PatrickM

TJ I think the portable you are looking at is the same one I have. At 300 lbs. it is not as "portable" as you would think. Certainly getting it up a trailer ramp can be a challenge (or am I just getting old?). Mine stays on the trailer all the time now. Nice to know I can take it off if I need to though. Patrick

I got taken by surprise by a shower yesterday while applying a second coat of Ready Seal to a deck. The first coat had 24 hours to dry but the 2nd was still wet when the rains came. What can I expect to find when I go back tomorrow? This is the first time my weather forecasting skills have let me down. Patrick

Thanks for your replies. I've always found Ready Seal to be very forgiving and am optomistic that I won't find any thing too shocking. John - 2 reasons for waiting a day between coats. First of all the wood is in terrible condition. It's my understanding that the longer drying time between coats helps with badly weathered wood. Second these folks are putting the house on the market this weekend so they are in a big hurry. I'm squeezing them into an already busy schedule at the end of the day. Patrick

I have my first acrylic stain scheduled for stripping tomorrow. Plan A is for HD-80 mixed strong with longer dwell time. Any suggestions for plan B if that does not go as well as expected? Patrick

Years ago my brother got into home brewing. When he grew tired of it he passed his equipment on to me. Since I was not that interested it went into the attic. Since you can never have too many plastic pails in this business I recently put the 6 gallon fermenting pail into service doing house washes. The lid for this pail had a hole with a rubber grommit for the air lock to go into. I removed the gromit and found the hole a perfect fit for the 3/8" hose on my x-jet. I now have a tightly sealed, spill proof x-jet container. Since home brewing was so big back in the day I'll bet some of you have these hidden away in your attics too. Patrick

My wife is diabetic and Scott hit the most common symptoms. Add to the list bruses that won't go away and every diabetic I have ever known drinks a LOT of soda. They think before they get checked that they just love soda. But diabetics are most comfortable with a consistant bloodsugar level, high or low as long as it doesn't flucuate much. Drinking soda all day is the easiest way to do that. Of course keeping your blood sugar high all the time makes the diabetes even worse. My wife has been able to control hers with diet and exercise. It's hard at the start but once you settle into a routine it becomes pretty easy. Patrick

I have a house wash to do where the A/C unit in the attack was leaking for a very long time and rusted out the pan. Rusty water ran down the side of the house leaving the vinyl clad window casings underneath stained with rust. Does anyone have ideas on how to remove this without harming the vinyl? All the rust remedies I know would be too harsh for vinyl. Many Thanks Patrick

I was very nervous about using oxalic on vinyl windows but I knew Richard and Jeff wouldn't steer me wrong. It worked great and the homeowner was thrilled. Thanks Guys! Patrick

Oxalic would be my choice too for anything else but won't that be too hard on the vinyl?

I can relate to Mr. Incredible best. The scene where he is crowded into his cubical at the insurance company shows my day, every day at my FT job. Patrick

Michael My wife was just as worried as yours when I started down this road. I have moved very slowly to help her comfort level. But watching me do my research and get things together for start up she became curious about what it would take to turn her cake decorating hobby into a business. She dove in head first and blew right past me. Simply Cakes is off to a great start and she is now pushing me to do more for my business. I can't tell you how much of a turn around this is for her. So my advice is to get her involved in some way that will match her interests. Patrick

James - thank you for your timely post. Lost a nozzel and o-ring today and just sat down here to see why. Glad to see I have lots of company. Patrick

Matt If Celeste goes ahead with the NC Roundtable in April be sure to attend. Last time Russell Cissell and Pete Marentay from the list above attended. And some guy named Rod (he and his wife run a bbs or something) stripped and sealed a miniture deck. You should read all you can and every new thing you read gives you another piece of the puzzle. But the pieces don't fit together untill you see it done or try it yourself. Patrick

Just got back from a seminar given by a Cabot's rep on their products. He made a strong case for their SPF acrylic and claims it to be a better product for decks than Cabot's Australian Timber Oil (which I know is a favorite of many of you). Wet application, wash and stain in the same day, lasts longer, easier to maintain... It all sounds great but I know many of you don't like acrylics. So what didn't he tell us and does anyone have evperience with this product. Patrick

Kevin Cabots SPF looks like walking through a mine field to me. If applied to dry wood it peels. If applied to wet wood it traps mosture and rots the wood from the inside out. Requires special prep products and can only be stripped with a very expensive product. Overspray has to removed immediately or it's there forever. Russell - your tinting kit doesn't look so bad by comparison.

Rick Cabots makes 2 strippers called simply "Wood stripper for latex products" and "Wood stripper for oil products." Retail is about $32 / gal. I've asked the rep to join this thread. The peeling problems could come from not doing a wet application. This is not a product that "can" be applied wet, it is a product that "must" be applied wet and I don't think Cabot has done a very good job of getting that point out to their customers.

Matt - didn't recognize you without your fish or I would have said hello. Ken - yours is exactly the kind of feedback I was looking for. I am new to this and logic tells me to steer clear of this product. But there were guys sitting around me who have as much experience as anybody here who were going for this sales pitch. Made me doubt what I knew to be true. Although if you do use this product again you need to find another supply. Retails for $27 a gallon here. And Russel if your out there (and we know you are) need more than one color choice for WTW. Just 3 choices would do. But I am afraid of the tinting kit. Even Henry Ford couldn't get away with "you can have any color you want as long as it's black."

I asked about the difficulies with stripping. He said yes stripping is difficult if you use a product designed for oil based stains. But Cabot's makes a stripper just for acrylics and it gives the same results you would have stripping an oil based product with a product designed for oil based products. As for experience he started out with a pressure washing business in south Florida and used his own experience as the basis for his presentation. Everything I know about acrylics tells me they won't work for decks. But I want to play devils advocate here. I've tried Wood Tux Wet and it's a great product. But transportation costs and my not wanting to get into mixing colors makes aa locally available alternative with a color choice very apealing.

Hi Folks I washed my first house solo and thanks to on and off board support from all of you there were no big surprises. I do have some questions about the little things though. I was disappointed with the reach of the X-Jet (M5). On the top 3 feet or so of the peak of a 2 story house the stream broke up into a fine mist. Covering this area with mist meant dumping tons of chem on the lower portions of the house which did not need it. Worst of all the peak did not look as good as the rest of the house. Any tips on getting just a little more reach out of an X-Jet? Also any tips on slowing down the draw on the X-jet? I went through chems way too fast. I know some of you use the proportioners but most don’t seem to like them. The gutters on the north side of the house were completely black. Brushed on some gutter zap and rinsed it off and had shiny white gutters. On the south side of the house the gutters were not nearly as bad, more of a light gray color. Two applications of gutter zap with longer dwell time didn’t touch them. They are still gray. This side of the house is in strong full sun all day. Is the dirt "baked on"? Any tips on how to handle this? I’ve also seen it suggested here to get a 28’ pin lock pole for brushing gutters but can’t find one anywhere. Any suggestions on where to look and how much they should cost? This house had a full covered porch with round columns, gingerbread moldings and lots of nooks and crannies. A lot of it couldn’t be hit from the ground with a wand so I took a spray bottle of housewash up on the porch and rinsed with a garden hose. Worked well (sometimes the low tech solution is the best) but wondered if anybody had a better idea. And finally I used Barlox as my soap. The folks at Xterior tell me it’s also great on brick. Has anyone used it for brick and what kind of results did you have? This was my own house and all in all it must have come out pretty good. My wife has been pushing hard for me to paint the house. She took one look and immediately said "now you don’t have to paint the house." Thanks Patrick

The gutters are identical front and back of the house and only 7 years old. They are the type that are formed on site so they even came off the same roll of aluminum. Gray might not be the best discription of the color, lets call it a lighter black. It is clearly dirt and the paint is in tact. This is why I was so surprised. The only difference between the front and the back gutters is the weather conditions. Patrick

Thanks for all the replies. Ken - I do want to try downstreaming. What size nozzle would I need with a 4 gpm / 3500 psi machine? Jeff - like the idea of converting the x-jet to 1/4 inch. As for Barlox I have the advantage of living close to Xterior's store. Barlox with no s&h is about the same cost as anything else with s&h. Patrick

Call Mike at Xterior 919-779-7905.

I have a friend who is a painter and another who is a carpenter. I plan for each of us to have a good supply of the two's business cards to hand out in those situations.

I asked a friend who works for a bank how people can pay these prices for homes. He told me that 70% of the mortgages his bank processes are interest only loans. Those people are going to be in trouble if the housing bubble breaks! Patrick