plainpainter

Guys - wish I had your money - my rides are always used astrovans. As I use to be a mechanic - they're easy for me to work on. Reliable and really do a lot for a smallish van.

Hey I am looking at a Landa cold water machine, it's a beast with a 24hp honda motor - I am also looking at other machines. But this one is 5000psi and 4.5gpm's. After doing lots of research and talking to you guys - it seems that a machine like this is almost useless - but the salesman says it's a steal at $3600 - what do you guys think? And even for trying to remove paint from a home - is there much need for pressure in excess of 3000psi? Then the salesman said you could dual gun this machine and have two guys with 5000psi and 2.5gpm's each. Then I though wouldn't a 8.0gpm/3000psi machine better suit the needs of most pressure washing - and two guys with 3000 psi and 4.0gpms each more appropriate for house cleaning, etc? what do you all think?

agreed.

I know Bob's machines well - just wanted more advice - especially on Landa machines. I guess even if I wanted to rip paint off a house - 5000 psi is so powerful - I would have to hold the wand far away from the wood - and then the GPM's just wouldn't be there - so I would be getting the worst of both worlds - but the machine perhaps is attractive for water sandblasting metal - which doesn't represent more than 1% of the work I do. But still it is an awesome machine - very heavy duty.

It is a cold water machine - and it is a Landa - but 4.5 gpm's and 5000psi seems a little backwards for this industry, huh? I was looking at Mi-T-M's identical line of pressure washers - with the rollcage and all and 24hp motor, and they have the 4.5gpm5000 psi machine - but they have the option of going 3.7gpm's and 6000 psi with a different pump and same machine or 7.8gpms and 3000 psi. Anyways what do you all think of $3600 for a 24hp cold water landa machine?

Ken, so you think sodium metasilicate will help the tsp/bleach mix? I feel more experimentation along the way - I thought sodium metasilicate and tsp did similar things - although the meta buffered against metal oxidising. I wonder what amounts I should play with at first. You have any literature I can read that talks about the molecular level? I know when I add it to lye - it really heats up the mixture and makes it rock for stripping.

Jarrod - if you don't mind mixing your own housewash - go to the The Chemistry Store.com - Serving The Hobbyist, Student, School and Industry. And purchase TSP and Nonylphenol - with those two ingredients along with bleach - you can make a fine housewash. Or buy Bob's cherry soap. I have been doing ok with my 0.6% bleach hitting the side of a house - although I need to upgrade from 6% to 12% bleach through my downstreamer - I think it goes to show that with good surfactants and detergent builders - very little bleach will get the job done. I just want a little more bleach, so I don' have to scrub as much - as well - I have a low volume machine, so my rinsing ability sucks as well.

Jim - don't think you are the first one to notice that. In fact when people ask me to spell my name, to this day I tell 'em "it's like tabasco sauce with the M stuck in"

I'd use bleach and TSP

When confronted with obstacles - there is a solution the professional would implement and the one the hack would implement. If you implement the professional solution more often than the hack solution - then you are on your way to being professional. And I guess throw in image, e.g. company uniforms - bright shiny vehicles, etc. I use to paint out of my neon - now I have a astro van with commercial plates, that was a big leap towards professionalism - the only thing, the more professional you get, the higher your rates get - the more you realize there are more and more people that just want the hacks.

Seems like a pita product - I thought it was suppose to be care free product, what gives? I guess pressure washers aren't going to go out of business afterall.

James - sure, it's just that I would have to find somewhere cheap to stay - you're on the other side of Hartford. That would be a real haul for a day trip - or maybe I am a whimp.

You need help James? I could use some work - how much are you paying?

Long post.....but I am sure through enough feedback and time we will know these different products for what they are and not for what is promised. In the end we all choose different business models and choose quality products that enhance our business model - and we eventually gravitate towards the best products through trial and error. Lets leave Russell alone - its getting to be soon if wtw indeed will beat the competition or not. My film forming stains like cabots, california, etc. Need another coat after one year of my initial restoration of my decks. Did I do a bad job? I don't know - it seems after that they do pretty well and last longer and longer. From what I am understanding - if Woodtux is a 4-year product on the horizontals, that we should schedule a maintenance coating after the 2 year mark - correct? Or three year mark if it's shady and not much abuse. Other than my experience after ther first year of restoration - these time frames are pretty much what I go by now with the products I use. I envision wtw to be a product that most my customers will have me come in and do - and then neglect it for like 4-5 years - at which point I will be back to strip, neutralize and reapply. But other than that I don't see it being all that much better than what I already use - other than perhaps the first year deal. I think for customers that want us to come back every single year and clean and reapply an oil - we should use paraffinic stains for them - it makes more sense, the stuff won't keep stacking on top of itself. Customers that want a longer time before we come back can go with a film-forming stain - that will need to 'etched' at the 2 year mark with a light reapplication, with the caveat that after 3 or so coats - it will need an expensive strip. Maybe customers like that should go with woodrich. And then the customers who think deck staining is a once in a lifetime good for ever kind of thing - give them wtw, and then advertize to the new inhabitants 5-7 years later to restore their deck. Tons of different models you can go by. Most people I come across - which are my painting customers - never ever think about down the road, and what is the proper maintenance. If people did that - there wouldn't be all those blacker than night decks out there.

I like the sprinter van - looks like it costs a mint though. Still not sold on buying new vehicles for my contracting business. Usually I let 'high-line' contractors buy the vehicles new, and then I take them off their hands for a song after they are like 7-8 years old with still lots of life in them.

James - do you truly never ever ever have to rip readyseal off a deck ever again? What if you have customers that don't sign up for maintenance but give you a call back like in 3-4 years after the first time you restored their deck - or even 5 years - would it still just be an application coat - or would you then have to strip?

I think kids should adopt this way of writing when passing notes - that way nobody can ever really accuse them of saying anything. What other applications might this have - I could read it with ease, but you have to have the first and last letter stay the same - otherwise it really could be impossible to read.

I am going to use part of what you said, Russell, if you don't mind in a brochure or a cover letter - I have decided I just can't compete in price and will rely on word of mouth customers and referrals therefrom. In contrast to all this talk of low-ballers. Discerning homeowners who want the best in quality - expect to pay for it - and would probably be suspicious of low bids. I just wish I was in contact with more homeowners like that.

Just curious - if you stain a customers deck in the spring or early summer. And then come back two years to the date and then a few months - to do a recoat. Do you say that Deck is being done in it's second year or third year? It is experiencing it's 3rd summer as you are recoating. Or say you do it in early fall - so it's gone 2 years and 4 months. Is that year 2 or 3? Seems in New England - it's the summers that count. And in the early Fall - it would have seen 3 full summers.

Is it possible woodtux is too good a product to use straight? If a customers deck lasted 4 whole years before needing re-doing, and not even stripping - just a clean and recoat. Either my customers would love me - or they will have long forgotten me to the point I would be losing all future work. Which is more likely? At least I provide other services so I can stay in their lives.

I had some deckboards come out exactly the same way after stripping and neutralizing and then applying woodtux - the previous product I think was CWF. I used my portercable sander with 40 grit - and it did remove some of the darkness off - but it was so deep I would have been there for two days sanding a 3x8 section just to make it look nice again. Next time that happens to me - I am going to 'burn' the boards with bleach - sure it ain't great - but its better than doing all that resto work and then leaving the homeowner with sh$itty looking decking boards.

So has anyone here have any favorite woodtux formulas, i.e. reduced woodtux stain? Basically painting a house and throwing in a deck staining as a value added job. But don't really care to put woodtux at full strength - just looking to see if anyone has come up with a tier system of quality. For instance tier 3 woodtux to water 1:1 for ok decent jobs, tier 2 wood tux to water 2:1 great quality jobs, tier level 1 - woodtux full strength

Ken - deal. Although my interest in chemistry is new - I hated chemistry in high school - I opted out by going into physics.

Phillip I like your comment how we can't keep these illegal immigrants out - how the heck can we keep highly motivated and trained fundamentalists out? Yet I bet this thought hasn't occured to most Americans. In the end government can't protect us - unless we learn to make amends with these people - but I'd rather be paying less taxes than more, knowing that money is wasted. Hey how about that for a political platform - make friends, make amends, lower taxes. Perhaps the powers that be - don't want to make peace? If we did - we would no longer have such a huge military budget - what trough would they then pilfer?

That's ok Ken - I like the information - lot of theory, even though I have degrees in physics and mathematics - I find it so hard to figure out how to effectively sell a service to homeowners. Not that I am going to stop trying to figure out - as it seems that effective sales technique works with a lot of you guys here. But I understand about having to revamp my sales technique - but where do you begin to even approach someone who is a millionaire - when they gawk at $900 - and threaten to do it themselves at that price? How much education and sales technique will turn someone like that around - especially since I had already stained the deck for them before. My thoughts are that I do quality work - and some clients who go with my services end up price-shopping when they need those services again in the future. And if they aren't sold on me - even after I had done work for them in the past - then I feel that is a battle I have lost. To me the proof is in the pudding - if I have already done work for them, and they still aren't sold on me for future work, there's little to nothing I can do. The only thing that works - is you have to let them go with the competition and suffer a little - before they realize what they had.