full restoration services

[CLASSICPW 14]

I do work for a big painting contractor in my area, basically all his prep washes for siding and the occasional deck. Well he had me wash this cedar deck then had his guys go out and sand it. This deck turned out beautiful, like furniture. It's got me thinking, I would have charged about $1200 to strip and seal this deck(the cust wanted a clear seal to show off the color of the wood with a yearly maintenance contract) He charged the guy $3500 to wash/sand/wash/seal. It's got me thinking on total deck restoration, which means going out sanding a deck, rinsing it, then sealing it and charging triple. Is this logical? Is there more money to be made. Let's face it folks, we're not here for the fun of it we are here to make money, what's more profitable? It took 2 guys 2 days to sand this deck.

[RCBill 14]

Jamie,

I do not have the chops yet to speak with authority about deck restoration. But I have been selling services for many years. And, deck restoration and upgrades look to be an excellent offering for terrific profits.

A method of presenting services developed by Sears is the Good, Better, Best. As this applies to selling deck work, an approach may be to attack low-ballers (painters call them station wagon bandits) with the good process, do a normal clean and stain with the better process, and offer upgrades with the Best.

When you offer a prospect really good services, your perceived value will increase. This means you can get better money than the other guy, for the same work. But the prospect must see it, in your marketing materials and your sales presentation.

[Mathew Johnson 123]

This is a log Cabin Project we recently finished. We applied 2 coats of Readyseal. An interesting fact is that we brushed some of this and sprayed some as well. You can not tell the difference between the two areas.

pardon the typos. my typing is much worse than my spelling, LOL

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Here are a few more PICS. The Cabin Has two coats of Gold Readyseal

[PressurePros 248]

Jamie..A caveat about getting into full restorations.. They can be dangerous territory until you really know what you are doing and can estimate your time and project completion correctly. I prefer projects where I know I get in, get out, offer top quality at fair market value and have a happy customer.

When you get into sanding, repairing and full resto you deal with much more things that can go wrong and more work that needs to be warrantied. The customer is paying much more and will be likely to notice that you missed a spot underneath a bottom rail that one would need a dentist's mirror to see. We do plenty of these types of restorations and trust me, like any remodels or restos, you come across things that you didn't expect that quickly eat up time.

There is more profit in a basic strip, balance, defur and seal then there is in a full refurb. Decks are a difficult sell in many cases. If one can get the money for sanding a deck as opposed to taking care of it chemically, they should go for it. My guess is that the triple profits you speak of, Jamie, would be eaten up by triple the amount of down time with no work scheduled. My advice is offer the service in your repetoire, but don't expect to build a niche market in it.

Matthew, that came out beautifully. Nice work as always.

[Mathew Johnson 123]

The Garage and cabin here are board and batton construction. It took us 7 hours to strip both and a bit longer to stain. We applied 2 coats of Dark Red Readyseal. A problem with the camera lost my before PICS. The homeowner is looking for some.

This house was effected ny the flood damage. It is located in Delaware County. The creek overflowed, blew off thier cellar doors, they had 8 feet of water in thier basement and were trapped in thier house for 2 days.

Water (The Creek) was flowing over the bank behind the garage, down across the driveway,

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Here are some more pics. On the Pic of the house, at the bottom you will see where the bridge across the creek into thier driveway was torn away with the flood waters. The bridge was anchored with huge concrete headwalls and steel beams. The force of the flood waters took one of the neighbors cars way.

To get to thier property after the flood, the national guard engineers cut a temporary road (after the flood, the road and creek were one). We stopped and saw them yesterday and sill had to drive through the creek 3 times to get to ther house. The driveway bridge repair starts on monday.

You can also see where the stone wall was torn away. We sat on that four foot high, 2 feet wide fence and had lunch the day we stripped the buildings. The flood happened right after we stripped the house and garage

That creek flows into the Cannonsville Reservior (One of NYC's Water supply reserviors here in upstate NY) about a quarter mile from the house. I had to use reclamation and diversion equipment to prevent water run off into the creek with the stripping and neutralizing components of the project.

The Dark Red ReadySeal was the perfect color choice for this project.

[RCBill 14]

Hey Mathew, nice job.

But I'm writing to complement your marketing. Nice website layout. Did you put it together? Is that Frontpage? There is a lot I like about your marketing. Are you doing it? Would you be offended if I took a couple ideas?

Beside all this good stuff, I have family in a town up there somewhat near West Point. I'm from NJ, now in NC. Man, I gotta tell you, if you can build a PW business there, the Carolinas would be gold to you.

Fished Polaski for a half-dozen years. Pretty good stuff.

Bill

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Borrow Ideas, Call if you need to borrow PICS

[jbruno 14]

Jamie,

what was the reasoning behind sanding the deck? was he getting rid of fuzzies, or was the wood in bad shape? other than those 2 reasons, I would think that the person probably paid for something they didn't need...

[CLASSICPW 14]

First of all, great job Matt!!

jbruno, this cust was a doctor with a very nice house who had a large deck with multiple nasty sealer/stain applications..............he just wanted to start fresh and it was cedar. After the full sand this deck looked unreal. These guys spent 3 days sanding it and i went back and washed the dust off, but it turned out beautiful

[jbruno 14]

First of all, great job Matt!!

jbruno, this cust was a doctor with a very nice house who had a large deck with multiple nasty sealer/stain applications..............he just wanted to start fresh and it was cedar. After the full sand this deck looked unreal. These guys spent 3 days sanding it and i went back and washed the dust off, but it turned out beautiful

If you can afford it, then I guess you get the 3 day sanding. I actually like the "clean and run" jobs. staining sometimes gets a little annoying!

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Snagged another Cedar house today... First time in three years I was contacted by a customer who found me through the PWNA contractor website. He found me and then went to my website.

He is quite a distance from me butn was pretty clear that he wanted me to do his cedar house and he will pay travel and lodging above the cost of the project.

Here is the link to the new "wood refinishing" section of my website... At the page thier are links to photos of the different projects

http://pwscleaning.com/wood_refinishing.htm

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Here is a Cedar House we just finished

[Mathew Johnson 123]

Front of House. This project took 48 Man hours to complete. Two coats of Ready Seal

[seymore 90]

Nice job Mathew :cool:

You have a pic of the deck floor?