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Customers are funny

Question

Ok.. so I have just finished a job 7 days ago on a 26x12 deck hasn't been taken care off in 7 years and then it was treated with a Behr something, I could hardly tell, because the deck was underneath a tree line and had mildewed so bad that when wet became a litteral slip and slide. (Oh I felt as if I entered the twilight zone).( I merely took the job for a GOOD learning experience ). Well after 2 solid days of work noon to dark 8 or so hrs each, the customer was VERY HAPPY with the results of the stripping and brightning alone. I then had to replace 12 1x6's and 2 2x4's due to excessive chipping. The new wood was replaced using wood I have stored for 4 months. So. I then sand down the new boards and use a light stripper and brightner coat to remove anything on the boards. So.. after those being installed time to wait to stain.. All is well. 3 days later I get a 9% moisture reading and decide to finish up this disaster. 6 Mil plastic sheeting I cover the house butting up to the deck 3 ft high from the deck.

Ok... so to make a long story short I now have finished the deck a week ago now the customer calls me and mentions that there is stain on his siding. OK.. so I know there wasn't any when I left due to my final inspection, but I didn't have my camera to proove otherwise.. SO. I Strongly suspect that the customer went back with the qt. of stain I left him for touchups and decided to play Bob Villa and got the siding pretty good, Even thou I told him there will be some natural color variations between boards due to the fact that some are new, and the conditions of each individual board WELL before I started this job.

Now the questions. I typically just use a wet rag with damp mineral spirits to remove any possible markings on siding **although I usually don't have any due to the plastic** but I've never encountered 7 day old stain after it's given time to penetrate and dry on vinyl siding. So.. any suggestions, I was considering a 1/2c - 1 gal mix of hd80 and wiping on with a sponge. Any other suggestions, he won't fess up to it and I feel due to myself not carrying my camera with me on that particular day I am somewhat responsible because not being able to proove otherwise. And needless to say YES I did get paid, $950 and to be honest I wouldn't do it again!!!

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Greg,

Clean up of dried stain depends on the stain. You may want to mention the stain used and I'm sure someone here on TGS will be able to help.

Saw your statement, "3 days later I get a 9% moisture reading". Did you use Ready Seal stain? If so, very easy to clean off of just about any non porous surface. Spray Simple Green and let dwell for a few minutes. Wipe clean.

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if it's vinyl and this is film-forming stain - just get lacqer thinner. One problem - if the siding is chalky, it may smear the color a bit into the siding. I ripped off a roof once and didn't blue tarp - and got all these black smears on a white vinyl siding house - when I went to use lacquer thinner, it smeared it in deeper and turned yellow. But when I pressure washed the area prior - with TSP/Lye/detergent. The marks where still there - but when I went to wipe now with lacqer thinner - they came off easily with no smearing - the chalkiness was now gone due to pressure washing.

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yes it was a ready seal medium red, Cleaned off VERY easily using some grafitti remover **LOWES didn't carry the krud Kutter** I had to get a diff brand.

Thanks for all replies.. Most appreciated. next time.. camera goes in the truck at all times, but I'm also one to go back and touch up so a 10 minute effort to regain the customer is well worth it.. my fault or not.. it's good buisness

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I'm also one to go back and touch up so a 10 minute effort to regain the customer is well worth it.. my fault or not.. it's good buisness

Hurray!, Hurrah! >YES!< You may just have a customer for life.

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