plainpainter

What a mess! I'd say solid stain over layers of latex porch and floor paint. At least the wood looks ok under the peeling sections. How are you going to strip that? 5f5? How many gallons would it take? Ewwwww.

I have noticed shane when I switched from straight bleach, well diluted bleach to clean decks with - to bleach with tsp - that I no longer got that unnatural 'whitening' that I hear others talk about. Then I learned that tsp darkens the wood and bleach lightens - so the two cancel out. The boards on the left look like cedar to me.

I remove artillery fungus by applying chemicals, brushing, pressure wash, repeat at least twice - it gets it off. When I prep a house to paint - and I have all my staging up, e.g. pump jacks and pics. I will spray down a whole side of house with a pump up sprayer, mind you this is before I knew about downstreaming, and then let the house dwell for 20-30 minutes. And then I was up on my staging with a 5 gallon bucket and a deck scrubbing brush scrubbing on the same solution from the bucket. And then pumping up my platform as I was scrubbing. Then after all that - I pressure washed with loads of pressure - this got the artillery fungus off everytime with absolutely no residue. Not a procedure you could accomplish in 2 hours.

Joel, how much do these products cost - and how far do they go?

Oh yes - you always need to scrape after pressure washing - lately I have been offering a super prep job where I scrape first - let it rain - and come back while the house is soaking and go mad with a pressure washer - then wait til it dries up and re-scrape and sand. My houses have been lasting a really long time after this type of prep work. The most expensive paint on the market is garbage without the right prep. And pressure washing reveals weaknesses in the old paint that a scraper wouldn't reveal - especially since even old paint is at it's toughest when dry.

Hey I am a painter - Bleach and TSP for your chemicals - and lots of scrubbing and high pressure to remove the flaking paint. It ain't like house cleaning you guys are use to - you have to get up and close with ladders and what not - lots and lots of pressure with a 25 degree or 40 degree tip.

Ken - homeowners are so duplicit. Nevermind they would never take the time to actually listen to you explain all the costs, and logistics problems of being in the trades. Heck if it weren't for $500 or even $1,000 days - I'd be out of business too. How about the fact we pay for all our insurances from medical to comp to liability - it's endless. Homeowners just collect a check a the end of the week - without realizing how much of a load they are to the company. And lastly - how do you afford twin mercedes, McMansions, vacations? Most of my customers make $1,000 per day at their jobs. That's a $250,000 salary - which ain't that outrageous among high paid professionals - I mean how else could you afford 800 and 900 grand homes with BMW's in the driveway? Banks say your mortgage on your home is between 1.5 and 2.5 your yearly salary. Take $900,000 divide by 2.5 and that's a $360,000 salary - I know one guy who is a V.P of some storage company and he makes $400,000. I think lots of these homeowners are taking us for a ride making us feel like heels for making sometimes a grand in a day - when they do better at their dayjobs without any hassles of running their own company.

Amen James. I think we're in a bind with no real solution - once again we is screwed by a republican. Just like President Harry S. Truman use to say "How many times do you have to be hit over the head by a Republican before you realize they're no good!" Well I realize they're no good, and have screwed us royally with this war that can't have any good ending - at least if we pull out, our troops will stop dying. Heck - I am for putting Saddam back in charge, he kept the peace. And I don't care if brutalized those people, because without him - they brutalize each other - there's no peace with Saddam gone.

I have read many of the posts on this board, including ones that disagreed about my post. I don't wish to really comment - other than there are alot of mis truths, especially as to how many people Saddam has killed. If it were true Saddam was responsible for over a half a million innocent deaths, how come he is on trial for only about 150 deaths and not the hundreds of thousands so many people here are stating? I don't really want to waste my time looking through Republican backed websites and their ludicrous lies, Al Franken has shown numerous times when he has referred to statistics gathered by federal government agencies - such as the U.S Census bureau - that they contradict 180 degrees what certain people such as Rush Limbaugh says. For those of you that wish to defend this war, best of luck, if 'we stay the course' Nothing good will come of it and things will continue to get worse. And if you remember, the 9/11 report said there was never any credible evidence of any weapons of mass destruction. But so long as people like Cheney kept repeating the lies - many of you believed them. It reminds of a certain platform the Nazi's use to use, the bigger the lie - the better people believe 'em. And the sense of fear this administration has sold the american public is disgusting. And to answer questions about Hilary Clinton - what a joke. Leaver her alone, she's a nobody. I am a democrat and I am no fan of Hilary, and the big reason is she was behind this president 100% from the beginning and supporting the war. And as much as I don't like her - I dare any of you to actually give me one shred of evidence that she hasn't supported our troops. Everybody I know, politician, neighbor, to the people who hold 'peace' signs at busy intersections have supported our troops 100% percent. The only persons that hasn't supported our troops has been this very administration. But many of you probably would never know that since you're too busy wrapping yourselves in the American Flag. FYI - in the early fifties there was a treaty drawn up with Japan, that basically said american soldiers couldn't sue any japanese or japanese nationals over war atrocities - unless a similar agreement was brokered with some other country. Then a few years ago, the netherlands came up with an agreement that allowed their citizens to be able to sue. So guess what - our State Department stuffed that information - and went so far as to make any settlements that our soldiers won in court - to be paid out by American taxpayers, anybody but big business interests in Japan. Your free to stick your heads in the ground, but we aint' accomplishing anything by remaining in Iraq - they are violent people and we can't change them. You don't see protestant death squads in this country pegging off catholics - do you? We are civilized - they aren't, and they have to work out their own issues - and we have to bring back the rest of our boys home. We did the job we asked them too - and now we are fumbling because we have no course or direction and no real goals of success.

Not to flame anyone - but anyone who believes in this war should get their head examined - it's been one total utter failure. And what I don't appreciate, is how the Conservative Right portrayed anyone who has dissented on the war as somehow not supporting our troops!?! I don't know one Democrat who doesn't support our troops - and any talk about how we have to honor troops already perished by continuing on and finishing this up - whatever finishing means? Is totally out of control, you don't set war policy based on casualities, if this war is a total mess and we should pull out as recommended by several reports, then casualites or not - we should pull out. I feel our troops have served honorbly - but in no way should past casualties be part of any decision making as to whether we should stay the course or not. I think it's sad that so many lives have been lost - and I strongly feel have been lost for no apparent reason - as of yet no one has ever given me a good reason why we should be in Iraq - THERE IS NONE! And once again, we as Americans will look bad for what the presidency has done. Do you know, due to our presence in Iraq which has disrupted stuff like Hospitals and running water - over 300,000 lives have been lost that otherwise wouldn't have been lost had we never gone there - they were better under Saddam, sad as that may sound. If you want my opinion - the best way to honor our fallen troops is to bring the rest of our boys home - I am sure the souls of fallen soldiers would not want anymore bloodshed. The Arab world is so vastly different from our world, they are incomprehendable, and we shouldn't try and figure them out - they have to fight this out themselves, we are not accomplishing by being in Iraq other than losing more of our boys, more civil war casualties, and more tax money squandered. There wasn't this bloodshed when Saddam was in charge.

I have gotten artillery fungus off with mulitple applications of my bleach/detergent mix in addition to scrubbing. I won't say you can apply your chemicals, let dwell, and rinse off to get this stuff off - but with elbow grease I have gotten it off everytime.

I have a 20ft louisville Type 1 ladder, werner 24ft type 1A, werner 28' type 1A, Lynn 28' type 1A, louisville 40' type 1AA.

I just read that you got this customer from a flyer with a reduced price, correct? Well then this is totally your fault! I hate to say it, but one of the principle of Karmic laws - is that if you are going to attract customers with rebates and discounts, you're gonna get people like that. Pay up the $100 or whatever - and then learn from this lesson. People who talk you down, want a bargain, rebates, and anything else along those lines are total nimrods. It never fails me when I get talked down for a job - things always go wrong - so to add insult to injury these people want me to pay for damages - damages that in my mind are already paid for through the ridiculously low estimate I finally caved on. Don't work for cheap people! Charge people such good money - that you don't mind once in a while covering such 'accidents'. And people that pay you well - tend to respect you more. One of my better paying customers probably would have said something like - 'Oh, that's my fault because my husband didn't properly glaze that window before you came.' Cheap customers will try and take advantage of you. Never ever never ever work for cheap folks - and if you do - accept what comes along with the territory and compensate them for the damages. If someone is stabbing you with a knife - either back away, or accept it and don't complain. Personally I back away but not working for cheapies - and if I end up working for a cheapie, I have already resigned myself to the fact they will take advantage of me somehow - and will not let myself get mad over it.

This falls under the category of homeowner responsibility. You were hired to do a certain task - which all else being equal - goes w/out a hitch for most if not all your customers. Some people are accidents waiting to happen. This does not fall under contractor negligence - a myriad of things can happen - it ain't your job to forecast all of them. Homeowners are cluess and think anything that goes wrong is your fault. What if you put a ladder against their house - and then the wall caves in? Is that your fault too? Well if you applied the same logic that woman applied to you - sure it is your fault - but you have to assume the house has a reasonable strength to it. Now if this woman paid you for services of inspection, that's a different story.

Just curious - at what year should a maintenance coat of woodtux be applied? I did one woodtux deck and have no idea how long it will last. I imagine no longer than 2 years from initial application - correct? Could it go 3 years?

screw the barlox - get yourself some nonylphenol NP-9 Tergitol.

I don't know anyone who says that TSP weakens bleach's ability to kill mildew. My experience is that TSP, add a surfactant - and you have a much more potent mildew killer.

LOL - nightmare job, if the customer is anything less than cooperative - I would walk! I stripped a neighbors old front screen door with it's 10 layers of paint to the point where It's so beautiful that I am applying marine/spar varnish to it - I will be posting pics in a thread soon. Anyways - I had originally asked $350 for just stripping the front side - the customer had already stripped a bunch off with strypeeze. Well - after was all said in done time and materials with a rate of $40/hr - it was more like in the $700-$800 range just to restore one side of this door - and that doesn't include the finishing! So beware! That's a big deck - I would do it only for time and materials - and if the customer thinks a contractor is hell-bent on screwing him over - then he ain't your cutomer! Let him live with his stupidity. And who the hell would spend all that crazy money on Ipe - just to coat it with latex house paint?!?!? That's just ridiculous - and is a big warning sign that this guy is a big idiot who will give you problems. This is a free country and as Contractors we're free not to work for a@sholes. We're not indentured servants who must restore his deck - he is an idiot, let one of your idiot low-balling competitors get screwed over.

Follow the KISS principle - sell the two 4.0 machines and buy an 8.0 gpm machine.

If you some how rig the two machines together into one output - I think there is a real danger of the pressure of one combatting the pressure of the other - I hardly doubt you will get additive pressure. You could think of it in terms of electrical circuits - where two sources of EMF - are added in parallel - it may turn out to be something like 5.6 gpm from 2 4.0 gpm machines - not a single 8.0 gpm machine. For that you would have to add them in series - and the way these pumps work - putting the output of one machine into the inlet of another isn't going to do what you want - unlike two batteries added in series.

I've done a bit of floor sanding in my time - and the first coat of floor urethanes always soaked into the wood completely. Am I missing something? And I have been following sikkens advice about giving deck boards a good sanding with a random orbital sander with 60-80 grit after pressure washing - I have the hose attachment to suck the dust as I go. And I haven't seen a problem with absorption. when I paint a home, and scrape away loose paint - I always spot sand those areas with my makita - again the oil primer soaks right in - isn't sanding great prep?

Nice deck - I have one of those portercable paint shaver tools with the tungsten carbide sanding discs. It can be used as a floor edger - I did my whole deck with that tool - took the cup right out of these 18 yr. old pressure treated planks - but it took a whole heck of a lot longer than 3 hours! I believe Benjamin moore stores are renting out units to resurface decks with - but the device is made of tungsten bits on a big disc - so you get swirl patterns. Much like the same device used on flooring to buff out between coats. Anyways - I am curious how much you charge per sq foot for just the sanding part?

Oh my God Ken - I wouldn't even know where to begin to estimate that! Great job though - so you like the woodrich product over the wtw now? In the painting world - all the contractors here are spraying Cabot's acrylic PrO.V.T solid stain direct to bare wood siding. And I thought oil solid stain would never be replaced - is it time to hop onto the latex bandwagon? Are we being dinosaurs for not relinquishing oil based products? Certainly exterior latex paints don't crack and alligator like the old oil paints, or fade, or become chaulky. But this is a deck forum mostly - perhaps one day they will make a latex stain product that dives into wood and is strippable.

BIN is the only product you can rely on to lock in the smell - that's the product firemen recommend. And I agree with Ken, TSP and bleach to pressure wash it with.

mix it with tsp - try a 1/4 of each per gallon - and go from there.