Henry B.

Hey Jon, it's the thought that counts not the timing.. Beth, One of my projects was camp freindship.. It's a camp for kids with cancer. I had to do it a couple months early so rebuilding together could stain the decks and cabins. Another project I did today was the wheaton regional parks Ice skating Rink. I've got a couple pics of these projects on the pwna site. Here's the link. http://www.pwnabbs.org/showthread.php?t=2483&highlight=clean+america Next I'm going to do some pw work at an Izaak walton league park once they get in touch with me. What did you guys do?

I just wanted to remind everyone that this project starts Tomorrow on the 24th of July through the 31'st. I wanted to Thank those of you that have volunteered to give one day of your time in service to your communities. My project will be taking place on Tuesday and I'm looking forward to the challenge. I plan on posting pictures of my project when it's completed and I hope to see what others will be doing also.

I'll volunteer myself if you still have any left. My email is henryshousework@comcast.net

Here's a link to a little animated movie... Most of you will just love this, a couple might be offended AtomFilms: This Land

I've never had a problem with oxidation on vinyl siding. Is it cheap siding or what? Has anyone else ever had oxidation on vinyl. Maybe I'm just lucky or its the chemicals I'm using..

Hey Guys, What about just using a double downstreamer on your rigs that feed from a large tank? I've got pics of my rig on my website with the tanks on it that I use. I just use a foamer for doing roofs, decks and other large areas and with the double feed I get excellent results with a good amount of draw from both downstreamers. If I want, I can also use one downstremer for each chemical I carry and automatically mix up my chems when I want. I do have to take into consideration that I've got two hundred feet of chemical in my lines so I have to change out tips before the whole thing is coated. It does work well though and I don't have to carry around any chemicals or buckets on roofs or anywhere.

Hi Aufanatic, Use a pump up sprayer with a home made mix of ammonia, warm water and a couple drops of palmolive detergent. Spray the painted areas after placing a towel on the window sill and let sit for about 1 minute. Take your razor blade and lightly scrape the edge of the paint where it goes onto the glass. Then take your 4" wide razor blade and scrape off the loosened paint. When you get good at this you should be able to clean a standard double hung window and remove the paint in about 1 minute and 30 seconds. (that allows for the dwell time) Spray down a few windows at once and they can be done in 30 seconds or so including paint removal, dirt from windows and stickers and cleaning the sill. Give me a call if you have any questions.

If it's vinyl siding, use a diluted amount of stripper. If it's alluminum siding, try using some type of degreaser on a test spot where no one will see it. You want to make sure whatever you use to remove the stain won't also damage the alluminum siding. Henry

Hey John, I agree $5 is cheap but I've done higher amounts in the past and this one seems to work much better. I could give $50 for each referral but then people start thinking they can get me to discount my work. The more free things you give away the more people want to negotiate on your prices. I had one client tell me $5 wasnt much and I told him if I give away much more I'd have to raise prices. You also have to realize that I'm not really looking for new clients or word of mouth advertising. I've got plently of clients allready I'm just trying to give them something back. The people that refer us to more than 5 clients usually get a free service or something special. I just don't advertise it because I would rather see what people do on their own. I have about 10,198 cleints, if each of them referred me and I gave them $20 bucks I could double the size of my customers. I really don't want to do that in fact, I'm cutting out some of my clients slowly to slow down the work load.

I've got a program I call refer a friend.. for each client someone refers me they recieve $5 on their account they can use towards any service they want. It's not much but some of my clients line up entire complex jobs for me..lol They also get special additional gifts that I don't advertise on my site like tickets to sporting events and similiar things.

Flyers usually don't work all that well in my opinion. Get an ad in a local newspaper or give out business cards... do some charity work and get it publicized.. I may be able to think of some other ideas also.

Years ago, I woke up and groaned at the prospect of getting to sit in a room and listen to peoples' problems all day... Hey Tom, I take it you don't have very many employees yet...lol If so, you would still be hearing the same thing every day.

I don't keep a set price list and even if I did my prices would vary since I'm in a different state. If you like give me a call, I may still be able to help you out though.

Hey Matt, You said you had a 1,000psi cold water unit? How many gallons per minute does it put out? Your going to want at least 4gpm or your going to be there all day rinsing it properly.

Welcome to power washing...lol If anyone has any questions I would be happy to help you out, Just give me a call. I've been in business now for about 15 years with over 10,000 clients so I've got a good amount of experiance.

Hey Travis, Great Story!! I love hearing stupid stories like this when people try to save money. In the past 3 weeks I saw two different idiots power washing. One was using a turbo tip on a pt deck and scarred the hell out of it. Another was pw alluminum siding with an electric 2500 psi pw (no chemicals) he got about 2-3 inches away from the siding to make sure he did a good job and it took him 9 hours to do the job. He removed the oxidation, mildew and some of the paint from the siding for a bargain price of 375. This was on a duplex townhouse so he only had 2 sides to do...LOL I guess it pays for homeowners to wait for a few estimates, I would have done the job for 175 and done it properly I guess they just didn't want to wait the extra day or so for me to look at the job. Now they have to wait for a painter and a lawyer.

You could also point out to her how much better the job would look and how much longer the stain would last if done properly. If cost isnt an object tell her sure you will apply that stain for her. But first I have to do a couple other things like get it clean. lol If she objected I'd have to walk, I wouldn't even waste my time going back over the same discussion numerous times. Theres just too many clients out there begging me to do work for them faster than my current one-two week turn around.

The best sprayer I've found is a backpack sprayer from northern tool, it puts out a lot of volume and the size of the droplets is workable. They work great for fences and as close as the pickets on that deck are it may be what your looking for. They also hold about 4 1/2 gallons of sealer. Just be careful when using it, wet everything down around the deck and tarp if needed.

Hey Travis It was the phosphoric acid that caused the throat problem or the oxolic acid? Which one did you apply strait? All my oxalic acid is in powder form.

A local tv station ran a test on local contractors about 10 years ago. They contacted a whole slew of contractors. They asked the contractors to give an estimate to solve a wet basement problem and just sat back and awaited the estimates. Only three contractors suggested that they clean and repair the gutters before spending the thousands of dollars to do the job. 5 of the other contractors had given their estimates and out of good faith added a free gutter cleaning to their estimates. The rest of the contractors just sold their service of basement sealing. They have also done the same thing for pressure washing decks. My company was the one they chose to show the proper way for deck cleaning and treatment with the best price. Someday this might happen again so I am always honest when someone asks me to estimate something they want done. One of the big scams around here is installing 6" gutters when they aren't needed.

I would rather pay more attention to the house and its features when deciding on what I want to buy or pay for. The color of the deck would have no effect on me buying it because I know I can strip it easily if I wanted to. Your average homeowner won't know how to do it and even if they hate the color of the deck they will still buy the house if it has what they want. However, why spend more money to stain a deck a color that someone may not like? That was my point, the guy selling the house would have to pay more money to do the job your way. Don't you think he would prefer to spend less of his own money to sell his house? Does he honestly care what happens to the deck 10 years from now when he's living in vermont somewhere? We can educate the consumer on what's best for the property but if your smart you will also give him a choice on how much he wants to spend. If you don't, you can walk away knowing that you refused to lower your standards to the sealer he wanted to pay for. Or, you can use the best sealer you can buy with what he wants to pay for and tell the new home owners when they move in that you were the one that made the deck look as good as it does today. Then show them your before and after picture of their deck and educate them on the best way to maintain it.

Hey Travis, What chemical worked the best? As for the comments on using SH, I never said to use it on asphalt shingle roofs. It can be used on slate and the tile roofs were talking about on this thread as long as it does not stay on the tar paper. If done carefully and properly that won't happen. If you try shooting it on with an x jet yes, it will get to the tar paper but if your using a foamer and you don't shoot at the roof but let it fall like rain you have nothing to fear. I'm not going to argue the point, anyone can use whatever they like but I've been doing roof repairs and pressure washing for 15 years now and I've learned how to mix the two types of work without causing problems. There is one thing I don't recall seeing listed on the use of any chemicals though. Wet down the roof and gutters first. If you apply a chemical to a hot roof it will dry almost instantly. No matter what chemical you choose to use, make sure your spray is traveling down the roofline at all times. Never acrossed or expecially up the roofline. Also make sure you inspect the roof for nail pops, torn vent pipe gaskets or flashing that needs to be sealed. These items can be fixed as an add on repair but don't clean the roof if they arent fixed first. Or you will be paying for drywall repairs and painting at the very least.

I guess that is possible but it's unlikely someones going to pay more for a house because the decks been stained. Usually curb appeal is important but market value and of course location, location location..lol As long as the deck and house is in good shape and looks like its been maintained it won't matter what color it is unless someone hates the stain that's chosen. Many people don't like stained decks at all thats why I would suggest using something clear and cheap. After all, they do want something fairly cheap. Give the customer what he wants or someone else will. At least if you do it, you know it's going to be done properly. Maybe just not the best sealer but that's not your fault.

Hey Rick and Rod, The stuff in those pictures looks much thicker than the stuff I've seen around this area, About twice as thick actually. You may be able to walk on it but if you break it your going to have to pay to get it fixed. The stuff in my area is too thin to walk on and I've repaired it before from roofers walking on it..lol I've used sodium hydroxide on this kind of material before and as long as you apply it without shooting it under the roofing onto the tar paper you should be fine. I used a foamer when I did it so there was very little pressure.

Hey Travis, NO, you can't walk on it and I think I spoke to you about this yesterday. Unless it was someone else..lol Either way, I would use sodium hydroxide base cleaner/stripper on it. Do a test spot first, just in case.