plainpainter

Rod when you wrote "...to negotiate them like I understand your culture is used..." I immediately thought of my experiences with Indian {hindu} people - I am curious if that was indeed what that person was - I know it's so stereotypical, but it's happened to often to me and others not to discount it. It's to the point I hear their accent, and I start thinking it will be an absolute waste of my time to give them an estimate. I do live in a small suburb, but very wealthy - my one customer has two homes on Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, a house up on the Maine Coast and yet another vacation home in Hawaii - When I presented him with an estimate to clean and stain his 450 sq foot deck with two 10 step stairways and well over 90 feet of railing - for $900 he wanted to shoot me dead!

The price for freedom is sometimes great - stupid goverment just takes the most simplistic and moronic steps to try and solve problems - government in the end can never really truly protect us - even though they try to sell fear and protection. Funny how I am a liberal democrat who has the exact same views as Philip Doolittle on issues such as this. I believe republicans are for the most part getting fat from lucrative government contracts that don't make us any safer now then pre 9/11 - and if anyone thinks the airlines or ports are any safer as a result of all this spending on homeland defense is seriously lacking some brain tissue. Some companies have stopped marketing sodium hydroxide based toilet cleaners because druggies were using them to make drugs in crystal meth labs - well guess what NAOH is a common chemical used to do a lot of things. And guess what when you build logs in a fireplace and have a fire and what you are left is wood ash. Well mix that with water and now you have potassium hydroxide - a suitable replacement. How are you going legislate against that?

Thanks for the discussion Rod - it will never cease to amaze me how inconsiderate some people can be. I wonder when they think of what my 'labor' rate should be - they are probably thinking like 21-22 bucks max, which is ok for salary. But do these people honestly think I am going to pay for advertizing out of that 22 bucks? Or pay for louisville ladders out of that 22 bucks? Or 22 thousand dollar van - is that coming out of my 22 bucks an hour labor? What about the fax, commercial storage, van repairs, pressure washing equipment, trailers, welding, fax line -does all that come out of that 22 bucks an hour? And not to mention as a business owner - I don't do this for a wage - like any business, isn't there profit to be had? I choose to work for myself as a laborer - but I could opt to pay someone else to do the labor and make profit on top of that person. I wonder how about liability insurace - and oh yes, when they think how much they're willing to spend - did they factor workman comp rates on top of that? Anyway just commiserating - one time this cop told me how he 'seals' the deal when making DUI arrests. He has an index card and draws a line and at the endpoints he lables - totally sober - and - totally drunk. And then puts a mid-point. And asks people where they feel they are on that line - and out of guilty conscience they pick somewhere near the mid-point and sometimes on the side of 'totally' drunk - and that nabs 'em court everytime for DUI. I am thinking of doing the same thing for estimates - like make up a slide rule with adjustable pricing - and they afix it to a range of 'totaly' cheap - reasonable - 'highway robbery' - just to see what I am dealing with and whether to waist my time or not.

Yeah I know what you are saying Ken about focusing on quality and targeting good customers. I just got a little depressed today about some email from some guy making feel like a piece of rubbish for asking for $900 to paint a 12x13 bedroom two coats with all my prep work. It takes me 20 hours of labor to sand everything, TSP clean, caulk, fill nail holes, prime all the emulliens where the paint flaked off - two coats on everything, vacuuming etc. Basically was like - 'do I get gold leaf with that' Some people are so amazingly cheap sometimes it gets me down. I can't paint a bedroom anymore for $500 unless it's just one coat - and I ain't sanding anything - maybe caulking and hole filling - but nothing else! Not to mention I just paid this contractor to insulate a 16x16 addition under the floor in a crawl space - he put in vapor guards and what not - two guys worked the morning - and it cost a grand. And people want me to spend two and half days painting a family room and only want to pay $500 or $350 after materials and sundries are taken out - so that would be making $17/hr over the table as a contractor - I pay that to guys cash under the table - don't people understand all the costs to run a business? At $17/hr - I'd be lucky to make a $2 or $3 an hour after I paid all my costs for running a contracting business - anyways way off topic - sorry. Just feeling the winter blues - can't wait to get more into pressure washing this spring - and make some real money for a change.

Wow - great explanation on how these stains are working. I can't imagine another manufacturer going out of their way to explain how things work - now I have a greater understanding, thanks Russ. I also have a guilty conscience now - so I will be buying more woodtux to ease it. Just wait in a few years, Russ will be making so much dough he'll be able to afford to ignore us idiots! LOL. Just one question - why on your website do you show water reduced woodtux being applied to a mahogany/Ipe deck and explaining how the water makes the stain more readily absorbed into the wood - when above you state: If you cut it with 1 gallon water you have 2 Gallons of "product" but you've still only got 100 units of protection. Because water (in this mix) makes for a lousy carrier, you will get about equal penetration out of your new mix. That means that you are going to spread 100 units of protection over twice the area of wood. (half the protection of Wood-Tux) On your website you state: To speed up the application the stain was reduced 2:1 with water. Reducing the stain helps the applicator lay down thin coats that will more readily dive into this dense hard wood. So my question is.....if making water reduced woodtux makes it more readily dive into the wood as you described - does that contradict you stating that water is a lousy carrier and you get equal penetration with or without water? And if not can you further explain these two points? I promise to buy more woodtux! Or at least some HD80 or something. But I think you have forgotten, you aren't selling woodtux for $139 anymore - you upped the price to $169

To be honest, Russell, I haven't thought about it much. But my suspicion is that If I cut woodtux that it will mirror woodrich in performance - it's not an all out parafinnic stain. So I imagine it's woodtux thinned out some - I'd rather just buy woodtux and thin it myself. I may be way off base - but more importantly - lots of customers you sometimes have to do things to make yourself lool professional - like taking two weeks to do a paint job when it could be done in one, otherwise they start asking questions - why does it cost so much? And with your stain - if I apply it to wet decks with homeowners that are home all the time - they start asking questions, and let's face it - this technology goes against what most contractors know about deckstaining - so you can imagine all those homeowners out there who jump on the internet to become educated - will start accusing me of not waiting for 12% dryness. You can't reason with these people - so I'd rather just wait for the stupid decks to dry out. Even if I don't have to - where I see your product helping me is, when a customer isn't looking - just pre-wetting these 130 degree decks I seem to run into all the time or applying a thinned down version of woodtux to a dry deck - which would mirror applying straight woodtux to a damp deck. And your product which is high in solids - doesn't seem to penetrate like traditionally thinned down products of the past. Higher solids is higher quality - but I don't care about all the jargon of 'carrier' oils - I can't get Raw linseed oil, if it isn't thinned, to penetrate wood before it sets up - and that stuff is suppose to never dry - you'd think it would be a good quality 'carrier' oil. So I will be experimenting with cutting woodtux with water and adding nonylphenol as a wetting agent and/or adding turps or acetone.

Tell your customer when competiton like that undercuts that much - they won't be in business long enough to come back to recoat in 2 years. And that you will still be in business, and gladly do their deck then for exactly double the price - so as to make up the money you lost by them going to the competition the first time. Yeah I know - sounds negative, but don't you want satisfaction sometimes telling a HO off, especially one that you know won't go with your services. You think those prices are bad, I was undercut by this guy - who said he would veneer plaster blueboard for .85 cents a square foot. There is a whole heck of alot more labor plastering a surface than there is washing and staining wood. Just charge your prices, maintain a good customer relations - and you will have people pay for your services. Walk away from those that won't. You can't do the work that cheap - because if you did, you would end up really tired and depressed and unmotivated to do the work - and of course accidents happen, and people will expect you to deduct the money from your already very low estimate - and that's when the real pain begins. I wish someone would do research on low-ballers, and see if any of them have any holding power in this business - I think they must all eventually go out of business. I can't think of one household name contractor in my area who has been in the business a long time and who is cheap.

This is what I do to clean a deck for restoration. 1 part 6% bleach to 4 parts water, if in a 5 gallon container - add 1 cup of TSP and 1/2 cup of nonylphenol. Apply liberally, dwell, scrub, light a cigarette, watch porn, then pressure wash off. Cleans decks spotless everytime.

Russell - Rick isn't a painter, if he was - he'd know that linseed oil based primers and paints are a godsend. And being a painter having worked with many acrylic/latex based coatings - I know that mildew can eek out an existence on just about any surface. If alkyd modified drying oils were such a veritable feast for mildew - how come all the homes and fences that I have stained with Cabots solid oil stains - in light shades - have little to no mildew problem? If you remove the proteins from Raw linseed oil - there is no longer any food source - and I believe an alkyd modified oil whether it be cotton, safflower, rape, soy, or linseed - is about as yummy to mildew as Dow corning insulation. That was one of the motivating factors in creating alkyds I believe - so as not to be a food source - it's synthetic. Funny how many homes I walk into - and there is mildew growing on their ceilings because the house doesn't breathe - yet no mildew on all their trim, which was coated with low-lustre oil based paints. Ceiling paint is latex btw.

Jarrod is the man!

Rick - Behr is a big player in the california market - and marketed mostly to DIY'ers. Put the two together and you may have a nightmare. If you take that same product and apply it to a deck that you prepared vs. a homeowner I bet it wouldn't turn out so bad. And companies settle all the time. Civil court ain't about who's right and who's wrong - just about finding an 'uncle' point both parties can agree on. If any product like sikkens or cabots was aggressively marketed through lowe's or home depot markets - you'd find a huge base of unhappy people with their products as well. Heck if Woodtux was sold through home depot - I bet Russell would probably commit suicide - there's a good reason to keep certain products Contractor exclusive.

Did Russell Cissell just back me up? Hey Russell I have this recipe that involves that new cabots waterbourne silicone sealer + Boiled linseed oil + copper pentahydrate + enough acetone to make the water base miscible with oil. We should talk......lol, I really did make this concoction though!

resins are binders.

Just curious how some of you combat low-ballers in your industry. I have tried to diversify to combat low-balling. For example the last couple of months of my painting season - I lost 3 house painting quotes all in a row and my schedule was bare for a two month period. I had knick-knack work here and there, painting a door, pressure washing a couple of homes, resealing a really small deck. But nothing that would amount to me being able to pay the winter bills. So I took on a roof job - and made 6 grand for a week and half of work. Much higher profit margin than painting and was able to not have to compete with the low-ballers and it has gotten me through the winter so far. Perhaps lots of you here are really well established and even if you lost 90% of your bids - you'd still be chock full of work. I still go through feast/famine cycles.

If you think of bulk mailings to a certain area - as the input to a function -With the mapping of this function as a snap shot in time as to how the aggregate of these homeowners will react. I.E. some don't have decks, some do - but they're new, some already got them refinished, some need to get finished but have a family painter in mind - and then the ones that will be your customer. It would be reasonable to assume that if you repeat the mailing to the same area within a short period of time - you aren't going to get different results. Those that will be your customer - have already contacted you. You have to let enough time pass so conditions change - those decks that were new after several years enter into your universe of potential customers - because now those decks are greyed; the customers who previously had a 'family' painter - are now stuck with nobody, because the painter is now retired and living in Florida, etc. So I totally agree with Jarrod that you have to hit new areas.

Interior painting. But then again - it requires alot of commitment to excellence to do interior painting - not something to be done just to take up the 'slack'. Unless you are proficient enough to do condo type paint jobs, which can be good money. I focus on real high end residential re-paints. Hopefully there will come a day - when my spring/summer/fall season is soo booked up with exterior house painting, pressure washing, and deck restoration - that when I get a call for an 'estimate', I can tell 'em - 'sorry ma'am - you will have to wait until late November before I can come into your home - man that would be so great! November through March - when I am succesful those will be the only times of year that I will paint inside - or if they want it done during the year, my estimates will be exactly double!

I am trying to research the different trailers and what kind of setup I will need. But it seems if I have a single axle unit rated at 3500lbs - that something like a 225 gallon tank will already be 1800lbs. plus the weight of the trailer, 1000lbs. And the fact the legal limit of single axle trailer is capped at 3000lbs that leaves me with a scant 200lbs for everything else to go on the trailer. Do you have to go tandem axle? Do you need a 225 tank if you are planning on a 5.5gpm machine with hot and cold, for house washing and decks. What experiences do most people have as to what you really need for water tank sizes, there are also tanks that will be needed for chemicals. And is it customary to ride around with full tanks - or do you folks ride around with them empty and just let them fill up at the customers and then try to use it up on the job?

I am seeing Big tex 6 1/2 x 16 tandems for like $2,200 shipped - Doug, where did you get one for only $900?

I guess I have been using quality products. I just know the linseed oil based products I have been using have worked great. And I have used a fair share of linseed oil based solid oil stains on exterior applications - and have never noticed much mold or mildew. I did paint this one home with California 2010 exterior satin latex white trim enamel - pressure washed the home clean - and it is riddled with mildew on this trim. The remainder of the home that is oil solid stained clapboards has no mildew. And that was Muralo's linseed oil based solid stain. My sister - I sprayed her fence with Cabot's solid oil stain - white - one year and still no mildew. She has pine trees next to her home - the house with white latex trim, has no pine trees anywhere near it - and the mildew growth is bad on Southern facing side with full sun.

Rick - I am a painter, and let me tell you - mold and mildew grow on anything. Why you bash linseed oil based stains is beyond me. And then post pictures of how well you cleaned up some vinyl sided home - you think that vinyl is a veritable feast for mildew? Yet we see vinyl sided homes everyday loaded with the stuff. Ever left a piece of wood unprotected outside? Notice that it becomes chock full of mold and mildew? Well place another piece of wood next to it - with a linseed oil based stain, and I assure you - there will be a lot less mildew on it. I think more than anything - this has more to do with guys who have no clue how to work with quality curing type finishes - such as Cabot's, California Storm stain, Muralo Lumberjacket, etc - all fine linseed oil based products.

Ken - I haven't actually tested this brew on anyone's deck yet - I am really not inclined to do it. Although I have tons of customers that could care less what the heck I put on their deck. Maybe if I run into a house painting job - the ones where I toss in a deck staining for free, I'll try it out. Change that recipe to Raw instead of boiled - and that's what I use on wood siding after I pressure washed and scraped and sanded a house - I have yet to try adding a little wax. But when I saturate wood prior to spot-priming - it makes a world of difference in how my jobs last. Come up here for yourself. My houses don't peel - in my before and after shots, I explicitly do not take a photo of my home until 2 years has passed by. I want to show customers that when they pay for my services their home will look beautiful not only two weeks after I paint it - but two years. And most houses peel within two years of an exterior repaint around my parts.

Let's not all forget - the funding behind the planes going into the trade towers was from a man in Afghanistan not Iraq. We should have gone to get him - Iraq never posed a threat. And the insurmountable lying that has come from this administration is nothing short of the nazi propaganda machine. Like WMD - we have such great technology - including spy satellites that can see down your chimney - that if there were weapons, we would have known exactly where they were, and taken them out instantly. You wanna believe the likes of cheney, scooter libby, powell? Or people like on the 9/11 commision who found no credible evidence of anything. If it's our policy to invade countries because we feel like it - cool, whatever - but just be honest with yourself. And then live with the consequences of the rest of the world not likeing us very much. And having a crap economy because we're being worked to the bone to come up with money to finance these wars. God I miss Clinton - budget surpluses, relative peace, felatio - these republicans are the biggest party poopers, I think Democrats get all ho's and republicans are jealous - hee hee.

I make my own stain: 50% boiled linseed oil, 50% turpentine, I throw in an 1/8 cup of copper pentrahydrate - some pigment, a little wax - and I am good to go!

I find that all oil based coatings bead water initially - I sprayed 2 solid coats of Cabot's oil solid stain on my sister's fence - and the tops of the posts beaded water for a week or so before the stain finally cured.

The Flood company seems to be in the business of discontinuing products. they had this product called 'brush stuff' and you mixed it into your paint brush and made your brushes easier to clean and the paint came right off - much less drag. Well - they discontinued the product right after I became a fan of it.