plainpainter

First I want to publicly thank Jarrod for his method of spraying balusters with an airless using tarps -flipping back and forth to get both sides without overspray. I did my first deck a couple of days ago with this method - and man - I would have been there forever or lost alot of money on a worker. My airless was like having two extra hands - using my brush every spindle method. It's funny how a worker will never let you know how many hundreds of dollars per week you are flushing down the toilet on them. I love all the methods I have learned here for becoming more and more efficient. I think I would have to gross way over the 6 figure mark - before needing any help. Upselling is also huge - I went to give a quote to wash this house, game 'em a $400 quote, but then gave 'em a quote of $225 to brush the gutters and another $800 to restore and stain deck. A job that took me a total of 9 hours grossed me $1,425. I can easily do that 3 times a week and still go fishing - Man - I love seeing all my neigbors who hired these cheap crews with their 7 guys painting for a week and half and only charging like 7 g's. God those contractors must hate money - cause they ain't making any!

My local pressure washer/Landa outlet has a new 275 gallon poly tank for sale. The thing is, it is square shaped as opposed to cylindrical. I don't know if there was any advantage to certain shapes - I just don't see these square shape water/chem tanks too often, but the price seems right. And I would think it would be more efficient use of area on my trailer. Any thoughts?

I still have to work on the atomization, my machine came with .017" tips - but is rated to be used up to a .019" tip. Even at the lowest pressure setting I was still getting atomization - and potential overspray that could settle on a car. So I bought a .019" tip and a .021" tip - so I will see on the next jobs how those do. Hey Beth - I have a gallon of that California Hardwood oil deck stain - I will be sending to you shortly, it's the stain I used on this deck - I think you will love it - the only problem, it's so loaded with fungicides - it really smells, so you have to use gloves and a respirator.

with my recipe a total of 5 oz of sodium hydroxide in that 2 gallon pump up would have stripped that deck down to the bone. Go get some premixed stuff - you're way overdoing it. I had a similar experience as you - trust me sodium hydroxide mixed stronger and stronger won't achieve very much if you don't add the right chemicals to it - other than severely burning your wood.

Looks great, but how come it took you multiple strips? What chems did you use?

Here are some pics a customer sent to me through email, so I could give her quote. Let me know what you think in terms of estimating - and I will tell you how I fared plus the after photos. What I did was make one trip to do a test strip after I gave her an initial estimate that she was happy with. Second trip, I stripped the deck, third trip - sanded all the surfaces, stained, and collected my last check.

It was an average strip - 5 year old cabots aussi oil finish - I made 2-1/4 gallons of my stripper - applied with pump up - let dwell for 15 minutes and went to town - then I downstreamed oxalic to brighten it. I can't just not sand these decks, well I have not sanded a new 1 year old deck. But I'd rather just make a bunch of decks look real nice - and then cherry pick customers a year from now with upselling and stuff. I think I could get more efficient with sanding with better tools - although that random orbital sander is no ordinary sander! That thing is heavy duty - it has a side handle, because you need two hands. As well I think I could get more efficient with a sprayer for all the railings. But I was by myself - and just wanted to see how much work I could get out of myself. Using a 6 inch staining brush was much faster on the spindles than using previous 2-1/2 inch cutting china brushes. And the sanding took sometime - but the railings were splintering - I figured I planted a 'seed' in another community for future jobs.

That deck is 13 feet by 20 feet, along with that 4 x 4 area that precedes the stairway - with 7 steps each 4 feet long by a foot wide - didn't do all the skirts - perhaps about 24 feet worth of skirting. And about 70 feet worth or railing - and you have the pics to see what kind of balustrade. Anyways - I did that job for $1,200. What do you think?

I think the main deck is something like 13x20 feet. I brushed everything, including the floors by hand. I didn't break out the sprayer - I always think it will be a pain - but maybe I should have. All surfaces got sanded.

yeah it was - This lady had no idea the job was going to be so nice. I think if she had known - she probably would have done everything. I still think the job was super nice. I am hoping I can get a customer base there - so in the future I will be commuting for like 2-3 jobs not just 1. It's real nice to be working in those neck of the woods.

Ok - to give the rundown, there was the initial time I spent over email with this lady. Then the first day to do a spot test, 1-1/4 hour commute each way plus an hour doing my strip test and selling to the customer. Day #1 hours spent, 3.5hrs. Second day, same commute, 3 hours stripping, cleaning, and brightening. Day #2 hours spent, 5.5 hrs. Day #3 - Sanded everything down - even sanded all the spindles by hand with 40 grit, and then brushed out the whole deck by hand - the remainder of my wtw container is 16lbs - either I have 2 gallons left or I subtract out 2 lbs for the container - since shipping weight is 42 lbs. So say - I used 3.25 gallons of stain - that was brushed, so no waste. That took 5.5 hrs to sand and stain, another half to clean up and collect check, same commute. So that was 8.5 hrs. A total of 17.5 hrs including commute dedicated to this project - or 18 hours factoring time spent over email and figuring a quote. I used Russel's method of estimating total sq. footage. And applied Fenner's pricing. So what y'all think?

Here are 3 pics of the porch stained with WTW Wester Red Cedar. The homeowner didn't want to pay for the trellis to be worked on - thus I didn't do that work.

No - this ain't a thread about a new deck job. It's about my first deck I ever did with the woodtux product that I did last september. I had a chance to check the deck while the customer called back for something else. Looked no different than the day I put it on - and that's 10 months ago. But I did put it on thick - it was still shiny on all the summer grain. I kind of like that thick varnished look too - kind of like Sikkens. But no trace whatsoever of wear even on the stair treads. Anyone else like the alternative to matte/flat look for decking stains? Perhaps this is a way to get a stain to last real long - put it on real thick! Anyways take it for what it is worth - but looking at that deck, and my own that I did only 4 months prior to that - they are worlds apart - my deck finish is already all gone, different product - as well put on real thin so it was just matte. Actually all my verticals are still looking great - but horizontals, just totally wiped out.

Shane - if you did work in New England, you would have to trash the 'slate' gray stain. And tell bakers to come up with a 'Cape Cod' gray. That's the color we use around here for shakes. That and a product Cabot's makes called 'Bleaching' Oil. That is big time popular here. Only the front of the house is typically 'painted' with either paint or solid colored stain.

Shane - I want to hold off - so I can get more feedback as to what others think. Anyways - here are photos of the deck stripped, brightened, and sanded. I sanded all the railings, decking and outsides of the balustrades with my portercable in the picture with 40 grit pads - I hand sanded the inner parts of all the balustrades by hand with 40 grit sandpaper. Mind you - this deck work didn't include any of the trellis - she didn't want to pay for that.

No shane - that is New Englad traditional. That house is in Rockport, MA - right on the very tip of Cape Anne. If you go out of her driveway and turn left - you are a minute walk from the Beach - it's absolutely beautiful there.

Here are the last two photos my customer sent me through email of her deck.

Downy concentrate - the extra strong downy. Apply that from a pump up sprayer- keep saturating - but no puddles either - 30 minutes later - you will be blasting that stuff off.

Here is another clue...most latex paints formulated today are formulated to be 'breathable' - i.e. tiny passages that lead from one side of the paint film to the other side. With the right surfactant and caustic - you can get it through those tiny little pores. That and the wood in those photos aren't primed - so I'd say Zinnser Diff would probably have no trouble lifting that stuff off. Get yourself some Downy fabric softener - concentrate - put one capful to a gallon of water and a 1/2 cup of TSP - use very warm water to dissolve the TSP. Bring your pump to the job soak the latex - but no puddles either - keep drenching for 20-30 minutes - then you will see it curl off the wood.

You wanna know how to strip anything under the sun - just repeat these three words - Surfactant - Surfactant - Surfactant - I could strip that deck easy, and not use one molecule of Sodium Hydroxide, and nothing more costly than pennies per sq. foot.

So the plan was after stripping, brightening, and sanding down my deckboards with 40 grit. I would coat them with ESI's Timber oil, and then wait a couple of weeks for it to soak in before topcoating with Woodtux. Ok I have done everything up to and including applying the timber oil to my PT deckboards - and it looks absolutley beautiful!!!! Now I am beginning to think - why use woodtux? Why not stay in the world of paraffinic oil stains? It's so easy - I can coat them again in 2 weeks, splash some in late fall - wash 'em next year, splash a coat. why bother with a curing type stain. Because after that, I will have to worry about product buildup, stripping after a time, etc. And as thin as timber oil is, it imparts so much color to the wood. Any product I have used in the past that was that thin - needed multiple coats before you started to see the color. There is soooo much pigment. I love love love - timber oil, so please remind me why I should go back to my original plan of topcoating with WTW in 2 weeks?

Rod - let me think about your post a bit more, then I will post a response. Ken - as a guy that's only done maybe 15 decks max in my life - I haven't even enough data to keep an actuary busy for 15 seconds before deciding there is too little data. So I don't know what my model is yet Jim - let me tell you, never ever ever worked with a parafinnic type oil stain - it's always been polymerized type tung and linseed oil finishes. But I am really tempted to join the dark side - there is something to this product. Again I haven't worked with wtw long enough to know about product buildup - nor do I know that fine line where you tell the customer it's ok to recoat - or if you wait any longer it will need stripping. So far my experience, if a stain will last one year - it won't last two - so it needs to be recoated while it still looks great - cause you know next season it won't look good - but that's hard explaining to a customer - not to wait for evidence of failure. Not to mention every curing stain I have worked with - even if it saturates into the wood - after a couple of applications forms a varnish like coating - my assumption is that wtw would do this as well - but Rod says otherwise - again have no direct experience. I'm starting to think maybe light washes and further applications of oil without worrying about a finish going to long before it needs stripping - I just might stick with the timber oil

Ken, could elaborate a little - I am really interested in your thoughts - is it because if you have to come back all the time - customers will get fed up? I don't think timber oil is the right stain for newer wood or really dense stuff - but would you go with this on your own decks - or do you still prefer a polymerized linseed oil curing stain system?

This begs the question - what if homeowner finds out it only takes us an hour and they start complaining? Even though it's none of their business, and usually if all goes well - they're happy, you're happy. It always seems once customers find out information - they become discontent. That's why I have started bringing 'props' to the job - like gettion out ladders and leaning it against the house. I had property manager ask me that if I was coming the next day as well - and I had to figure that what he meant, is that for the life of him couldn't imagine I could get all the work done in a day. So he left - and I washed this huge house and stripped a second floor deck in 5 hours. Had he stuck around - he might have started *****ing that I was making too much.

I think Ken's point, Jeff, is that if we all raise our prices - we will still get the same amount of work - and get compensated better. If a homeowner get 4 estimates for house cleaning, $210, $145, $235, $275, $585 - of course, you will get yourself ruled out everytime at $585 - but if those numbers are now instead $510, $445, $535, $575, $585 - voila, now if you have great sales, you can get your price. I use to get alot more money pressure washing, when I was a painter - but the work was very incidental - it's only by coming here to these sites - that I have been made to feel guilty for my pricing - but that is ok - since I have also learned how to make a 7 hour job a 1 hour job. So all is good. I think for now the buck a foot per floor way of pricing is going to be the bottom price - and only for vinyl - if it is wood siding I will be upping those prices considerably - and there will be minimums, especially for work further away then 15 miles - once the work becomes too much to handle. Don't feel badly about charging! If you start feeling guilty and then rationalize with thoughts of the competition does it for so and so - so no way you can get that price - then pretty soon, you will be in the same boat I am in with painting - working for people charging as little as $24/man-hour. Yeah that's right! I did a 10K paint job - and after materials, my company effectively billed out $24/man-hour. Imagine that! You keep up with the attitude - oh I can't charge that much - pretty soon, you will be doing $25 house washes - heck it only takes an hour of your time right? And what makes you so special, more so than a painter - with their tons of equipment, ladders, scaffolding, liability, comp, trucks, etc. People are scary - and if they can get away with only paying $25 to have their homes cleaned - they'll jump - never mind you will starve, your kids won't have shoes, they will still do it - and don't care the reason it's so cheap is because some scab, illegal immigrant, who is totally illegal, is willing to work for pennies on the dollar.