plainpainter

Now I have been using a certain vendors' product for staining my decks - and I have noticed some decks come out black as coal the next year. I've brought it up with him on his forum - and basically read me the riot act how mildewcides don't do anything to prevent mildew growth on the surface That being said - I believe him - it's what has been taught to me by other represenatives and chemists in other firms. That a mildewcide is only good during curing process so mildew spores that attach to the still wet coating won't have a chance to grow into the curing stain. And of course there is the issue of new mildew strains - that I have personally witnessed myself in the last year. But I still have this nagging feeling that other stains don't go 'black'. I want to continue using this persons' stain as it has been good to me in other regards. But I have store bought stain 3+ years old on covered porches with absolutely no blackness. I have a covered deck porch where I totally restored last summer and ground off 10 layers of paint down to fresh wood - and it's totally black now. So is this luck of the draw? Is it true that mildewcides have no effect on regrowth on the surface? Is it my imagination that other stains have performed without going black? Is it that you just get unlucky with some locations? I want to tell homeowners that there is nothing that can be done to prevent blackness - that is has nothing to do with the coating. As this manu. brought up - afterall vinyl homes get mildew growth - which is totally true! And vinyl isn't food for mildew. Yet somehow I still have this nagging feeling - that something can be done - and has been done with stains of the past to prevent them from going black. thoughts anyone?

They are beautiful animals, I've sailed with a buddy of mine last summer a mile off shore from Crane's Beach - and saw a whole school of those suckers jumping clear out of the water and then back in. Very fast powerful swimmers!

$460/SQ! God damn! That is easy money. Everytime I was bidding roofing - every cheap hillbilly and his illegitimate son showed up. Although last time I was at the lumber yard I asked him about shingle pricing - 30 yr. architectural was going for $20/bundle. The guy laughed at me - I think he said it's somewhere around $30-35 now, is that possible? Don't tempt me with the cape cod offer - But I have some work for this week into next - and after I am free. But I don't know how much I can help - other than it possibly just a job for paint stripper?

Welcome to New England, Beth. I've had folks with much worse - multiple layers of paint - wanting it all gone with a semi-oil look - and didn't want to pay alot of money.

Rick If I can get sherwin williams oil based toner off - you can get that stuff off. Just 'boost' your stripper. What do you use to boost with? And then apply one, two, three coats via pump up or shurflo with loads of dwell. Anything that remains will be a easy sand.

This is a customer who tried to initially do the deck themselves - having purchased the Sherwin system of cleaner and brightener - and then used this stain per recommendation from a carpenter.

Hey Rick - just think of Painters as Job Security. I don't know much about the Sikkens product line - other than they are suppose to have a great reputation. Many folks swear by their products. Do you think that product on ipe fared any worse than many of the well known brands would have? Personally you know my opinion of relatively new wood. I'd rather homeowners hire my competition and put something like sikkens siding stain on it. You said it's 6 months old and the painter applied at month 3, correct? I actually think that's a perfect setup for a restoration type job next spring. I wouldn't want to touch 3 month old wood. I don't think anything truly works well with wood that new.

I have to go strip a customer applied ultra thick Sherwin Williams oil based deckscapes decking stain done a month ago. I don't know what crazy person's figment of imagination this product is based on - but this is a scary MOFO of stain! And it's ugly too! I use a store bought degreaser as a 'proxy' stripper for doing test spots. It gives me a good idea of what I can and can't do. An miraculously - it was just barely able to strip the Sherwin and this black dark remnant crap underneath it as well - but it needed 4 applications and brushing before a hose could rinse it off. So I put the order for the first time in my life of butyl on monday - coming in today - 2 days late on the job. But I am between a rock and hard place - this job is on the verge of needing a true paint stripper - it's going to be a hot brew today to get this stuff off! Customer has no idea of the ensuing miracles I am about to conduct - they're just worried about the barbecue on monday. Life as a 'woodie'

All we need now is milk and cookies.

Bull $hit you are making $85/hr after expenses quoting pricing like that. Your work must be awful - so your hourly gross receipts is approximately $100/hr {considering materials is roughly 15%} Your decks must have more 'fur' than a Wooly Mammoth.

Everyone was giving kudos to D.J. and how great he was doing business. It's this kid Charlie that in my opinion whom deserves all the kudos!!!! This kid is really getting top dollar for his work! I wish I could that for my pricing.

John - I've stripped many decks - many very hard to strip decks. The mix I used was extra strong. But that characteristic 'brown' you see as strippers 'bite' into the old finish just wasn't there on this stuff. You could see how it was sticking to the wood like gum - like I said - the stripper was dislodging it - but at some point as I turned on both machines through the same gun, this ended up not being what you could honestly call 'low' pressure stripping.

Trust me - the thought crossed my mind.

I came, I saw, I conquered - but man what a flagrant *****! Elevated 14x18 deck - decided just to use a pump up, didn't want to get stripper all over the painted siding. I used HD-80 at full strength and spiked it with antifreeze and extra surfactants. I doused the deck with the pump in hot sun and then let it sit while I cleaned gutters. Then I came a half hour later after it dried and hit it again. Washed the deck - and then hit the floor again. Used 6 gallons of stripper through a pump up sprayer. then I made 4 gallons of efc-38 at full strength - and emptied that on the whole deck right over the third application of stripper - let it sit a while. then connected both my machines together to get more flow - and washed the deck off again. Then finally brightened. Finally the deck looked decent - this stain was applied so thick it was like pine tree sap that kept dropping on the deck. And in some ways I don't think the stripper truly dissolved the stuff - just made unbuckle so it could get knocked off. I couldn't wait for the shipment of butyl -- so I made do with antifreeze, I wonder if the butyl would have been better? Some of the overspray got on my skin - the fine mist and it was like getting bit by a thousand bees. For future strip jobs like this, I am going to consider a job for stripper cream - and it's going to be surcharged a minimum of 25-50% more money. this was the hardest strip of my life. I've stripped latex paint easier than this! What a gummy oozy mess. And to boot this guy's carpenter recommended the product!!!!!!!

Trust me - it's easy to over do it, even with downstreaming. I've heard guys in the past talk about how you have to squeeze every last drop of bleach into 5'er just to get some decent bleach strength on a house. Firstly when you have a great 'soap' that is synergistic with your bleach - the strength of your bleach is magnified. Secondly you barely have to go above 50% of your bucket in bleach to get great cleaning action. I made the mistake once of using my all my ratios but instead of putting it into a 5'er - I put it into some 'quikrete' bucket which isn't as large. And it killed the worst mold, mildew, algae in less than 5 seconds - it's action was way too strong. I could have cleaned dryvit/stucco with that mix. I am at the point where the only thing I can't clean with a downstreamer is patios made of composite decking and roofs. I can clean just about everything else. The downstreamer is my friend!

I eased into this business over many years. I worked for painting contractors washing and staining decks back in the 90's. Years of probing of how much stuff costs - what folks are paying. Then years as my own painting contractor and doing decks here and there, but not as a specialty. Until now when it is my specialty. I guess what I really don't like is guys in unrelated fields jumping into a field that in my opinion really needs apprenticeship. There is a guy here, Rick Petry, that employs two college kids - they are learning the 'ropes' each summer over several years. That's the exact education you need in this business to first perform the job - then a mentor to guide you through on the actual business of marketing, sales, pricing. Why would a contractor here want to help you for pricing?? You haven't shown any aptitude for actual wood cleaning - you are like many landscapers I know that get dangerous with a wand in their hand. Personally I wouldn't price your work at more than a $1/SF for cleaning and staining including materials - and that's only the area of the floor, for perhaps the kind of abusive handyman kind of work that you do. You only get top pricing in this industry after many years and decks underneath your belt. Just remember - folks who ask their landscaper to blast their deck and stain it - aren't the kind of folks looking to spend a lot of money. They are looking for handyman quality work at landscapers pricing. So it's time to take your helping of 'humble' pie. And if you so choose to use the next few years as a learning curve on deck restoration. Heck there was a time I did decks cheap as well - perhaps most of us have - it also wasn't the quality of work I do now either. Guys that graduate college with a computer science degree can't expect to make 150k doing software engineering until they have had many years experience. And neither can a landscaper with no real 'woodie' experience command the same pricing as the many excellent contractors here who have been in business for years.

Ken, didn't you know that you can't teach a gutterdog new tricks?

So help me out fellow Grime Scener's, what is the motivation behind being a 'reasonably' priced contractor? I did an estimate the other day for a homeowner to wash their home and clean out their gutters - they had some 3 feet tall grasses growing out of these things. And here is a guy that supposedly been in business for 33 years, has a rig - pencils a price on the backside of a business card for 60% less than my bid. Now I don't think I was at all expensive. But this guy tooted his horn to these homeowners and wears the 'Reasonably' priced like it was some sort of badge of honor. And I am really dumbfounded by this behaviour, not that I am worried about this guy taking my business away - he can go do his 25 mile one way drives with his entire rig to meet a customer to bid 4-5 hours of hard work for less than $300 for all I care - he's just a sprained ankle away from being nothing - oh yeah, 33 years in business and no assistants. That's another 'badge' of honor - he's a one man band and doesn't have all the overhead of a larger company. Is it me - or is this cerebral hemorrhaging of basic business sense just getting old? At least take a kid like D.J. Carrol - yeah sure I'd like to throttle him from time to time. But you got to give the kid credit, even if there is one last nickel left on the table, you can be sure he'll grab it faster than a tightwad Scottish Highlander. And I can admire that. Is it that these guys lack a sense of self worth or accomplishment in their lives - and this is the way to make up for it? By being 'Reasonably' priced?

I don't have a relative down there, that I know of - I don't believe any of my family is in Connecticut.

I got plenty of work, Adrian. I am not sweating things. I have no idea who these folks will choose. Nor do I care - they even had one kid, who says he gets up on a ladder and brushes everything and uses hot water. And these were young homeowners - and the guy said he was clueless as to the whole process. I gave him my whole spiel and upsold a few services for no additional cost. I basically gave him the rundown to make sure a guy is insured, which I don't think he is, but that stuff goes right over the head of some of these homeowners. I even told the guy - how do you even afford marketing with such a low price, and he said 'Referrals' - I shook his hand and told him to have a great day. Some folks just don't get it. Anyways - more to the point - why do you want to be the 'reasonably' priced guy? What is the pshychology behind this? Right now I am working with another painter in my area that has an extremely sound business - and I am discussing how I want to funnel all my exterior painting leads to him - and in return I want him to standardize his pricing practices and up his price to the point he only wins 25% of all the estimates. I want nothing in return - other than eventually he gives me his 'small' jobs. But to the point - I have a strategy to increase the price in my area, even it means giving it to another contractor. Because in the end it's a win-win for all contractors involved.

I won't touch cement for residential for a measly $0.10/SF. That's a joke! Doesn't sound like with your equipment that you have a surface cleaner anyways. I know an extremely successful landscaper - and his problem is trying to grow his operations quickly enough to meet demand. I am certainly not one to give business away - but pressure washing is whole new skillset, set of responsibilities, and head aches. It really requires alot of your energy. I would sit down and decide if you really want to grow in that direction - or refocus on what you know best and grow your landscaping. The problem you will find is that you can do either just a small bit of washing on the side - or you have to go full bore - with damned little in between.

Nothing hotter than the 'Tambasco' Sauce for stripping decks.

In retrospect I think having 4 of these boards with one treatment each would have been better. I don't know about the bleach drop test - as that could take out color even without any mildew? All in all the whole board looks pretty clean to me

...is calling me today, phone is ringing off the hook!!!!! Thank God!

I am thinking of working in a call-to-action for follow up calls. Like, Hi Mr. & Mrs. So and so, I enjoyed meeting with you and presenting you with a proposal for your job. I'd love to go over any questions that you may have as soon as possible and get you on board - we just signed another customer and slots are filling up fast - and we would really like if you were on board as well. I think all of us contractors should find more ways to deal from a better position of power. I'd rather increase my marketing four fold, cut my crew in half, and really cherry pick the very best customers out there. Too many of us have fewer leads than required sales to even fill a year of work up.