Henry B.

Hey Alan, who makes it, do you have a number or anything for them? I'd like to check it out, it might even work better than what I have now.

Aww come on haven't you all gotten the most famous of them all? U give me good deal! I haf lotsa fweinds! Well then, why don't you invite them all over and do the job together?

I've never seen the soap spider but if you have a link to it I would like to take a look at it. What was the nooooooooooo comment for? no idea or no it doesn't or what?

Hey Mike, look over in the top right hand corner of each post... It will show where the poster is from. If your in Maryland or want to visit give me a call. I'll also be at the PWNA convention in Ohio this coming March.

Hey A-plus, Don't get me wrong, I send these cards out to keep me in their minds also. Of course marketing is involved to an extent. I just don't want to push the marketing aspect of them by offering a discount on our services. Now if I had discounts to something completly unrelated to my company that would be another matter altogether!

I use a company called National Revenue Corporation. If anyone would like to contact them and check into it email me at info@henryshousework.com and I will give you the information. I' rather not list his information on the boards but I would be happy to refer you to him.

I've got a collection company that I use and they only charge %5-10%. I rarely have to use them but it's nice to know they are there if I need them!~

It seems to draw twice the chemical than a single downstream injector. To be honest though, I've never measured it..LOL I'll try measuring it next week when I powerwash this guys roof and I'll let you know. I just tested the pull rate of one of my x jets 2 weeks ago and I've had them all season. I just know how much of whatever to put in the bucket for what I need clean.

I'm going to be sending out a happy holidays to all my clients.. I'm going to do it using email with a special program I've run accrossed. I had thought about adding a discount or coupon on services but decided against it. I don't want it to appear to be a marketing ploy. I'd rather it be just a plain old happy holidays thing from the staff of Henry's Housework and leave it at that. I can market people 364 days a year. Everyone's entitled to a day off.

A pine one...LOL Just kidding, I had to say it! I prefer the fake ones since I'm allergic to pine trees. Unfortuanetly, my wife is a live tree fanatic and that's what we get. We all trudge out to butlers each year in the freezing cold while daddy lays on the ground.. cuts his hands on the bryers and chops the sucker down. Then we load it on the roof and tie it down with the dental floss rope they give you and drive home watching all the dead pine needles flying off the back of the van. LOL, man that doesn't sound like much fun does it? Well at least the caramel candy you can buy at the Butlers store makes up for the sneezing..<G>

Hey Ryan, You can melt them with hot water but I would not suggest it. If done incorrectly you can actually add to the amount of water coming into the house and cause quite a flood. The proper way to do this is with roof rakes. Using a roof rake you pull the snow off the roof until you get down to the bare ice. Then you can either use hot water or carefully chip away the buildup of ice until the trapped water behind flows off the roof. Once the excess snow is removed the ice will usually start melting on it's own so it's not too difficult. DO NOT apply salt or ice melt to the roof or gutter, this will also cause problems. If you decide to chip the ice you have to be careful and make sure you don't pop off blocks of ice with parts of roofing in it..lol I know this is kinda vague but there is no "one solution fits all" in ice dam removal. It takes patience and attention to detail to get it done and it's a lot harder to do than it sounds. It is not necessary in most cases to remove all the ice from the gutter just enough to take away the actual "ice dam". If you try to clear the ice from the gutter you will either loosen it, knock it off the house (gutters full of ice are REALLY heavy) or dent the gutter. I know there are companies that just use a hot water machine and shoot at the ice to melt it. It does work but the problem is the leak into the home your trying to fix will become much worse and the home owner may blame you for the additional damage. Sometimes it also gets so cold that it has very little effect except to add to the ice dam and make the walkways even more hazerdous. The sudden heat can also cause the windows to shatter, crack shutters and some vinyl siding. No matter what people tell you.... DO NOT attempt to rip the gutter off the house. This is a foolish thing to do and it may fall on you or someone else or hit the house or windows. If your lucky enough to avoid that, you will probably tear off roofing shingles with the gutter. Also as soon as the snow and ice melt it will flood the basement! If you have any more questions, give me a call. I've been doing ice dam removal for about 10 years now.

Sorry but I have to disagree with you. It doesn't matter if anything is in the gutters or not. The main cause is improper ventelation in the attic causing the snow to melt, run down the roof and freeze as it hits the soffit areas and/or the colder gutter. Gutter cleaning is a great add on though if your looking for extra money. So is ice dam removal. If you have any questions about it let me know, I would be happy to give you more details.

Cujo and Pam, Take out one nights dinner, I'd be happy to take the two of you out one night and hear more about what you guys are doing in your area.

I know the bleach will corrode the brass QD's pretty quickly but I don't think it would do much if any damage to the hose. Expecially when your going to rinse it out when rinsing the roof with water. Does anyone have any info about bleach damaging hoses? After all, bleach comes in thin plastic containers.

Man in Maryland we use a 40' ladder at least 3 days a week. OSHA requires two men when using them so I avoid it when possible.

Why not just use a 25 gallon tank mounted on wheels with a 100' hose dropping into it and use an m5 xjet connected to your rig. Will it draw from that much line or not? If not, what about a downstreamer dropped into a container on your rig holding pool bleach? That should give you a strong enough chemical application. If not, hook up two downstreamers to it and drop both hoses into the tank. If necessary, Use mildly diluted pool bleach in the tank an just shoot it on from a ladder placed in the middle of the roof. It may take a little playing around with using the downstreamers but once you figure out the chemical ratio it should work great with a lot less work and dragging stuff around. As a matter of fact, they sell double downstreamers so you can use one with soap and the other with another chemical. No muss and no fuss and only one hose to run. The double downstreamer thing is what I've been using but I don't do too many roofs. I've got to 45 gallon tanks mounted on the back of my rig. When I do roofs, I just use an xjet to shoot chems on the roof then rinse.

If I ever do leave a flyer on the door like that I always hold it in place with a magnetic business card.. That way they will throw the flier away and hang on to the magnetic! I only ever do this in nice areas where I'm allready working though.

My Brother in law owns one of the real defender arcade machines and 3 others along with 4 pinball machines... I've been trying to talk him into selling it to me for 6 years now. I figure one day he will buy a new machine and get so sick of it he sells it to me or asks me to "store" it for him..

I've done decks without masking them in the past. It's not impossible if you know your equipment well and your careful how you do it. I wouldn't reccomend it to someone though.. too many guys would jump on it without being careful and wind up replacing the siding on the house and their neighbors.

Like I said in the begining... PLAGUE...LOL I remember clients like that Rod.

The only reason I get up that early is to go fishing..lol My crews start at nine in the morning and work until 5pm then they quit and drive back in. In Winter when it's freezing in the morning we start at 10am. Why rush to get out on frozen dangerous roads? Things don't thaw out until then anyway.

Hey Ryan, Like I said before, I'd do the job but that's just me. I'm one of those guys that doesn't mind not making top dollar on a job everytime or throwing in some free stuff. I wouldn't seal a table for free when doing a gutter cleaning like Rod said. First of all I only carry sealer in one van and I'm working on a completly unrelated thing. But I would seal something on the roof that was causing a roof leak at no charge. In fact, I do it all the time. If I know the next time it's going to rain they will have water coming into their home I'll fix it if it's a simple issue. If it's a serious problem, I'll tarp it for them. I know some of you will say it's not good business to do so but I disagree. Going the extra mile for my customers is something I enjoy doing. I like to suprise them with going above and beyond the expected. Running a company can be hard sometimes and if I can't enjoy myself or feel good about what I do I'd have sold my company a long time ago. You can call it the WOW factor if you like but most of my clients love that were willing to look out for them the way we do and it keeps them coming back to us instead of one of the other newer and cheaper companies doing the same services. Every single one of my clients is worth going the extra mile for because in the long run, I'll get paid for the extras by them using our services year after year or recomending us to their freinds and family. Some of you said Ryan would be losing $500 out of his pocket, I look at it as making an investment in a customer! Besides, it's only costing him $15 and his time. If seeing his clients surprised and grateful face is worth the time invested in it to him what's the problem? What about how much the client may rave about him to her freinds and if she uses his servces on her commercial properties? Sometimes an investment like that could pay off far better than putting a $500 ad in the local paper. That's part of the reason why I do so much community service work. Besides that, it's not like I can take it with me when I kick the bucket right?

There can be really good money in window cleaning if your fast at it and make your own chemicals you can do it with very little overhead at all. My problem was setting up all the appointments for it. Now the window cleaning industry has really grown and expanded far more than I ever thought it would. I used to use squeeges and the usual professional tools of the trade and I could run them out pretty quickly. I used to be able to do a set of double hung windows with storms inside, outside and put them back together again in 90 seconds when I was doing them. You can wear yourself out cleaning windows though, my knees started bugging me from going up and down the ladders too much so I don't miss it! Gutter cleaning can wear you out also but I definetly prefer it to doing windows and we make a lot more money on gutter cleaning than I ever did doing windows. Even more than power washing!

Okay how about this... With and 8gpm rig, which would clean better and faster. A 20" surface cleaner with 2, 3 or 4 arms? I would think the one with more arms (with the proper sized tips) would work better since it would go over the same spot more times than a two arm model would. I know one guy that tried it though and he said the 2 arm cleaned better. What do you all think and what size, arm model would work the best with your experiance?

How much gpm and psi should you use for one that size? I've got an 8gpm with 3,000psi and was told that it would kick but with a 30" surface cleaner. Of course the guy that told me that sold me the rig..lol