I’m setting up my first trailer with a budget of about $6K. I will be almost strictly residential and offering house, driveway, decks & fences, and roofs.
I’m wondering whether to go smaller on the machine in order to budget in a nice soft wash system or to go bigger on the machine and either x-jet or use a high-draw downstream system? Can I actually DS roofs? Haven’t worked out my bleach supply yet but will likely be using the wal-mart pool bleach for a while. I think it’s 10%?.. or I could just have a 55 gal of 12.5% shipped.
Tanks, surface cleaner, trailer, reels, plumbing, guns, chems, will all come from my 6k too. Everything.
With credit or financing I could maybe stretch to $10K but this makes me pretty nervous. I’m in a small town and there may be a ceiling on the amount of business I can generate. I will also be employing another guy although I realize I don’t need to. He’s a great worker and vet too and needs my help. So maybe two 4GPMs?
If you have a limited budget, limit your services. Don’t worry about roofs or anything you think you might need a “soft wash” set up for. They are not a necessity, and the one it two times you might need one, a pump sprayer will accomplish the same thing. You’ll be more effecient and make more money with one 8gpm machine than with two 4gpm machines.
A couple bits of advice, unless you have to hire someone, don’t. At least not starting out. Buy a 5.5 or 8 gpm with a v-twin. Don’t worry about a soft wash setup right now. Please get a tandem axle trailer. You won’t regret it.
And no you can’t downstream roofs.
One more thing. I’ve built my whole business off of the things I’ve read on here and building relationships with other professionals in the industry. Go out and meet other pressure washers. It doesn’t have to be your direct competition but it’s A good idea to go out and put eyes/hands on other people’s equipment before you build your own.
Good luck. You may want to up your budget to 10k to get quality equipment.
I hear you on networking with other people I’d love to but as far as I know I’m going to be the only guy in my area with even a trailer. Just painters and handymen. Big outfits may occasionally come from other cities I don’t know. So yeah I’m digging deep on all the good info here.
Anybody know anything about ‘pressure washer products’? I really like their write up on this machine and that they offer a full plumbing kit. Would probably save me a million trips to the store and a lot of fumbling.
I would steer clear of them. She has been banned from this and multiple other forums. My personal dealings with her would never allow me to but an outing to support them.
