Warranties????

[plainpainter 217]

Ok - yet another clueless homeowner couple - give them a smashing deal to wash their whole house, retention wall, concrete steps, and prep their little wood deck for it to be re-stained - I was under $400. And just as I think she is going to sign on the spot - she says 'we're still waiting on other estimates' - 'And by the way - do you give a warranty on this?'

I almost went running out screaming - but I explained trying to warranty her home from getting dirty again from mother nature is a little bit of a tall order. I am about to give up on young couples with 'tots' running around the home looking for a 'deal'. Honestly - getting multiple estimates for a housewash - I have noticed that I hardly ever never get a job from a young couple.

Oh well - maybe in ten years when they aren't so young - I'll get their work.

But sometimes the lack of common sense - I find disheartening

[jbruno 14]

Don't give them a Warranty, give them a Guarantee .. You'll Guarantee if they go with a cheap price and someone will "warranty" the work, then you'll guarantee they will get a **** job!

[John Orr 206]

You can't offer a guarantee (especially if there is oil-based paint on the house) but you can guarantee their satisfaction by not asking for payment until after the work is complete and they have inspected it. You could also explain that by using the wash technique and chems that you, as a professional, licensed and insured - and experienced - contractor use, the existing mold/mildew/algae will be killed and that it will require a much longer time to reappear. In my area, I explain that no matter how good a job I do, their house will get dirty again and that my typical customer has their house washed every 2 -3 years.

Sometimes, people aren't really looking for an actual guarantee, they just want to know that they will get the best job possible. (If you are rated on Angie's List, it can greatly increase your companies credibility.)

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Its funny how some people think a cleaning service is capable of being covered by a warranty or guarantee.

My answer is: We do not manufacture the products used in the performance of your services so we have no ability to offer anything other than an assurance that it will be clean once we are finished. After that, mother nature will be hard at work undoing everything and I thank her for keeping me in business.

Rod!~

[814jeffw 71]

I've been in this discussion on another board,..and I whole heartily agree with the sentiment here so far. You can only guarantee it will be clean when you leave,...to many variables in the wide open spaces of Earth to promise or "warrant" anything more. Guaranteeing it won't get dirty,..what constitutes "dirty" and who decides it,...and how many times would a warranted cleaner go back for the road dust or something similar.

Not to mention, lights, proximity to the street, what is under the siding promoting mildew problems.

As I said on the other board, guys who offer warranty work are counting on the customer having a real world sense, and they just want a good job, and have no intention in calling you back in a few months to clean of spider crap from under the porch light. It's a selling phrase, which is fine,...just not for me!!

Jeff

[plainpainter 217]

I watched a neighbor's house get pressure washed last spring - by fall it was covered in mildew again. Now it wasn't a professional low pressure-high gallonage kind of pressure washing job {it was two painters with a ladder scrubbing on bleach and using a 2.5gpm machine} But the mildew was gone as far as I could tell right after the job. I would like to think my work is higher quality and wouldn't have resulted in such fast regrowth - but who knows? I don't put anything onto a home that could abate future growth - not only do I not know of anything that actually works - I assume you would need a pesticide license in case there was even such a product.

I've also noticed and perhaps I am wrong on this - the folks that want a warranty and ask if it will go another 7+ years before needing to be re-washed, are almost always the penny pinching price shoppers. Folks that go with my service almost never ask me about warranties and such. I educate folks as to realistic expectations and properties of the outcome that may prevent mildew growth for a time - but I can't warranty against future growth.

[plainpainter 217]

You can't offer a guarantee (especially if there is oil-based paint on the house)

I just read this - I did this balls to walls house repaint for a homeowner - and the total job was like 385 man-hours. And since it was like 17+ layers of old lead based paint buildup from over a hundred years of repaints plus perhaps 3 latex jobs on top of it - I sold the guy on a solid oil stain on the siding after prep and oil prime on the bare wood. I knew this home was a disaster and a latex paint job was just going to peel off whatever I wasn't able to scrape off the following year.

I finished that job in May of '07 - after I scraped and sanded - I low pressure cleaned the entire home with an extremely strong detergent/bleach solution about 4-5x the strength of my normal house wash. The following spring - a year later - mildew covered all the clapboards under all the eaves and other areas - yet the latex painted trim is clean as new. This could have been a home I washed in '07 - and by '08 it would have been covered in mildew, and I would have been on the hook for a free pressure washing job! And what's worse - it's the house next door that re-infected it! So with warranties you put yourself at risk for doing lots of free work that isn't really our fault.

[jbruno 14]

I watched a neighbor's house get pressure washed last spring - by fall it was covered in mildew again. Now it wasn't a professional low pressure-high gallonage kind of pressure washing job {it was two painters with a ladder scrubbing on bleach and using a 2.5gpm machine} But the mildew was gone as far as I could tell right after the job. I would like to think my work is higher quality and wouldn't have resulted in such fast regrowth - but who knows? I don't put anything onto a home that could abate future growth - not only do I not know of anything that actually works - I assume you would need a pesticide license in case there was even such a product.

I've also noticed and perhaps I am wrong on this - the folks that want a warranty and ask if it will go another 7+ years before needing to be re-washed, are almost always the penny pinching price shoppers. Folks that go with my service almost never ask me about warranties and such. I educate folks as to realistic expectations and properties of the outcome that may prevent mildew growth for a time - but I can't warranty against future growth.

So your BJ neighbor hired someone other than YOU. Hopefuly they never "need" anything in a pinch!

Most of the times my next door neighbor gets a FREE housewash when I do my own. He's one of my best friends, has an in ground pool, and is always hooking me up with work from people he knows. Some neighbors are gold, some aren't!!

[plainpainter 217]

So your BJ neighbor hired someone other than YOU. Hopefuly they never "need" anything in a pinch!

Most of the times my next door neighbor gets a FREE housewash when I do my own. He's one of my best friends, has an in ground pool, and is always hooking me up with work from people he knows. Some neighbors are gold, some aren't!!

What makes it worse it's a house I painted 3 years ago - but new homeowners moved in, don't know me from Adam. Welcome to the northeast - where you don't even know your neighbors anymore. My very next door neighbor even threw me under the bus because I was $1,700 more - and I asked if they quoted 2 coats like me - and he said 'I think so'

And when they did the job - it was one coat only - and this was my next door neighbor!

[deach 14]

OOPS double post

Edited March 31, 2009 by deach

[deach 14]

Well Dan, unfortunately it's getting more and more about the price. (Flame on people)... I honestly what you say to "SOME" people just doesn't matter. I just got a call the other day after spending two hours with a customer, explaining techniques, coatings, chemicals, etc etc. and she called me and told me they were going with someone else that didn't take so much of their time and was bout half the price. (NO I wasn't too high to begin with). I asked her a question or two and she said " I don't know I only know he just took a quick look and came up with a price that was cheaper." (as to infer that because I took the time to measure and bid it correctly I'm the idiot). So anyway totally understand where you're coming from.

[plainpainter 217]

I had this one job that was worth $600 - and my competitor bid to wash, clean out gutters, and clean the streaks off for half the price - which is like my minimum to do anything. I gave my estimate to the husband and he said it was very reasonable - when I got the wife on the phone - she was very abrupt and rude - and basically cast me off as some highway robbing pond scum. But that's ok - I know the guy doesn't have insurance -I'll be throwing more and more guys under the bus this year as the season progresses.