Greg R

Haha.... Found out today that one of my guys called somebody at Ready Seal :) (uh... I was wanting some stain for my sisters deck... uh...) Out comes the non-compete agreements! :) Greg

3M Microfinishing Compound to buff it and 3M Hand Glaze to restore the shine. Been there done that... :) Stuffs not cheap though. Greg

You could make them sign a non-compete agreement. It won't stand up to the courts in many states however most of your employees won't know that. I was a little concerned about that when my guys just showed up out of the blue wanting to work. Fortunately while they are outstanding workers I dont think they could sell ice to a man in hell :) Greg

Retaining good employees who actually give a damn has always been my biggest problem... in fact if it were not for Tim (one of my guys working for me now) I probably would not be back in this business. Tim worked for me for 2 years from 02 to 04 and he was the most dedicated guy I've met. When he told me he was going to work for the railroad (money and benefits) I was pretty bummed. Fortunately this past winter he called me up wanting to do more deck work and here we are back at it full time now. This guy works his butt off... plus he brought him in a guy (chuck) to work with him thats just as motivated. They were out cleaning decks last night until a little after 8pm only to get up this morning and be on a staining job at 7:15 am 30 minutes away. I'm pretty happy :) The downside (if there is one) is in order to make this work he had to make more money... so now all of my work is paid out to them as piece work. Thus far its actually worked out pretty good though and it will allow them to bank some money away for the winter months. I guess the moral of the story is the good guys know they're good and just like you and I they are out to make life better for themselves. I can get chumps all day for $10 a hour but man the headaches associated with them are never ending. My answer to it has suddenly become to pay them what their worth and with Tim he's now averaging around $20 to $25 an hour (based on the time on the job - not driving). Take Care, Greg

Im probably a little biased (although theres no reason for me to be now...) but Im a TimberStrip fan :)

So your only doing one side of some sections? Carefull - bleed throughs (chemical or stain) and neighbors with nothing else to do dont go together. I've always managed to get the customer who doesn't get along with the 82 year old lady next door. If so much as one clean spot shows up on her side of the fence... We stopped doing one-siders several years ago. We now do the whole thing or nothing. Best of luck - Greg

It was brought to my attention through a PM that the sq ft number is off - its actually 4032 sq ft to be treated (not 2016 - have to count both sides). That would bump the bid to around $2200 in order to cover the additional material costs. This fence would COST ME around $900 to complete churning a $1300 profit over the two days. Even these numbers are lower than where I would like to be :)

We would be around $1800 on that job. ($6 per foot of fence - includes both sides) Correction: $2200 (sq foot numbers are off up top) My linear pricing is correct but the amount of product used was being based on the sq ft numbers at the top of this post. Im not sure how you could do a job of that size for $700 and make any money... 2016/100 sq ft per gallon = 20 Gallons of Stain (Stain cost roughly $360) Correction: 36 Gallons (stain cost is $648) Between the two days needed to complete the job (clean one - seal the other) and roughly 8 man hours worth of labor it wouldn't be worth doing at that price. I've always said if we can't make hourly on fencing what we average on decks they're not worth doing :) Of course this estimate is based on our way of doing things... Greg

Who needs to write a story... I would bet the photos of that lesson are still over on deckguide! No more linseed based finishes for us. Get a careless guy or two and next thing ya know your filing a claim for $20k. We're using 90% Ready Seal now and I've been reassured it wont combust :)

Hey Rick - Yes... I like to lead by example :) Funny thing is I had a second one burn down the year before last. A squirrel built a nest in behind the passenger headlight and the manifold caught the nest on fire... the insurance company loves me.

If the finish wont come off with the Easy Off bid it as a major strip :) At this point in the game we are staying as far away from latex jobs as possible. I've done alot of them in my days and I myself along with the guys working for us have always dreaded these jobs. There's a lot of stripping and usually sanding to follow. Typically we would have to charge 3 or 4 times the price on a latex strip to justify the hourly profit from a oil based strip. Around here though when they lay it on they lay it on HEAVY... we have alot of painters around here pretending to be deck guys :)

Thats me :) I couldn't get logged in under my old user name so I had to start as a newbie :) Been to deckguide a good number of times too. How's business been Rick? Great I hope! We're back doing wood again too - couldn't stay away appearently. Take Care Greg

Sometimes you have to get creative.. we've "borrowed" power and water from a neighbor before. With permission of course and justified the usage with them. It stinks to drive to a job and find out the power tripped or the water supply is unavailable so if we can make it work so be it. One key point when your bidding however is to make sure you check to see that these items are available to you. We've had several occassions where the homeowner had to run water or power out from the inside simply because it was never installed on the outside of the home.

Laptop powerpoint presentation followed by an estimate drawn up in Quickbooks Pro printed onsite with a BJC85 Laptop printer. When I leave the estimate it's done and already in the computer that way! Plus if they put a deposit down immediately it's entered and an updated copy with their deposit can be printed up. Greg

Hi Mike ( and Beth and Rick!) When I'm bidding I carry a can of Easy Off oven cleaner with me - if you have a finish where your not sure if it is oil or latex just spray a spot. The easy off is NaOh based (sodium hydroxide) and will break down any oil based finish. For the most part acrylics and latex kind of stand out and when familiar you can pick them out without even testing. However we have had a few darker brown stains that have surprised us. :) Take Care Greg

We have a $300 minumum no matter how small the job is. With gas prices what they are and the setup and teardown time you can't really afford to bid some of the smaller ones at "normal" per sq ft rates. Greg