing. Philip, Sweeeeet!:lgsideway Love the Pantaloons!

This is the "get you started" post, I'll have some more info available soon, hopefully including pics. A buddy of mine owns a drain company here, and his sewer jetter broke down today. This is what he told me so far: the machine was leaking at the pump head yestterday, so he torqued her back dow, and today while operating, the center cap (on the head?) blew off. He also said it was knocking pretty loud today soon after firing up. I haven't seen this machine except to walk by it in his shop, so I can't describe it well, but I have some info from his employee: General Jetter 3000 psi Honda j-3000 (G-389) Pump is a Interpump Group Model WS-151 The questions I'd like you to ponder are these: What other info should I gather? Can this pump be rebuilt or replaced? Is one any better than the other? In a pinch, can my 4-gpm Tuff 3000 psi machine drive his jetter hose effectivly, and if so how? What should I be most aware of as far as concerns for the equipment and the jetter attachment? Thanks for thinking about this, I'll post more info as soon as I get back from having a look at it in person. Tuesday I was on my motorcycle in 62 defree sun, today it is 19* F and snoiwing like crazy, so it may take a while to get there and back, and then resize the photos. Any help is always appreciated, this guy has been a great friend, and I owe him at least one, so help will be even more appreciated today. Thanks.:)

Russ, whenever you get the time, I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with. There's no real hurry, since the broken unit is up again. My little machine is hot water equipped, and that was gonna be my next question. Way to anticipate! :) The machine my buddy has looks like it has been through the wars, maybe there is some subcontractor money out there. You never know till you do the research, do you?

Is that a complicated or expensive addition to the rig? I figure I could lend a hand if it isn't too big a deal. Maybe next time he has a problem we can save him a few bucks.

Glad to hear it's coming together Jeff! Get some in progress pics and keep 'em for an album. The youngsters will get a kick out of it as time goes on. Don't forget to share with us too.:lgkick:

The local Hotsy dealer took it in, said he thought the problem was with an internal pressure switch. I never did get a look at it. I am curious though about hooking a jetter line to my machine. Has anybody here done any jetting?

If you go out and meet a potential customer, and you think the job is one you are not interested in, how do you handle that? There could be many reasons to do this, so if you respond, let us know the how's, why's, and whatever. I'm sure there are a lot of different approaches, and I've had occasion myself to say that I just don't have the experience and /or the equipment to handle jobs of a certain magnitude, or difficulty, yet. I think any conscientious noob has done this sort of thing (hopefully). How about you veterans? What situation can make you refuse an opportunity to bid, or to do the job, and how do you handle those situations?

Beth, I like to check out what others are doing to make a living. This work, while undeniably not attractive, has real potential to make decent money while providing a needed service. I can't imagine what the families think when they are confronted with such a situation, and then are informed that they are responsible for the cleanup. People just don't think of needing services like this until they are faced with an already emotion-fraught episode. This is where opportunity meets compassion. If decent, ethical people avoid this field; it devolves to those of perhaps lesser moral uprightness. I couldn't believe the number of scammers that were attracted to me when I was badly injured in a crash. This was a tough time for my family, and my prognosis was good, imagine how vulnerable one would be after a devastating loss in the home. My area is blessed in that we have a fairly low crime rate, and our FD HAZMAT team handles much of the trauma and violent crime-scene cleanup because if they didn't, they would often be idle. However, the meth-lab cleanup is an exploding new market we are just beginning to get an idea the size of. Recent news has it that the surrounding counties are looking for qualified personnel to handle this. As I say, I'm always interested to see where a few more dollars can be earned while doing some kind of good.

I was hoping that on further perusal, I might find some additional info. I still may head down and see what the participants have to say. Maybe rub elbows a bit. In any event, I'd have to have more information about this service before I'd sign up for the training. Time to get in the research gear.:) January hit me with a mess of unexpected expenses in the household, so I have to gin up some new business quick! How are things down there, Scott? Is anything getting back to normal? Are you able to ply the trade around there? I hope you and yours are hanging in OK.:)

I'll check this out, if I can swing it. Just a little two hour drive, and it seems interesting. At the end of the 90's there was widespread discussion of this business on the CB and in truckstops. Some were touting this as a way for retiring and fed-up OTR drivers to go into business for themselves. I don't know of anybody that actually did it though. It seems there was a franchiser out there called something like, "Crimscene Cleaners". My interest was piqued, but that's as far as it ever went for me. I've also been contemplating running a "Spring Cleaning" flyer soon and have been trying to decide whether Manure removal was going to be part of it. Not really my bag, if you'll pardon the pun, but if it gets me in the yard I'm confident there are additional sales to be made. Anybody else planning on going to this?

I run some winter specials on fleets I've dealt with before, but don't do much work with pw under about 40*F because I get overly nervous and it is just plain miserable. I have a steel collarbone implant and that gets pretty uncomfortable when squirting even hot water in cold weather. The ride home is an exercise in cramp reduction, usually. I try to hunt as much as possible, and have guided some for extra bucks, but that is low return work. I sell some on ebay and where I can, and work on some kinds of motorcycles, mostly for friends. None of it pays real big bucks, but it does keep me interested. A buddy of mine is in the rootering business and we've talked about sewer jetting, but it looks like everything I don't much care for so I doubt we'll ever do anything about it. Ken, what do you do for the cable outfits? Installs or trenching, or something I haven't thought of? Enquiring minds and so on.:)

I think I've posted about this before, but I was an over the road household goods driver (read: Mover) for most of my adult life. After meeting a woman I wanted to marry, and realising that hauling over 340 days a year wasn't going to make it, I switched to operating a 32 meter concrete pump. Good money and home every night. Things were grand until the night before I was going to buy the engagement ring. My girlfriend and I were out with friends, and I was telling my future best man that we were going to get the ring the next day. Everybody was excited, and were all waiting for the call to say I had popped the question. Instead they got the call that we had been in an accident on the way home the night before. A young kid in an F-250 blew a red light at 50 MPH and rearranged my priorities for life. I had to learn to walk again, and to get by with something less than 1/2 of the right arm I was used to. To compound the rearrangement, I lost my job, my physical ability to do the old job, and most of my savings. I was lucky: I am alive. Everyday since then has been a good day, some are just more cryptic about it. I was able to enroll in my state's vocational rehab program and they asked me what I wanted to do. You have to realise that I was still pretty heavily sedated when I told them I wanted to own and operate my own PW business. lol I've had to make a lot of adjustments, mostly in how I accomplish the more physical aspects of the job, but I love the work and still being independent. I have gotten married to my girl, we bought a home, and the business is coming along. I'm happy to be a part of this industry, and was attracted to it mostly by watching the guys that washed my rigs, and by washing my own. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it has (mostly) been pleasant surprises. I thought I would mostly do fleets and residential window jobs. I really don't do either of those. Mostly I do flatwork and roofs, especially lichen removal: Something I had never even heard of before I started doing it. One of my first trucking jobs was driving a delivery truck for a large lumber outfit here. Lots of us worked part-time building deck, gazebos, and docks, and I was no exception to that rule. That interest has led me to some little bit of wood restoration now. Funny how different my life has turned out since then. I really wouldn't have it any other way. I kind of feel like one of Cortez's men: I didn't ask to burn the ship that could get me outta here, but, since it IS gone, I guess I have to make the best of it. I'm up for a challenge today, how about you?:lgkick:

That's the best post I've ever read from you. Very cool!:) Jeff, you'll get this done. I know you have the moxie to do whatever it takes. Celeste, I can't imagine you having any "thing" at all. It is good to hear from people that can publicly admit to having a problem of any sort. My thing is that since an injury a while back, I can't stand asking for help. I mean that I get panicky and a little wigged out, then I'm apt to lose my temper. Makes me feel like a real $h!theel when I get that way around the wife or friends. It is an adjustment that has been coming slowly, but it's still with me. Fortunately I've been praying over it and working on it, and that does help. A little counseling goes a long way, too.

I guess two drafts are better than one.:lgwave: Sorry folks, just learning with the new rig.

Daimler Chrysler owns Freightliner and Dodge as well as Detroit Diesel. They sell the Sprinter under both badges here, and as a Mercedes in some other countries. Have you noticed that they no longer sell commercial Mercedes Benz trucks in the states? That's because they are all Freightshakers here, while in Europe the same rigs are MB. Just corporate cousins.:)