Hi everyone, I’ve never used PWRA yet, but I bought this company last year and am quite inexperienced. The previous owner moved about 1800 miles away and is too busy to mentor. I’m struggling a lttle with bringing in the business and when i do jobs, I’m running on formulas not experience. Some guys are working by themselves, but certain jobs seem impossible to safely clean alone. A recent roof cleaning was my first major accident, which could have been avoided had I been on the ground. My employee doesn’t understand the seriousness of doing the job right. I can’t be everywhere at once. We burned a large yellow spot in the yard and got an arborvitae pretty bad. I’m taking care of the customer, but I’d like to maintain the best reputation and realizing how much I don’t know yet. How do I properly protect the landscape from roof over spray? Also the “tiger striping” gutter Oxidation is common here in Dayton OH. On the roof jobs if I get the gutter it makes clean streaks, but its just a roof job. On the house washing, the oxidated gutter streaks don’t come off, and customers don’t seem to always understand. And I have no experience with Grenade. Used it a couple times well diluted and was almost scared at its effectiveness. I’m a very motivated, yet inexperienced character that wants to do his best, but feels like he is learning alone. Just afraid of “burning” a customers experience with me. My job estimating seems a little too varied. Lost a $1,100 window bid to someone three times cheaper. I know the other guy couldn’t have made a dime on it, but maybe I was over the top. Just looking for advice from you veterans. Any tips, especially for calculating a job? Thanks in advance. BTW I’m Paul Dickerson, Owner of Cleantec Ltd. House washing, roof cleaning, windows, concrete, and gutters.
Best protection would be dilution. I tarp plants and bushes and i get the ground wet before i do anything to the roof and continue to have someone spraying water on grass until job is done.
Thanks. That’s exactly what I was having my guy do, but he’s not careful enough. Instead of tying the gutter off, he tied it at the end of the plastic gutter extension laying on the slope. It was cracked so bad we didn’t catch any runoff from that down spout. The arborvitae was not rinsed as it should have been. The tarped areas were fine though.
Maybe stick a garden hose in the top of the gutter and let it run in the area your working in so its diluted and the grass stays wet wherever the runoff will go
Hi Paul, How is Luke doing? I’ve not heard from him for a while.
F-13 gutter cleaner. Use it per directions above 65 degrees. You can make it peel bad paint if you try. It has happened once in nine years for us.
Put less product on the roof and you’ll have less barrelling over the gutter.
You know how to protect the vegetation. You just have to do it. No shortcuts here.
We are routinely 2 1/2 to 3 times higher than other service providers and that is not a bother at all. I would rather be profitable than just busy.
Pricing for nicer residential? You (I, anyway) need $2,000 a day to make money. You will settle for less because you are slower than you will be. Unless you’ve figured out how to stay busy 50 weeks a year, then you can work cheaper.
Keep at it, the washing is the easy part. It’s everything else that separates the men from the boys.
-tim fields
