Greg R

We don't get too many fuzzy decks anymore unless we hire on a newbie but we always try and remove as much as possible. It makes the job look 100% better when the wood is smooth. Not to mention you'll only have to do it ONCE..... future maintenance should NEVER fuzz unless your stripping off your finishes every 2 or 3 years. Another thing things locks me into to Ready Seal more and more.

Trex is having alot of problems with the imbedded mildew. We have cleaned and sealed 15 or 16 trex decks in the past couple years by lead of TREX company itself. Homeowners were calling in complaining about the mildew in our area and Trex contacted us back in 2002 about one. Ever since then the rep calls a couple times a year with projects that need cleaned and sealed. Trex has two sealers they recommend. All the cleaning is done with bleach based solutions at strengths suitable for the job at hand. Call their office and they will supply you with the info needed. Greg

In my experience direct drives do not siphon well. Some work others wont siphon at all. We have a Porter Cable DD that will only run off a direct hose. Both of our belt drives in our box truck though will siphon a 325 gallon tank to the bottom completely even with the hose being 6" below the pump.

1996 Ford E350 Box Truck - Prep & Seal truck 2000 Ford E250 Cargo Van - Prep & Seal 1999 US CARGO 7x16 Enclosed Trailer - Construction Work and to haul the bike :) 2002 FORD E350 Crew SRW Diesel 4x4 (my toy) Im pretty much a ford guy... the wife is even driving a Ford - 02 Excursion 4x4 The diesel by far gets the best fuel mileage... 14/20

I got the impression you were just padding the floor thats why I was asking. We used to spray floors with airless but guys with bad judgment made me go to low pressure stuff.

We have problems with pads getting stain in between the boards like on 5/4 roundover decking. Solutions? We pretty much started brushing most projects to lesson the headache and my stress :)

Actually that doesn't look bad for 2 yrs on BEHR :) 10? No way in heck.

Great Job..... thats what this business is all about. Provided solutions to other peoples problems and if you can do and make the customer happy you'll eat well. You'll come across people who are loaded (or appear to be anyway) that will try and haggle you down and make you work cheaper but have faith and hold ground. Many will try and upon failing cave in. We had two over the past two weeks that "counter-offered" us on our proposal and after explaining we have firm costs and therefore a firm price they said "okay - lets do it". Congrads!

Yes this one had 2 coats of solid stain on it. One of which was an oil the other a latex so it was a real mess. We stripped most of it off chemically with a strong caustic then came back the second day and sanded out the floor with 2 guys on Makitas. I'll NEVER recoat with solid.... just dont want the headache of a repeat solid every 2 years :)

All I can say is Two-tone and $6 a sq foot minumum :)

Wow that sounds like alot of work :) I have a power planer (hand held) we keep on the truck for narrowing replacement boards when needed (when the gaps are too tight) but I couldn't imagine doing a whole deck like that. Good work ethic for sure! Try a makita disc sander with 80 grit paper. You can sand out about 100 to 200 sq ft an hour (depending on what your taking down). Another note on the nailed decks. You can use a Framing nailer minus the nails to set the nails deeper into the deck boards. Just use it as an airpowered nailset. Never tried it on screws but I would tend to think it may sink them some anyway.

Chris and I both just carry a can of Easy Off oven cleaner in our trucks when we go to do bids. If there's any doubt as to whether its oil or acrylic the easy off will tell you. It's all you need really. If it's a strip job it's bid as a strip job regardless of difficulty. We have a price for an oil based strip and another for the two tone strip. With the easy off just spray it on a small area and within minutes you'll be able to wipe away the stain if it's an oil. Greg

May need to break out the sander if matching is that critical.

Difficult to say actually... our busiest is now through about mid July. I find these are the most valuble marketing months. We can easily book enough work through these first few months to carry us through to September or later but we have to stay consistant with the shows and ads. We have 2 trucks running right now / 4 guys / and 1 sales guy plus myself (a little of everything wherever Im needed). Weather of course is another animal all together. Guess the bottom line is theres no doubt enough work out there... you just have to go find it.

Nope - just 3.5 x's the actual linear foot. With an average 4 inch center and the gaps in railings it works out close enough. We also bid all sealer at 100 sq ft to the gallon so it all works out good. I've NEVER (okay in the last 5 years anyway) under estimated a deck for the amount of finish needed as I'm usually a gallon or two over. Fencing is another story though. I've missed a couple over the years by as much as 5 gallons (ugh) just because it kept soaking it in! :) No more though. If they look real dry I go 75 sq ft to the gallon.

We don't get too complex when measuring out decks. We pull a linear measurement on the railing, a square ft measurement on the floor (add in the band boards to that) and account for any elevation. All railing are multiplied out at 3.5 to get the sq. ft to calculate material. Aside from that we price accordingly for the PITA factor. I myself, and Chris (my sales guy) do all the bids so we have an understanding of what to look for on the jobs. He's been runnning 7 to 10 bids a day recently so the easier/faster the method of measuring up the job the better.

Being that it's the time of the year we all need to be pushing our advertising and marketing Im curious what kind of ads others are running. Looking for ideas for future ads as well to be honest :) Here's one we're running for May, June, & July - front cover of a local newsletter type publication that mails to 89,000 households. Greg Rentschler Timberseal

Try that again.....

Hey.... if you can stay busy doing clean & seals all year I wouldn't either but the opportunity is there for us and it's helps to keep the guys busy. Plus at these rates you can come out pretty good financially. That job was $1400 and has about 10 man hours into it.

oops... This was TimberStain UV Cedar tone and TimberStain UV Solid Acrylic on the rails

We get alot of solids around here unfortunatetly and at one time I didn't even want to mess with them. Now we turn them all into two tones. We strip everything we can from the floor during the cleaning process - then come back when we seal and use Makita 9227C's with 8" disc sanding paper to sand out the rest. It usually goes pretty quick. We also sand out the top railcap if the deck has one and do that in a semi trans. With these jobs however you'll usually have to use something with more pigment in it such as Cabot Decking Stains or TimberStain UV semi-trans (our choice typically). Then a solid acrylic on the rails. I would spray out the underside in a color to match the rails. Pricing is crucial on these though - We charge around $4.75 per sq ft on the floor and $8 per linear foot on the rails plus product costs. IT's the only way you'll make enough money to justify it. The benefit though is you'll have a customer for life. We discount the future maintenance to something more reasonable since we're just recoating then. Here's a pic of one we just completed that had a peeling solid all over it. Picture is from a camera phone and not the best but you get the idea.

You win some - you lose some. My sales guy Chris went out to bid a job yesterday and made it about a 1/4 way through the presentation and the guy said great when can you you do it :) . Chris then told him we were about 6 weeks out and the guy told him he would him an extra $50 and pay cash if we could get it done within the next two weeks. First thing that Chris told me was "man I bet I could have pulled another $300 out of the job!" This was a 500 sq ft deck (no finish just weathered) with 120 foot of rail for $1453.00 - then he pulled a house wash out of the guy for $342 as well! You just never know.

MAB TimberStain - just cause I like the name :) Works well and dries flat - usually a 1 coat application depending on the color. Flood and Cabot are both great as well albiet a bit more expensive.

This is going to be a matter of educating the customer for you more so than anything else. Points to drive home: * Products are biodegradable (not sure what your using but I would hope...) * All products are neutralized to leave a neutral pH and provide conditioning * Do not refer to them as CHEMS :) Its a SCARY word. Products or solutions are my words of choice. * We RINSE RINSE RINSE all surrounding plants and veg There's more but it's early and I can't think :) I don't think soda blasting is going to accomplish what you want it to. Most strippers are NaOH based - what many fail to realize is how many products in your home are composed of this product. Soaps to shampoos, oven cleaners, etc... EDUCATE EDUCATE EDUCATE -your customer has to trust you know what your talking about.

I used to use 12v units but the batteries were not getting/holding charges so we went over to all 115V electric units and keep a small 2500watt 2 stroke generator on the trucks when we need portable power. The 115's IMO are alot more consistant in spraying as well - less pulsating. Basically on a chem sprayer setup you'll have your pump and a handfull of 3/8x3/8 barb fittings, clamps and some good chemical resistant hose (3/8" pvc air hose or braided line works well) and above all a good filter or foot valve on the suction end of the line. Nothing will kill a Shurflo faster than granular chems getting pulled through the pump. Quick connects on the outlet side make it more user friendly to pack up and swap hoses. We also always have a spare pump and or rebuild kits with us. Your pump WILL quit working on you eventually and you dont want to have to call it a day for something so simple. If you have a tractor supply near you they should have everything you'll need except for the pump. You'll want an epdm pump for caustics. Viton works well too but it's not rated as high when using it with sodium hydroxide based strippers.