Pams Pressure & Clean

Rick, I cannot speak to the rest of the products you have tried, but I am not surprised to see Removall in the winners circle. We have used it ourselves and although expensive, it does work very well. Another note you can use..with the Removall you could go with a substaintially longer dwell. We have used a 24-30 hour dwell with exceptional results. For my part, I thank you for taking the time to do this test and then unselfishly share the results with the rest of the world. **************************************** Squirt, :):) Life is good. Yankee by birth, Texan by the Grace of God, Georgian by Choice.. ************************************************** Pressure, I don't understand how you folks do it..My property/school taxes last year on home and land were about $1400...For comparison, we live in a very modest 3 bedroom, 30 yr old home, on a 1 acre lot, just outside the city limits. Cujo

Beth, you are right about the insane prices there, or what in my smallish mind qoes to that defenition..:) When in town for the Maryland PWNA chapter/charter meeting not long ago, I perused some of the local market. Partly out of a bit of curiosity, but partly just for grins. Anyway, for what it costs to move into your subdivision, I could buy a very, very, nice gentleman's estate in my locale.

Citracleen is from Steve Rowlett @ RPC in Tennesee. His message board is www.thecleanernetwork.com Very good housewash product.

Good looking deck job.....

Beth, I have not found anything yet either.. I'd be interested in the findings, not necessarily on cedar but on all popular species with special emphasis perhaps on the SYP that we all use so much. It makes sense that the fast track growth would have substantial difference in composition than the slower more dense growth, but outside of anecdotal evidence I have yet to see anything substaintial to back the claim. As far as fast twisting boards, wet boards, splitting boards, etc, I bet that has more to do with the actual ACQ process, board selection at purchase time, poor installation issues, poor engineering issues, and the like. For example, it has suddenly become quite popular to use 5/4 deck flooring boards as cap rails here.. Why? who the hell knows.. probably becasue they are substantially less expensive that a 2x6 .. but the end result is that in fairly short order the "deck guy" lays out some 16 footers across the top of the handrail and in about 10 seconds thay are warped and twisted beyond all possible use except for.....oh..gee..ummm....fire kindling! Is this the fault of the wood.? Hardly.. Some knucklehead used a piece of structure that was and is CLEARLY unsuited for the task, but the wood gets blamed anyway..:rolleyes: As far as wet wood goes..yupper..it happens.. We see it here as well.. you go through the stack and it isn't hard to tell the pieces that seem to have an extra dose of ACQ and the ones that don't.. I'm not sure that I would elevate it to any particualr conspiracy level though.. some wood absorbs more than others.. just like in stain application.. wood is wood..each piece behaves differently..some as you well know, behave differently within the same piece.... It's wood!..not plastic.. It is not unknown that the newer SYP trees are engineered to grow very fast, very tall, and very straight. They are indeed a special breed. We live dead middle in the heart of tree growing country here and I know personally some large and some small scale tree farmers. The tax incentives are quite nice, the payout from the harvest is fairly substantial, and oftentimes there is really nothing else that like to grow on that particular lot of land except SYP trees. Add to that the other activities that go on, like hunting leases, that occur on tree farming land and one can see fairly quickly that it is a multifaceted financial proposition. To be sure, I'm a hardwood kind of guy, and there's not much in nature that gives me a warm fuzzy like a full stand of mature hardwood trees. I'm not much into the clearcut and replant pine forests, but hey, it's a valuable renweable resource, we need it, and they are growing it.. If I had the cash, I'd likely buy a few hundred acres and do likewise. The options are indeed somewhat limited unless there is a massive and expansive social shift in the USA which I think you and I could agree does not stand much chance of happening. Cujo

Jon, I deleted my own post.. After Referee Beth cut out your comments to my wife, my smart ass reply, while still keeping it's punch, seemed to have lost its direction. I didn't want anymore confusion.

Post deleted

Beth, for good info on cedar, cedar harvest management, and the rest, check out the Western Red Cedar Lumber Association at www.WRCLA.org

Beth, Our apparent political differences notwithstanding, and the koom-by-ah movie as a seperate issue, I did some fast research and must beg your forgiveness.. Apparently the US had some poor statistical gathering capabilities "back in the day" so all we really have prior to the 1950's are best guesses and estimates.. My statement referring to the superiority of our current forestry vs. capabilities prior to colonization may have been a bit simplistic and broad. From the 1900's to the 1950's best guesses were certainly more accurate but the hard core stuff seems to be post 1952 or thereabouts.. Here is the best I could find for you with my brief search on my painfully slow dialup connection.. plus a data source. I hope these suffice.. "Since 1900, forest area in the U.S. has remained statistically within 745 million acres +/-5% with the lowest point in 1920 of 735 million acres. U.S. forest area in 2000 was about 749 million acres." Source:USDA Forest Service Trend Data Report 1760-2000 I'll further add that tree population seems to be rather robust with the top 10 species over 1" dbh rounding out at just over 112 Trillion trees. This number amounts to 39% of the total tree population of the US so by extrapolation, we can gather that there are just under 300 Trillion trees in the US. This is about 408 trees per forested acre. Source:USDA FIA Current US Forest Data and Maps 2002 "The total area of U.S. timber land has been stable over the past 50 years, with an overall loss of only 1 percent." Source: USDA National Report on Sustainable Forests-2003 "Growth has exceeded removals on U.S. timber lands for several decades, while the area of timber land has remained relatively stable. The result has been a substantial increase in the volume of growing stock on U.S. timber lands. In the 1990s, growth continued to exceed removals for both publicly and privately owned timber lands in the East (North and South regions) and West (Rocky Mountain, Pacific Coast, and Alaska regions). Trends in growth on timber land since 1952 are attributable to several factors. In general, positive growth trends reflect regrowth and maturation of forests on lands that had been harvested before 1952. Growth trends also reflect investments in fire protection, land owner education, and silviculture. Changes in harvest patterns in the 1990s resulted in shifts in growth and removals by ownership and region. Historically, most harvesting occurred on private timber lands in the East. Recent data shows a further shift of removals from public timber land in the West to private timber land in the East. Thus, growth has been exceeding removals by a wider margin in the West, while the gap has been decreasing in the East. Currently, total removals are 76 percent of net growth in the East and 45 percent of growth in the West." Source: USDA National Report on Sustainable Forests-2003 I agree that this particular thread has wandered quite a bit from the original topic, but I'm glad for it too.. Cujo

Rick...point taken... You material cost are far higher than here..I can buy cedar for that price. ACQ 5/4 x 6 southern yellow pine boards run as low as about 60 cents per running foot at the local Home Depot. Jon..As much as this is going to sound like a kick in the sack, I really mean it with no personal animosity towards you. America's forests are far superior now than when the first white people ever set foot on this grand old spot of dirt known as the US of A, so the tree hugger argument is not only factually incorrect, but just plain old tired. There is nothing MAN MADE that is cheaper to build with than using the ONLY RENEWABLE resource known as wood. Unless we all go back to mud huts and grass skirts, we'll be growing trees and then cutting them down to make stuff with.

Jennifer & Jsykes, Here are some of what we know from our experience in the interior cleaning business. FWIW, we perform quite a lot of this type of work, and while it can be lucrative, it can be equally maddening as RyanH can attest to I'm sure. Here are the highlights: It is a very tough market to crack Residential construction cleaning generally does not pay enough to make buying the gas to get there worthwhile. Commercial construction cleaning work requires deep contacts, big insurance, experience and exceptional service to keep the contracts coming in. Rates can vary wildly depending on the region you are in, the work you do, and the clients you serve, so attempting to compare what is normal for us would be futile. Regular commercial janitorial work can be hideously cheap and the cutthroats are there waiting for you at every turn.

Rick, Glad to see we are all on the good side now :) Anyway, the concept of wood replacement vs. wood stipping and the relative cost effectiveness of one vs. the other is not a difficult concept to grasp really. Using the deck you highlighted in the beginning as an example, we'll go with some basline assumptions just for the ease of argument: Let's assume that the deck in question is 750 sq ft of floor and all we are going to mess with is the floor. We are going along that there are no handrails or stairs..(keeping it simple) We'll further go that Removall is the product of choice and your cost is about $50.00 per gallon. Coverage is about 150 sf/gl so this floor will eat up all 5 gallons on the first application. There's 250 clams. Now add the time to apply, leave, come back tomorrow and strip..another 2 days shot to hell. Now.. because it's acrylic, 3 layers deep, and just a pain in the can, you have to go through al this again, because the first go round didn't quite get it all well enough that you can cover it with say... Ready Seal... another $550.00 Ok..now you are in this for 4 days work, and still have to brighten, defur(maybe) and stain.. another combined day's labor plus materials.. OK.. so now we have total time invested..somewhere in the 5 day minimum range, close to $700.00 in materials, gas, supplies, and misc. stuff. and a deck that you have killed yourself over..You are going to have to charge close to $4000.00 to make this even close to worthwhile...and still might not get it to look great. Compare the cost of replacing the boards... P/T deck boards run about a dollar a foot.. so for about $1000 in wood and nails and a full day labor you can get the deck looking great again.. Come back in a month when the wood has dried, safewash, brighten, stain... voila! same amount of cash, but half the headache.

Rick, Pam did not write the note, I did.... see the signature line on the end of the post.. At any rate.. I have read the whole post and I stand by my statement. If it does not apply to you that's ok, the thoughts I wrote were ramblings and perceptions gathered from the tone (as I read it) from the post in general and not directed to any one person in particular. Directy to you though I say this. Re-skinning is, as has been mentioned above, a removal of all the horizontal wood and subsequent replacement. Yes it is expensive. Yes it is labor intensive. Yes it takes some man hours to complete. But the other side of the argument is that you can spend the same money and at least as much time whacking your head against this proverbial brick wall, and still have a crappy looking deck that you might end up having to cover with some type of film former. Where's the logic? Removing acrylic isn't easy. Neither is it cheap. In this case there probably is no cost effective way to serve your client short of offering a re-skin or as has obviously happened prior, reapplying some type of solid color film forming stain. The point here is that you are right. Bad prep, poor product choice, and **** poor maintenance is the bane of a deck guy's existance. You didn't create the problem, you are just there to solve it. The homeowner, as much as we like to call them friends, and in many cases do actually become our ('our' is used in the collective here) friends, are counting on us to educate and guide them to the next decision. It costs what it costs, and we are the guys they need to 'fix' it. Give 'em the lowdown.. Most film formers suck, some hack ruined the deck, and you have choices A or B to do it right. Choice A is expensive, labor intensive, and offers no suitable guarantee of results. Choice B is expensive, labor intensive, but offers a tremendous outcome and a long happy life. The choice is clear and you get paid either way.

Random intemperate thoughts sure to haunt me....... Removall 310 works exactly as advertized if not better..personal experience..Hangs on verticals just fine when mixed all the way through and applied with a brush or high knap roller. Cheap and good don't come in the same box.. Stripping acrylic isn't supposed to be easy..that's why it's acrylic..for durability. Wrapping the wood in a thin layer of plastic is the desired effect. Re-skinning the deck is probably a more cost effective alternative, depending on what stain you are going back with. It costs a hundred bucks an hour a plumber and that's highway robbery, but a hundred buck an hour for a pressure washer guy is ok?? Back to lurking...

Paul, Your sales tips are absolutely true. If more guys focused on listening they would undoubtedly close more deals. Mike W., GPS is a large company here that uses subcontractors to complete a portion of work they sell. In 3 years I have only seen one van with their lettering on it, so I know they do exist, just not sure how many are actually on the road. I have spoken to at least one of their sub-contractors and according to him, they pay a whopping 40% to the sub and the sub pays all expenses. For the math challenged, this particular gentleman is paying for gas, bleach (that's what he uses for house wash...occasionally a bit of sodium hydroxide if the dirt is real bad :rolleyes: ), and equipment with the $40.00 he just made off the $100.00 house wash. He also told me that he's riding thier insurance because he has none of his own. As for ad rates, I cannot even begin to guess what it costs for air time with the Talkmaster.. :eek: :eek:

Good points all.... It is refreshing to see that there are so many here that I share similar political belifs with. Go Boortz ! :) Republicans are impotent, spineless, wussies afraid to stand up for what they say they belive in. Ready to cave in at a moments notice, they stand guard like straw men at the helm of our freedoms. Democrats are liars bent on the destruction of the individual, the advancement of the Republik, and the implementation Communist Manifesto. And they fight like hell to achieve their goals. Guess who's winning? Ok.. it's off topic, but I feel better anyway :)

Concrete pool deck or wood pool deck?

Based on your previous posts concerning the vastly superior level of service you provide your clients, the rates that correspond to same, and the stance you take on both, it is a bit ironic that this question even arises. To answer the question directly, I am of the same opinion as Reed. Cedar looks so much better when you take the time to sand or defelt all that is reasonably possible.

Don is correct. The 600 psi ballvalve you are looking at will fail virtually instantly. At the very least it places a very unsafe component in your loop. High pressure ball valves are available at just about any mail/web order pw supply house or if you are looking locally, Sun Brite Supply over in Lawrenceville has them in stock.

Poor performance by previous contractors is the lament of any service professional, be it PW'ing, plumbing, electrical or any other trade. Case in point, When we did this job, the client had previously paid another 'pressure washer' for a wash job. The before photo is self explanatory. The after photo is what we were able to achieve in fairly short order with the proper equipment and detergents. Clearly, the results of one's efforts come down to workmanship, experience, diligence, and pride in one's craft. Those who constantly work towards being nothing less than spectacular in their work will soon find that they have more than enough work to do. Don't worry so much about the lowballers, they will pop up and then fade away every season just like the dandelions. To be sure you want to keep an eye on them but in the longrun they are nothing more than weeds and nothing you can buy will get rid of 'em. Patience, though, will prove them gone soon enough.

Philip, Check your PM's, or better yet, give me a call. 770-318-1032 Cujo

Going into this with the mindset of a prospective power wash client here is what I found.... Good news........ Excellent graphics. Very cool flow to the banner and main page. Well laid out and easy to find stuff on the page. Page invites participation. Nicely done. Stuff that needs work.... The links in the image gallery are inoperative. Strike 1 - You invite folks to look at your work, but you don't have any. The links to customer feed back are also dead. Strike 2 - I cannot read any client testimonials because you don't have any and if I were a satisfied client I cannot tell the world about it. It took forever for the page to load (I'm on dialup). Swing and Foul ball. Yes, even in the sprawling metropolis of Atlanta there are still folks like me who cannot get high speed for less than $100.00 per month. So I suffer and put up with it. Had I really been a prospect, I would have probably ditched the connection and gone. You advertize blasting away with extreme high pressure hot water. Strike 3 - As a savvy homeowner I know that you are going to tear my house to toothpicks if you come and thrash at it with whatever your "extreme high hot pressure" is. I want the guy who uses just enough pressure to do the job and doesn't boil the paint off in the process. I never got past the home page due to the load speed and again, as a prospect, the site was shot down after strike 3. Hope this helps your marketing effort. Cujo

Beth, We have a similar deck coming up and are considering using HD-80 as a stripper. HD-80 is not in our standard product line. Good pics.. They seem to answer the question of removal with no doubt. What kind of furring, if any, do you experience with this? We have not used HD-80 before and want to know what we are in for on a job of this magnitude. Thanks, Cujo

It has been my understanding that Ready Seal is already in compliance with the new VOC laws (except perhaps in California, where everything is banned :) ) with no reformulation necessary...

Tractor Supply keeps them on the shelf here... probably have plenty at the warehouse for internet purchases.. Hope this helps, Cujo