Fair market Price

[daryl 14]

Hello Guys/Gals, I had customer to call wanting me to give her a price on cleaning her deck. It’s a small deck and I believe that the quote I gave her was to low.

Tell me was 250.00 to low for me to clean/briten/sealing it. I don’t have the numbers but I do have some pictures.

Thanks Daryl

[PressurePros 248]

I think your number is on target. That should take no more than an hour to clean and another hour to seal.

[CCPC 26]

As much as I hate wood, the thought of doing anything to it for less than 1,000 makes me cringe. :sinister:

[Greg R 82]

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

[Don M. 14]

Hey Ken and Greg would that 250-300 include the cost of stain?

[PressurePros 248]

I agree 100% with Greg. My minimum deck job is also $350.

I would do this deck if I were able to schedule another complete "deck-in-a-day" with Wood Tux nearby.

Yes, the cost would include materials. The Wood Tux and cleaner would be under $35. There are clowns out there that would wash and seal this deck for a hundred bucks.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Prices will vary as I see according to region. our minimum is more in line with Ken's as time on the road, set up and break down time and actual job time, chems, gas, insurances, and overhead are part of the price to be considered.

Take into consideration that you will be making 2 trips to this property, the distance and time you will be traveling, the rate you want to be paid for all this time, The rate of which you can accomplish the job will give you the job time (ex:150sqft/hr/person), the rate for your worker(s), the costs of fuels, chems, supplies, and other overhead costs you have and determine what you will need to remain profitable. Remember, there will be times you go out to do the job and a circumstance pops up and you cannot do the work. You will have used up labor hours and fuel just to get there.

Situations like: No water available, customer is not ready for you (too much stuff on the deck [string lights, heavy planters, large wooden picnic tables etc]), gate is locked-no access, dogs in the yard...etc. You get the point.

Somewhere along the line you need to recoup these lost costs and by having a minimum, you create a buffer in which to help absorb the costs and keep in the black.

Rod!~

[Jeff 232]

Heck I know a guy up the road that would blast the hell out of that deck with pressure and put a cheap water seal on it for $150, He calls it a "hard wash" He's been in biz years and screwed up a lot of decks, but you know I actually know that some of his customers are happy with the job, go figure

I dont do much wood, but I definitly dont do "hard wash"

I dont like the small decks becuase of the fact you have to go out 2 days to wash & seal $350 up would be what I charge. I just had one about the same size no railings had a couple benchesand I quoted $450 it was 45 minutes away and with gas for the estimate and 2 trips I wanted to make it worth my while. They said to much and that was ok with me

JL

[daryl 14]

Hey guys this will be my first deck to clean. I’m not sure if this wood thing is for me. I’m going to give it a try just to see if it’s worth my time and effort. I will give it 110% and use the best chemical I can find. I will keep you guys posted.

Thanks Daryl

[daryl 14]

Hi its me again I call Sun brite in GA talk to Charles an he gave me a price on

Some Wood restoration chem. has anybody try their line of products?

[plainpainter 217]

I like the itemization of costs that Rod gave. I'll have to write them down and show my customers, as I run into lots of people with 'easy' buttons lately. I had one customer go on vacation, and told her to turn on her spigot last spring. She called me to say she did, I show up after she has left - and the spigot isn't turned on. The next two homes I go to pressure wash didn't even have spigots! Homeowners love to chisel you down, and then you run into all these unexpected costs and loss of time - it's tough sometimes.

-Dan

[Greg R 82]

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.