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Tronman

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Posts posted by Tronman

  2. Posted · Report reply

    Just wondering about the difficulty in staining a deck that had to be sanded with 60 grit sand paper to remove a blistered marine finish. The wood is smooth. Do we have to let it weather for a few months or can we just put several coats of oxalic acid to open up the pores. I am afraid that the wood pores are now filled and the wood is non-pourous and the stain will either not be absorbed or it will just turn out very very light.

  4. Posted · Report reply

    Since we do not do a lot of drive thru's, parking, or dumpsters and only occasionally bad gum sidewalks we stick to cold water with a portable hot water unit. We run 4-6 4gal/min wheel around pressure washers and station them at different points so we can have 4-6 guys working at the same time. This is almost impossible with a all-in-one rig. I can set up 6 or more guys throughout an apartment complex and pressure wash multiple buildings/roofs/parking garage levels, etc. at the same time.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    We sprayed everything and had 2-4 guys brushing and pading behind me. I have never sprayed stain without using a pad to insure the stain is uniform. The ceiling was a real treat... We did not do a lot of prep as it was new construction and all of the floors were going to have treatments. We did of course wet all of the concrete with water and then covered it with plastic and then put water on top of it.

    Even though the stain was oil based the odor was not that bad. We had adequate ventilation. But you get that wood gaurd in your eye and you better have a bottle of water nearby.

    The cabin logs were not "chinked" (caulked) until after we stained it. The builder was trying to get us to cut off the tar paper between the logs that had oozed or stuck out. Without more money it did not happen...

  7. Posted · Report reply

    The owner showed up every day at 4:30 to see the progress... I like the exterior color better than the interior honey color. The Wood gaurd product was difficult to use. I burned up two sureflo pumps and a 2 gal hand sprayer before I thinned the stain enough to use. The wood gaurd took several days to dry and even after a week there were still drip areas that were still wet. I didn't have to thin my stain at all and it dried within a couple of hours.

  12. Posted · Report reply

    The black bristles are much better at getting into the tiny holes and grooves. I have a set of the red brushes also and they do not work as well. I tried using them for striping floors but the Vario does not have the weight that a floor machine does. I am going to use my Vario tonight to scrub restroom floors in a machine shop.

    Here is a pic of one of my guys using the Vario right up next to the edge of the wall.

    post-1113-137772162727_thumb.jpg

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Is there a water source near? Sprinkler, etc? If it is lime it will have either a flat white layer appearance or a rocky white pepple appearance. Another possibility is that it is grout from when the chimney was built - simple sulfamic or phosphoric acid wash. If it is lime - good luck. I have tried Hydrochloric, Muratic, Phosphoric, Mineral Shock, turbo blasting at 4,000psi, Calcite presoak, NMD80, etc. The only thing I have not tried is Effortless from EcoChem. I had good luck with the Calcite presoak, NMD 80, and a wire brush on a house a week ago but it took three trips and applications to get the calcium off of the beige brick.

    Houston, Texas

  18. Posted · Report reply

    I had a hard time cleaning a ceramic tile with pits in it. It is a slightly rough ceramic tile. It is in a steel shipping and cutting plant. They track grease into the office area on a daily basis. I tried every type of brush on my circular floor machines but they only cleaned the high points of the tile. I tried out a Karacher Vario dual cylinder floor machine. One the first pass no one could believe it. The tile looked like brand new. All the grease from the pits was gone. I used a non-Butyl degreaser and the black bristle drums. It sold me. The machine cost me about $1800 with the two black drums.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    I do a lot of post-construction home cleaning. Typically it is where someone has bought an older home and then redone the entire interior of the home with all stainless appliances, sinks, etc. as well as new hardwood floors, tile floors, cabinetry, painting, etc.

    Most of my pricing has been to look first, evaluate time and materials and then quote a price based on each homes condition. I was asked what I charge per sq ft and I guess I just don't think in those blanket terms.

    What do you guys in different parts of the country charge for this type of work?

  21. Posted · Report reply

    I used Delco's cleaning chem with a truck brush. I pre-wet the awning and then mixed a five gallon bucket of chem. I applied straight from the bucket to the awning using a yellow soft truck brush. I scrubed each area twice up and down adn worked my way across. I even began letting it sit on the awning for a while beofre washing with my M-5 X-Jet. It removed green mold, bird poop, and a lot of the black stains but I was left with some dark black streaks. It is either from years of bird poop or from a couple of metal signs above the awning (rust etc.).

    Has anyone had a similar situation?

    What did you do to remove the black streaks?

  22. Posted · Report reply

    Thanks as always for the feedback. Sometimes when your up on a two story roof sraying chlorine and the wind is just right you get a big whiff of that 12.5% and you start thinking about where you are and where you are going.

    Every day I wonder what the next step is for my company that will launch it to the next level. It's been 12 months since we started and I want to make our second year stronger and progressive. I would love to be able to have enough business comming in that I could just bounce from crew to crew monitoring what they are doing and have time for real commercial chain marketing.

    We won't need any more equipment for a while and I have enough different chemicals to choke a horse. I just organized my chemical and equipment inventory and took my year end physical inventory for taxes.

    I have every ad company from the Yellow Pages to Home & Ranch magazine trying to sell me ad space. I don't want to spend money that has no return but I don't want to miss that GOLDEN marketing campagn that pushed me to the next level either...

    Ka sara sara, What ever will be will be.

    Doris Day

    Not that I am a fatalist, I belive you make your own destiny, but you can only do what you can do, then you have to let the chips land where they may and go from there..

  24. Posted · Report reply

    For some of the larger businesses out there...

    What was the one or two things that you did with your business that made it grow from a one/two man show to a multi-crew backlogged business?

    Heavy marketing (Yellow Pages, etc.)?

    Taking 1-2 days out of your schedule to phone market and visit with Comm. cust's?

    Door hangers around each job site?

    Leaving estimates around each job site?

    Contacting more Commercial customers to become a vendor?

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