Help with bidding?

[Jaime]

I have a vinyl siding and brick home to wash next week. Two sides of each. Plus a small deck out back about 10 X 12 oh plus 1 flight of wood steps. House is a typical new two story old farm looking house with brick porch on front. Lots of windows front and back none on the sides. This is a guy I do a lot of regular work for who begged me to do his house.

Bidding?
Any suggestions on what to bid?????? I was thinking 400.00 to 500.00 (Is To much or to little?) It's a pretty big house in a very very very nice neighborhood. The house is about $300,000 to $400,000 (Smallest home in area too!)

Chemical?

I was using limeolene but I got screwed on a job because of it. To many streaks!!!!!!!! So I am thinking of trying the bleach, tide, cascade etc. mixture. But what about on the brick?

Will the bleach hurt the plants?? This guy has spent about $40,000 on landscaping alone. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks Jaime

 

[Mike Hughes]

I think the price is in line.........as long as you are only cleaning the deck, no sealing. I have never had problems with that mixture hurting the plants.........just cover them with water before you spray the house, give them a quick rinse after you spray the cleaners, and you should be ok.

 

[spraymasters]

I really hate to do it.....but...... I have to agree with Mike.
Pretty much what we would charge. I also would add some if they want the deck sealed.
Make sure you send a thank you note and let him know that you would appreciate any
referrals he could give you.
Den

 

[ron]

Hi i have a hot water skid unit. A nice pick-up truck. Insurance. I use good chemicals and do
a good job. I charge $80 per hour for cold wash and $90 for hot.[standered soaps] $35
per tandem truck if once a week and $45 if once every 2 weeks. On decks and furniture
i use penofin and charge $65 per gallon applied[blue lable] $75 [red lable]. im in NJ
and want to get an opinion on my pricing. Thanks on special chems. i mark-up 30%

 

[Richard R.]

Hi Jaime,
House washing has become one of my most popular requests, although not near as many as I would like.
Anyway, I have found that $1.00 per linear ft for single stories and $2.00 per linear ft for two stories seems to be very reasonable and highly excepted by my customers. If a home is fairly square shaped, I usually step it off with a little more than a normal stride and multiply times 3 giving me the linear foot. I usually don't bother adding the chemicals unless it is a specialized job with circumstances that I feel may run into some intensified problems. I've only had a few customers that thought I was to expensive and I usually found that they would have said the same thing if I would have charged them anything over $150.00.
With the cleaning mix I use, and the customer watching for awhile, the price no longer seems important. I have found that most people have no idea how much difference this procedure will make until I've started the process. In many cases, if more people knew this procedure saves them from having to paint their homes, we wouldn't have time to take care of all the calls.
I have a shurflo with a 14 gal tank which I put about 4 cups of deep cleaning Tide, 2 cups of cascade, 2 to 3 gals of Ultra Clorox with sodium hydroxide and bleach, a little Jet-X, about 800 to 1000 or less psi with about 185 to 212 degree hot water and the mold, mildew and dirt can't run fast enough. You aught to see the customers eyes. I got most of the idea from JR Wood, and let me tell you, if there is dirt, you will find it.
As for the deck, I think you should treat it totally seperate. The customer needs to know that you are performing two totally seperate specialty funtions with somewhat, two totally seperate techniques. When the consumer sees the outcome and techniques, they will understand a different price variation. I know the two techniques are simular, but yet so different. At least it seems much different to me.
Just my opinion, but I think washing a house and washing and retoring a deck is two totally different fields for power washing. I think I could teach almost anyone to wash a house, but it takes a special technique to do wood restorations and I also believe that it is most important that this fact be made very clear to the consumer.
Hope I don't get any negative feed backs on my opinion. It's just that I believe each and every individual project should stand alone just like most other profession. Not that it matters in this case, but my train of thought kind of derailed a moment.
Anyway, if you have a $300.000 old style 2 story home and a 120 sq ft deck, you most likely are looking at about $650.00 or more, unless you are doing it because of special circumstances.

Hope everything goes well.

Richard R

 

[Power Clean]

Jamie,

I'm not sure what size home you're referring too. i've seen 400k homes at 3k sq ft and 400k homes at 5k sq ft. be careful.

are the plants close to the house? do you cover the plants? do they expect the gutters to be spotless? some are a pain. think about these and other possible difficulties.

as far as washing brick. i wash those also. just make sure i soak the brick and then soak the brick more before i apply the soap mixture. then i rinse and rinse and rinse more afterwards. that stuff can be like a sponge.

something i learned just recently though, look out for oxidation. from now on i won't guarantee its coming off. i wish someone could tell me an absolute solution for the removal of that stuff.

good luck,
roy