plainpainter

I'd say suck it up - but I do agree he is a jerk. My folks would never call back over one stinking window in light of everything else. But I'd certainly charge him extra for any additional work you do for him in the future. -Dan

Just curious - if we weren't so interested in getting a deck finish stripped. Wouldn't we like the tenacity at which products like Aussie oil sticks? Couldn't we put them in the category of - 'won't strip but will clean and reapply' - ? I am certainly new to stripping, and haven't stripped alot of decks that were previously done by me. I just cleaned them, sanded some spots where bare wood was showing, and then reapplied. Sure it doesn't look as cherry as a totally stripped deck - but still works. I guess I still believe in natural resins like tung and linseed to protect my wood. What is wood-tux and readyseal made of? -Dan

To respond to a post wondering about linseed oil, resins, long oils - let me explain. linseed oils, alkyds, long oils - these are all resins, they are the glue that holds the pigment to the wood. Yes linseed and tung oils are resins, they are part of a family of oils called 'drying' oils. Since they polymerize in the presence of air to become hard subtances. Alkyds are man-made synthetic resins - meant to replace natural oils such as linseed and tung oils, I guess manufacturers of all types, paint, pharmaceutical have a love affair with replacing natural ingredients with synthetic ingredients they make in the lab. Alkyds have the added benefit that since they are man-made - they don't have food content in them for mildew to feed on. Although this has yet to stop mildew, lol. But alkyds have the drawback of not being very flexible - nor do they seep deeply into wood like natural oils do. So manufacturers have modified these alkyds to combine them with linseed oils - and have come up with a hybrid resin, typically called 'linseed alkyds' or linseed modified alkyds. And the percentage of length that this oil molecule is linseed vs. alkyd puts it into 3 different categories, short, medium, and long alkyds <-------- important! A long alkyd is an oil modified alkyd whose length is over 70% natural resin like linseed or tung, and the remainder alkyd. Gives you the best of both worlds. As for the aussie oil - I remember complaining about how I couldn't get my deck stripped. I was using 12 oz. of lye and 6 oz. of sodium metasilicat per gallon of water - and it still took like 7 applications. And much further sanding. The product I was using was Muralo's transparent decking staing which is a tung oil rich product. Tung oil is the main ingredient in Spar varnish - and as you know, only spar varnish is tough enough to withstand outdoors applications in the varnish family. So me thinks tung oil is the culprit. As I have tried stripping other decks since - and each one has been a breeze! I think by the looks of Sikkens deck products - they look a lot like marine/spar varnish - I bet they're rich in tung alkyds as well - thus the difficulty in stripping them as well. -Dan

I can see waiting on pressure treated - although the new pressure treated doesn't look as green as it use to. After two years it would probably have an even greyed weathered look, that a little tsp and bleach would take right off. I had a customer wait like 6 years, and the wood was so dry that it swallowed the stain right up - but it also didn't seem to work as well either. Only by waiting another 2 years - and then stripping and neutralizing and reapplying stain - did it seem to come out ok. -Dan

Wouldn't it be funny if some people could never get anyone to work for them? Just so they would realize how much of an a-hole they were, I mean it's a free society right? There's no law saying you must be able to get people to do work for you, right? If only there was a website where contractors could come together and talk about their customers - so we'd all know who the problematic customers were. -Dan

My nephew shot a paintball at my house - I didn't get around to getting it off. Well this year I pressure washed the house - and the stuff won't come off. -Dan

I'm a painter mostly - so rainy days are great to schedule in cleaning jobs. Not to mention there is so much less rinsing you have to worry about. -Dan

Rick - restoration indeed is the least of their worries. But why do these people call and waste my time? Do they think they will get lucky, and I will bill out $14/man-hour? Everytime I do the math, you pay someone like $17/hour. When you factor every cost to run your business and with a modest profit - it works out to at least $40/man-hour. Why do these people think I am going to break down for them? Especially when I see I will be

Jarrod - I think you made an important point which most homeowners don't want to come to grips with. "If people can't afford to maintain their property (investment) then they need to sell it and move into an apartment!" I have come to properties with massive size decks - in the range of like 2000-3000 sq. feet, all mahogany and jacuzzi built in - with many twists and turns and balconies. And when I ask for like $5,000 - their jaws hit the floor. Obviously like you told me - these folks are house poor, and don't want to come to grips with reality. If you buy a $900,000 house with a 2,400 sq.ft deck - you're gonna have to shelve out big money to maintain it. Why so many homeowners living in a dream world? -Dan

One potential customer told me that Sikkens is the best product out there. I figured at $60/gallon - that he had nothing better to do than spend money. The product he didn't like was a Ben Moore alkyd deck stain - that he said only looked good for a year and then failed. It seems that the heart and soul of deck restoration - at least from this site - is all about yearly maintenance, and a fairly easy product to strip. Where as customers are seeing it 180 degrees from us. They want products with the 5 year warranty, and when it starts getting crappy - it's really hard to strip. Maybe the manufacturers are to blame? In their endless ad campaigns with their best and newest products with a so called longer warranty? With products advertizing 5 yrs, and now I think I saw 7 years somewhere. How do you convince potential customers of a product that will protect well for 12 months, and then will need to be stripped, brightened, and reapplied? I'm convinced it makes more sense for wood care. But how do you go against this constant bombardment from the manufacturers on wild claims of long life? -Dan

I would have told them to f-off. I hate customers, they want to blame you for a leak 5 months after a job - that's too funny. I would have told them I would sue them for libel - how dare they trash your name. All you did was be a responsible contractor and cleaned their roof. I've had this type of thing happen to me before - where I did a bunch of interior painting for these people that were trying to get it paid for by the insurance company due to smoke damage - of course I never saw any smoke damage. Just scum. And they were the 'nice' people. Who nicely wanted to screw me over. Have you ever thought about the fact that just getting on a roof may damage some roof shingles - that were on the outs anyways? You gotta put a disclaimer that you aren't responsible for anything, unless it's gross negligence. If they hire you, it's their responsibility to provide a sound roof that is capable of withstanding your normal cleaning routine. This **** burns me, I had a friend paint a house - and his workers had to get on a roof to paint a dormer - well she had a leak in her roof afterwards. And they never did anything wrong. Possibly something just gave way - but that ain't their responsibility. That's just an aging roof. -Dan

I agree - TSP/Bleach. Then put on a solid oil stain. No need to prime, unless you are planning on a light color. -Dan

what's wrong with painting cedar siding? I am in the new england area - and all cedar siding be it shakes or clapboards are painted. I use a solid oil stain on my cedar shakes - but that's not typical for these parts. -Dan

Jarrod - is this the stuff you were talking to me about over the phone? -Dan

I'd use Pratt&Lambert StainShield oil or latex. I have never used latex solid latex stain on a deck until a customer had one I had to redo. It is an amazing product. -Dan

I have done partial house painting in the past - it has always bitten me on the ass! There have been cases where next door neighbors who got their house painted the next season, wouldn't even bother to call for a quote - because I am the painter that doesn't finish the work. And people who want partial work - are the absolute worst customers! Don't get involved with partial work customers at any cost - if they are too cheap to get the whole job done - god forbid should you run into anything that couldn't be anticipated - they think extras are for free. Cheap cheap cheap. -Dan

I just got my first batch of goodies from pressuretek which included one of those goodyear 50' long neptune hoses. Holy moly - that hose that came with my machine, which was nothing short of glorified sipping straw, was strangling the pressure like crazy! When I put this hose on - the gun nearly smacked me on the head from the recoil. I know you guys think that a 2900psi @2.3/min is a small machine. But god almighty this is a tough beast to handle now - it seems like output has tripled! My 40 degree tip that came stock is #3.5, and is definitely no longer a low pressure tip! I ordered #4.5 and a #7.0 to lower pressure. My zero degree tip that came stock, now shoots well over 30 feet - it's hilarious. My original soaping tip - that previously was good enough to wet down cars with, will easily fan the side of house up 20'. I can't wait to see how my zero degree tip #30 will shoot chems. -Dan

Bahco tungsten/carbide pull scrapers work really nice. Trust me, I am a painter - these work phenomenally! -Dan

I guess that's true Alan - about getting longer hose. But for now 50' is fine. You have to remember, I am mostly a painter by trade - so I am use to such things that drive you pressure washers insane, i.e. climbing up ladders, tugging the pressure washer around the house as we go, using pump-up sprayers, using small machines. Really - of all the guys I know - my machine is a beast! I know that makes you guys laugh - but I do pressure washing 10% of the time - so having a 50' hose - and my 2900psi machine at 2.3GPM with all these new pressuretek nozzles - it's alot of fun. I got this machine for $300 and it was only used once. So when I have extra cash - maybe I will step up. I know there is a whole other world - and then there is hot water pressure washing - it never ends. -Dan

I think your mistake is that you are trying to be qualitative vs. quantitative. I.e trying to reason by the small nozzle size that the line isn't adding to resistance. The fact is - the line is a resistance - it is a source of pressure drop. Look at it this way - the line is 1/4" in diameter. In 25' length of hose - that is a volume of 14.76 cubic inches. The volume occupied by a cup of water is 13.5 cubic inches. So my hose had a tad more of cup of water in it. At 2.7 gallons/min flow rate - my pressure washer would push the entire contents of the line through that tiny little nozzle approximately every 1.4 seconds - assuming it could overcome the resistance of the line. In contrast with the larger 3/8" line - it contains 33.14 cubic inches of volume!!!!!!!!! Or 2.45 cups - which means assuming the pressure washer is able to over come the restrictions of the hose - it takes about 3.44 seconds to empty the contents of the line vs. 1.4 seconds. So the pump needs an extra 2 seconds to empty the contents of the larger line - this means the speed of the flow of water through the hose is drasically reduced! Remember pressure losses go up with the square of the speed - in this case the speed of the water in the smaller line is roughly 2.5 times faster - so the frictional losses would be proportional to this quantity squared. Or somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 times the pressure loss. So you still think it doesn't matter you aren't using a bigger diameter line? -Dan

Just think of the line like an electrical circuit. The pump is like the battery - the water is like the current of electricity - and the hose is like resistor. If you remove the resistance from the circuit - you will get an infinite amperage. Put the resistor back in, and you will get {i^2 * R} losses, i.e. power losses. Or in the case of a pressure washer - pressure losses. Pumps are designed to pump a certain amount of G.P.M's - but if the hose is a restrictor, it may not be able achieve that flow rate. Put on a bigger engine - and it may again achieve that flow - or just remove unnecessary resistances like too small of a diameter hose. -Dan

Mine did come with 1/4" and I did bump to 3/8". -Dan

There is even a link to purchase reclaimed chestnut wood on that website. Anyone up for putting on a chestnut deck? -Dan

Here is a link for anyone interested in the American Chestnut tree. http://www.acf.org/ -Dan

Just curious folks - how much do you all think a job like that is worth? Even though it's small - you still have to come back multiple times, causing logistic problems. I'd think $500 would be too little - what do you all think? -Dan