plainpainter

I know for a fact that with multiple chemical applications and brushing - I can even remove artillery fungus. Or with a litte sodium hydroxide and TSP and brushing along with high pressure - I can take off all the oxidation off of vinyl making it paint 'ready'. But to be practical for most cosmetic type washing I do now a days - I don't see the need for brushing. Jeff - I know exactly how you feel, I am right there with you in thinking that if the customer perceives you doing a better job - then you make more money. But I personally would hate going back to my older methods because my clients are second guessing my professionalism. If I can get a house clean, then what does it matter if I brush or not? I will say this - the reason why most homeowners ask if you brush - is because alot of the hacks have been doing a terrible job lately. I am just finding out that they pressure wash homes without brushing - and the homes have mildew growing back like gang busters in as little as 3 months. This is why homeowners, at least in my area, have the perception that brushing is better. Selling them on brushing is one way of getting around this. Selling them on professionalism and guaranteed results is another. I'd rather do 8 house washes in 4 days - and then schedule some profitable deck restorations for the other days - along with some fishing in between.

I agree with you about perception, Jeff. But what I've noticed is that the customers that say, 'you brush, don't you?' tend to be the most condescending disprespectful folks I run into. I don't want those customers. The other day I washed a house - I will post pics - it was the hardest house I've washed so far - I didn't brush, but it took 3-1/2 hrs plus 45 minutes of setting up and breakdown. And the guy paid me nearly 5 bills - and told me an honest day's pay for an honest days' work as he handed me the check. He was not only grateful - he was almost indebted to me, in a way similar if you served a homeless person a bowl of hot chilli on a cold winter night. He never asked about brushing - only was thankful about the results. I understand your position Jeff - and if that works, great. I just think there are other avenues of selling than doing extra physical work that don't yield better results, unless you are prepping vinyl to be painted. I can do 2 house washes in the same time it takes you to do one house wash - with all the drive time included. I would just like you to see you market differently - do half the work - and make twice as much money. I kind of think you selling 'brushing' is kind of like guys in my area selling 'hot' water. What this boils down to Jeff, the 'brushing' thing is basically about jealousy. A homeowner might take 2 weeks or more to wash their 2 story home. With downstreaming you can do the same job in 1-2 hours. Folks get mad because they think you are making 'easy' money - that why should you make $500 for an hour of work? And brushing a home - is showing the homeowner that indeed you are breaking your back to wash their home. This is why I market to a different mindset. People that want my service, want the ease of mind that stuff will come clean, don't want any equipment on their property other than 2 hoses, and want me in and out as fast as possible. These people aren't in competition with me salary wise - they don't care if I gross $500/hr. They understand this is business - I have a friend that can take down 100 yr. old silver maple, haul away everthing, and chip the stump - and do everything in 2 hours flat! Does that mean he only charge $40/hr for those 2 hours? He is giving folks a service of speed, efficiency, and safety. They pay several thousands of dollars for his 2 hours - and are not jealous of the money he makes either. They understand that his 2 hours of work is worlds apart than their 2 hours at the office.

Why not tell the customer that you 'brush' - put a brush on a pole - and then use it for those annoying spots that don't come out easily? I for one don't want to go back to brushing - I use to do that for pre-paint prep with my exterior repaints - but I had pump jacks and scaffolding set up on all four sides, along with ladders, 5 gallon buckets of solution, pump up sprayers, man gives me nightmares! What does it matter what method we use, as long as we're professionals? This goes back to justifying to the customer the particulars of your process. Like softwashing, no pressure roof washing, etc. These are all done to differentiate ourselves from the 'hacks'. But hopefully one day, customers won't care what we do, as long as we get the job done. Why should a professional have to tell consumers the nitty gritty of our process? If we're professionals, we will be doing things correctly. Now Brushing is a great way to clean stuff up with lower chem concentrations. If you want to sell that to chemically conscience folks - that I think would work. But my housewash mix which is basically a rip-off of Bob from PTSTATE has never done harm to any landscape whatsover. I have never had any bad side effects - it's a proven process. I still have painter friends with pump up spayers, 5 gallon buckets chained up to the top of their ladders with deck scrubbers - buring vegetation all the time! I know guys that have stopped using chems altogether! Downstreaming has been so succesful - why go back? Like I said - tell 'em you brush, and if they see you not brushing, tell 'em that you brush - but that doesn't mean you brush everything! Just the pesky spots.

How about all those citizens that were lifelong republicans talking about how all they wanted to do was put in an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. I'm sorry - those folks weren't 'whiners' as McCain so eloquently put it. They were hard working Americans who thought republicans best represented them. They aren't looking for handouts from the Dem's - they just realize that Democrats are about fairness. They realize that when you increase the debt 'ceiling' and spending - that you have indeed increased taxes, perhaps not now - but at some point someone is going to pay for this war. And they realized how the republicans finally got their control of both the congress and the presidency - and all they got for it was big business interests being represented, good jobs exported overseas, loss of employment benefits - and 3 months of severance for 25 years of loyal service to a company. It's sad that so many here have this staunchly republican attitudes of 'rugged' individualism, and not depending on anyone. This is crazy. We're human beings, we need the help of each other in a society that maintains a high degree of solidarity - without the fundamentals of society, of helping each other - we would still be hanging from tree tops flinging cr@p at each other. Government shouldn't be big - but there should be government to maintain the control - I for one am done with unfettered capitalism and deregulation and trickle down economies - all proven failures. Anyone who still maintains these beliefs just doesn't accept facts - instead they believe in fiction. I read someone refer to global warming as 'nonsense' on ptstate!!!!!! Just because a highly corrupt presidency that wants to rape our nations resources wants to make believe global warming is fiction - doesn't make it so. The facts are in, anyone who still thinks global warming is a myth might as well believe the earth is flat at this point. The assault and disrespet of the Sciences is the one main reason the republicans have lost my vote for all time.

My neighbor across the street who has a son that served in the first gulf war and 3 tours as a marine this time - said O'bama has his vote. He really likes Mitt. I am meeting more and more guys that use to be staunchly republican, that are now switching over. All that Republican Rag time crap that filled the airwaves finally is dawning on many folks as being just a heap of lies. For the great majority of Bush's terms we had a republican controlled congress, supreme court, and presidency. So folks are now understanding what it really means when republicans are in control and all their heretic theories of trickle down economics and deregulation is just one big god awful mess. Buh Bye Republicos........ The Plainpainter's forecast for the '08 elections......texas will go 'Blue' this time around! GOBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rod - don't bother trying, republican ditto heads simply don't want to listen to facts. I mean take the whole 'liberal' press thing - you know the guys that own CBS, Viacom&Infinity Broadcast, and I know we both know that Viacom is a Socialist kind of company at it's core. Or ABC owned by Walt Disney - another obious 'Socialist' Company in Republican's clothing. And of course who can forget the owners of NBC - another claimed 'liberal' press station - who other than GE - another obvious pinko commie company to it's core. I mean come on - anyone who can be led to believe in the existence of a 'liberal' press, when all the owners of said liberal press are the giants of Capitalism - seriously needs some head examination. Oh yeah so called 'Tax & Spend' Democrats - should be changed over to Tax & Spend Republicans - they have increased spending far more than any previous presidency in history. And don't go telling me they've lowered your taxes - any administration that has increased spending and debt has indeed raised your taxes, even if you aren't paying them. A LOAN FROM CHINA IS NOT A TAX CUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

email me your exact mix - I took off the same finish off of fir baluster last year - I'll tell you how I did it. The only problem was that even though I got that behr acrylic finish off like it was nothing - there was a whole lot of Fur'ing goin' on! So lot of De-Fur'ing of the Fir followed.

Great work Jon. Did you think of using my recipe for stripping?

shoot for 3 grand.

I like this ticket - Biden ain't gonna take any rag-time crap coming out of any republican's mouth - he will be force behind burying any swift-boat wannabe's from smearing Obama. Obama needs to stay above the frey - Biden will be the scrappy dog that pulverizes all the idiocy from the right.

Here is a picture of shop of my friend's shop. He does boat canvas, signs, and truck lettering work. His place was really bad looking - so I decided to help him 'spruce' it up. But we decided not to be finicky about it. I went over as a first pass with my turbo nozzle to remove as much paint as possible - then I used a pump up sprayer and mixed efc-38 at 8 ozs./gallon to clean up the wood - then low pressure rinsed. My next goal was to abandon all my knowledge of oil based primers and such - and totally go over to the 'dark' side with newer technology products. This particular primer is an elastomeric waterbourne primer - has absolutely no pigment in it - you can add up to 4 ozs. per gallon. It has the property that it goes on thick 10-20 mils, fills in all the irregularities, tons of mildewcides, tons of rust prevention - and has a 'stretch' factor of 1500%. These photos show that I used one gallon of this primer tinted yellow and the last photo showing the right part of the building of the same primer but tinted white. This stuff costs $70/gallon and is totally space age.

I don't know many floor Sanders that would want to F' up their sanders on popping nails - good luck!

I thought 633ADD was their booster surfactant?

Rod - were you a 'Unix' guy in a past life?

Man - western MA seems like the middle of nowhere to me - I couldn't stand being that far away from the ocean.

Rick from springfield, ma - a fellow 'm*******' - Rick does western mass get pummelled as bad as eastern ma?

Is it my imagination or does that deck look like in good shape? Was that stain olympic maximum? If so - maintain that finish, don't strip it! That's a good product! That's more like 2 cups of household bleach in a gallon of water and a little surfactant - maybe just a tad of TSP to break up the surface tension, as the water sill looks like it is beading. And then apply a maintenance coat.

Oh god - I am starting to have nightmares about winter - that regular on time 5 month mandatory layoff every year.

My friend just called to tell me that she had to put her 10 year old pooch down yesterday. That's the thing I hate about pets - you F'ing love the dumb stupid cute cuddly little creatures - then you have to say goodbye to them after only 10-12 years. It's heartbreaking everytime!

Well what would be spookier still is that if somehow in this genetic cloning that 'memories' somehow got passed on. Although I don't think it's possible and for that lady to say that the dog 'knows' her is completely insane. It may be a genetic duplicate - but it's a tabula rasa as far as that pooch's mind goes.

Matt - I sent you a very lengthy pm - but I bet you can appreciate this - I didn't 'neutralize' after washing with efc-38. It finishes dang close to neutral anyways - and this being a waterbourne finish is tolerant of surface ph's of up to 11. So no need to be extra careful as if putting on an oil based finish.

And here is a pic of the place with one coat of exterior trim paint - and one coat of latex solid stain - less than one gallon covered that whole front - that's how great this primer is. What I am really proud about the project is that I did absolutely no scraping, no grinding, no sanding - and by embracing newer methods and newer products - the finished product came out as good as anything as I have done before with less than 1/4th the normal work involved. And the filling aspect of this primer really allowed the topcoat to be spread a great distance and maintain coverage.

I've only been washing homes recently - nothing you can do in this weather. I don't bother watching the weather channel anymore - I figure it will just be raining probably - And I am usually right.

Do a search - you'll find plenty of info on pricing. Man this industry needs the same sort of book pricing that mechanics have latched onto - this question keeps getting repeated over and over and over again.

This was a home I washed in the pouring rain, in the 50's, with cold water using a wild cherry mix. Low pressure all the way baby - the stuff that separates the boys from the men. The befores....