Why PWing?

[Jeff 232]

What are the reasons you all picked pressure washing as your profession or as a parttime 2nd job? Just wondering.

I picked it because I was familar with it, I was a union steel painter/sandblaster for years and many many times I used pressure washing equipment on jobs. Over the years I had done house washing several times. So after an on the job accident and not wanting to go back to my dangerous trade I figured Id try PWing and as I got more work I decided I could make a living at it. Low start up cost helped also.

How did you get into it?

JL

[John T 744]

Around 1992 I use to clean my house by hand with a brush and soap. Then about 1994 I hired a retired Police officer to Powerwash my house. I was amazed at how fast he cleaned my house and Deck and also how much he made from me and also how much he can make on a good day since we got to be friendly for that day.

Then In 1995 I was cleaning pools for a friend of mine and it was at this time he let me use his Powerwasher to clean My parents and sisters houses.

In 1996 I started my own Powerwashing business and today I can't believe I'm about to start my 11th year of business. This is the second longest job I ever had and by the time I'm done doing this business I have a gut feeling that this will be the longest job I ever had:)

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

It was a pretty new thing around here and I have always been on the look out for entrepreneurial enterprise that was basically ground level (no pun) and no market saturation. PW'ing was it.

Rod!~

[One Tough Pressure 580]

I like playing in the water.

[Ron Musgraves 240]

I was n High School washing window and a PM asked me to clean her walks on a center and the rest is history. I continued doing this thru college and when I finished I started coaching at local Jr. high and realized I was never going to make as much money coaching as pw.

I have owned to many businesses since and always have stuck with PW.

[Mark Williamson 14]

I got a p/w to clean my house when I first moved in. My wife was going to leave her job because of the birth of my son. I started to think of some other ways to make up for the lost of income. After I washed my home one day, my neighbor asked if I could do his. I said to my self this is it. I made up some flyers and started handing them out. Before I got home that day my wife called me and said you got 3 calls already. Now it's my full time job.

[Jarrod 22]

Because every day is different. 1 day I'm washing truck fleets, the next day decks, or houses, or whatever. I'm not surrounded by 4 walls all day. I don't have to "punch out " for lunch and be back in 1 hour. It feels good to watch something dirty and basically worthless turn into something nice & clean b4 my very eyes.

[James 625]

I started in Residential Window cleaning 20 years ago. When pressure cleaning started to be used by painters for house prep and others doing house washing. I got allot of call's from distraught home owners who couldn't see out of there house. Then I got a call because a deck sealing company sealed all the windows and paint and skylights on the back of a house. CWF....

I said to my self> I can do a better job!

[Chappy 138]

I like playing in the water.

i like playing in chlorine:lgsideway

Thats really the only part I actually hate about it. The rest I love. Good, honest, hard work. Set your own hours. Deal with those you want to deal with. Ability to build business on your reputation by providing top notch service.

Plus I was pretty well unemployable. Ever notice how bosses hate to be told their ideas are stupid? Now I can tell me that my ideas are stupid and I wont fire myself. Not until i find a good helper anyway.

[Barry M 73]

Don't get me started on bosses, I still have one on the full time job. Once I start PWing full time I'm going to give myself a bonus check at X-mas for the good job I do myself. Bosses suck.

[Don M. 14]

I know what you mean Barry. I still have my full time job as well.

I always wanted to own by own business. My Dad had his (water well drilling) and I knew that was a great lifestyle. But like a dummy I didnt take it over.

I started a handyman business and did okay with it for extra money, but some jobs were just too much for me. So on the internet I did a search about decks, bought a manual, and wound up running a small ad for washing residental homes. I found TCN, went to a roundtable, found this sight, and I feel really comfortable with the knowlege that I am receving on this sight. I am still really new, but I feel like everyone elses hard work has probably saved me 2 years of learning how to do it on my own.

Just the other day I did a building and across the street was the 2nd house I washed in my career. It took me 3 hours to do it back then because of the equipment that I had and my knowledge. Now it would take 1 1/2 and thats with setting everything up and tearing it down.

I owe a lot to you guys and to Steve R. over at TCN. I dont think I will ever be able to repay everyone.

Thanks

Don

[jgoral76 14]

I started over 1 yr ago because this auto industry im inis going down. but I really like doing it the interacting with people also.

[bforbis 14]

At age 35 I went back to school to get a degree in engineering and about 5 years later came out with a Chemical Engineering and Chemistry degree. Went to work for a large corporation for about 5 years and lost my job and about everything else, I mean everything ...but what I could carry or pack into a car.

I floundered for about a year trying to get back into the job market, but totally devastaded after putting so much into my work and education. I can't sit around and wait and looking for work, interveiwing trying to explain what happended just made me more frustrated and angry. Corporate BS just is not the way I want to live, nor did I (which is one reason I did not fit)

I friend had some equipment and I expressed some interest, he loaned it to me for about 9 months and one regular account turned into several and newer equipment soon was a must. My first real PW job was an apartment complex. It took me about 2 months to complete. I did one, maybe two buildings a day. That gave me the $$ for new equipment a truck and confidence to look for more work, practice my delivery for sales and close a job (this still needs work).

[John T 744]

Way to go Brent!!

I just love hearing these stories of what got people into this field. Its like learning the history of Powerwashing..on the bio channel.

[Jeff 232]

These are some great stories on why & how people got into PWing. I truly believe this is one of the best businesses to get into with little start up cost compared to other professions.

Congrats to ALL!

Love this stuff

Keep the stories coming

JL

[StainlessDeal 16]

I think I've posted about this before, but I was an over the road household goods driver (read: Mover) for most of my adult life. After meeting a woman I wanted to marry, and realising that hauling over 340 days a year wasn't going to make it, I switched to operating a 32 meter concrete pump. Good money and home every night.

Things were grand until the night before I was going to buy the engagement ring. My girlfriend and I were out with friends, and I was telling my future best man that we were going to get the ring the next day. Everybody was excited, and were all waiting for the call to say I had popped the question. Instead they got the call that we had been in an accident on the way home the night before.

A young kid in an F-250 blew a red light at 50 MPH and rearranged my priorities for life. I had to learn to walk again, and to get by with something less than 1/2 of the right arm I was used to. To compound the rearrangement, I lost my job, my physical ability to do the old job, and most of my savings. I was lucky: I am alive. Everyday since then has been a good day, some are just more cryptic about it.

I was able to enroll in my state's vocational rehab program and they asked me what I wanted to do. You have to realise that I was still pretty heavily sedated when I told them I wanted to own and operate my own PW business. lol

I've had to make a lot of adjustments, mostly in how I accomplish the more physical aspects of the job, but I love the work and still being independent. I have gotten married to my girl, we bought a home, and the business is coming along. I'm happy to be a part of this industry, and was attracted to it mostly by watching the guys that washed my rigs, and by washing my own.

I had no idea what I was getting into, but it has (mostly) been pleasant surprises. I thought I would mostly do fleets and residential window jobs. I really don't do either of those. Mostly I do flatwork and roofs, especially lichen removal: Something I had never even heard of before I started doing it.

One of my first trucking jobs was driving a delivery truck for a large lumber outfit here. Lots of us worked part-time building deck, gazebos, and docks, and I was no exception to that rule. That interest has led me to some little bit of wood restoration now. Funny how different my life has turned out since then.

I really wouldn't have it any other way. I kind of feel like one of Cortez's men: I didn't ask to burn the ship that could get me outta here, but, since it IS gone, I guess I have to make the best of it.

I'm up for a challenge today, how about you?:lgkick:

[Scott Stone 604]

Wel, I might as well join in here. I don't play well with others. When there is a job, I expect everyoen to have the same rules, and not some to get preferential treatment, because of their physical attributes, and their willingness to share...;)

I was working for a large public utility, and had been married about 2 years, when they announced a down sizing. I already was hated at, and hated my job. I did not fit in. I wasn't willing to make the allownaces that everyone else was. Plus I think that they were mad that I did not want to make their coffee for them, at a union job, no less. When the announcement came down, I was told that out of a company of 10,000, I was the lowest in seniority on the union side, due to a previous downsizing a year or so before. That was not a comfortable position. They then told me that I would get a severance package if I took a voluntary layoff. That worked out to about $35k. I am not a rocket scientist, but I know that the next severance would not be voluntary, and there would be no money with it. I took the money and ran. While I was working at the job, about 6 months before the layoff was announced, I had bought a pressure washer and was startign a detail business. I am a lousy detailer. I enjoy it. I can do it, but I am not really good at it. When I got laid off, I took a year off, because I decided that I could wash trucks. And I did. It was not enough to support my family and I, so I had to go back to work. No big deal, I delivered milk at night, and washed during the day and on the weekends, and life was good. This let my wife stay home with our now two children, and the bills were met. I did that for 5 years, got a few promotions, and found out that my senior manager had preferences that were not me. (I see a trend here) He actually wrote me up for doing my job too well. (I have a copy of the letter, and it was a disciplinary letter) He wanted me to spend all day sitting in the office with the other guys that had my same job title. I figured that somethign needed to change, and I did. I got another job driving a truck. It gave me more freedom, and no more 115 hour work weeks. I drove that truck for a year. I landed a couple of LARGE accounts. (at least at that time) and quit a year later. The only reason I lasted a year was because I gave my word that I would work for them a year. So I have been a dumb truck washer ever since.

Scott Stone