i went out earlier and it’s dried off ant it looks A LOT cleaner, looks really nice. it was one of the dirtiest areas of my patio too. i want to go over it a little bit more putting a little more shoulder into it to get a few remaining spots, but overall i am very happy with the results. going to take a while to do the whole patio though.
I know this thread is a few months old but I thought I’d revive it rather than start a whole new one that may not be necessary.
I’ve been asked to clean some flat work at two separate houses. The houses are on the same side of the street but have a house in between them that I have not been called to do. The houses themselves are WAY out of my league to be cleaning, and I’m thinking that the amount of flat work may be as well.
All flat work to be cleaned are pavers. Both jobs are being resanded by a landscaper contractor. Same contractor reached out to me to clean these pavers.
House one has two areas to be cleaned: paver driveway as well as paver patio surrounding pool. Landscaper is extending current pool patio area with identical pavers, but wants original pavers to be cleaned so as to match new ones. Once cleaned, landscaper will install new sand. Rough measurement is 3,700 sq ft. (1,700 in front and 2,000 in rear).
House two also has two areas to be cleaned: paver patio surrounding pool area as well as a second story balcony with pavers. There will be no installation of new pavers at this house, but landscaper will resand. Rough measurement is 4,000 sq ft. (700 up top and 3,300 below).
I know these are from the best photos. I had done three house washes Saturday before getting caught in an afternoon rainstorm and headed over to check these two out. When I hopped out of the truck to check these out in person I foolishly left my phone in my truck.
In my opinion, the areas don’t look horrible, but it was already wet when I got there. Second house has some very minor grass/moss growth in small areas. If I were to get this job, I would utilize my surface cleaner (very basic surface maxx pro 15") and likely just that if I could (other then having to use a tip to clean around corners, etc). If I have to, I do have the ability to torture myself and use a 2 gallon pump sprayer and pre-treat with 50/50 SH.
I’ve never done flatwork this large before, nor have I cleaned this magnitude of pavers. It’s one thing to mess it up and to take my lumping, but it’s another thing to possibly tarnish the name of a landscaper who is asking me to quote the jobs.
Even if each job took me a full day, I am okay with that with my foreseeable schedule. All I would have invested in this job would be my own time, gasoline, any SH, and wear & tear on the equipment. I don’t think that I’ll be gaining much exposure in this demographic area as I am not ready to clean 1.5 million dollar homes on the lake, but the landscaper is someone I know well and does these kinds of installs routinely and it may pave the way for some more business down the road.
Before I go and ask the landscaper to arrange a time for me to do a sample area, I wanted to see how many of you all are going to advise me to “walk away”. I’d really like the payout, which I haven’t even come close to nailing down yet, but I also know that I shouldn’t bring a sword to a gun fight.
Thank you to everyone for your honest opinions - now let the onslaught begin!
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Are you pretty sure on your footage, seems a little low, esp on 1st one?
I typically charge a little more for pavers because it takes longer to rinse them. Houses look pretty new, really surprised they need re-sanding unless first installer did crappy job.
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Be prepared to deal with the mud that’s going to come out the joints. It will be most of your time on these jobs in my experience.
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Probably not a job i would be tackling with a 3.5gpm machine and 15” surface cleaner. Explore your options in hiring a bigger unit. As stated above there is a lot of rinsing involved in these jobs, doing it with a 3.5gpm especially the second house would crush my soul and question my career choice. Honest words.
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Oh lord, you’re trying to use a 3.5 for all that?
Maybe just do it and from your experience gained make decisions about the future.
Until you get some bigger gpm you won’t be as efficient but by undertaking the job you will appreciate where you can improve etc
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Did you end up doing this job? If so how did it turn out?
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I ended up not getting either of these. I was used as a pawn, I feel, so that the landscaper could get an idea of how to do it on his own and what to charge. I saw the landscaper a week later with a Ryobi washer with the Home Depot tags still on it at a gas station with several bottles of laundry bleach and a new 1-gallon pump up sprayer still in the box.
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I did have a smaller paver job for someone in my neighborhood shortly after that, the customer did not want to pay for resanding or for weed removal so I just did a basic cleaning on it. I’m sure I’ll get one that I’ll have to resand one of these days.
Edit- I apologize for the pics being out of order
Did you pre treat and surface clean it?
Just HW mix and surface cleaner. Nothing fancy at all.
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I would have taken care of the weeds for free just for a better before and after pics and to get a good reputation going. Looks like you should have went stronger on your pretreat, they are still black in spots.
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Yeah HW mix won’t touch that. I usually hit those with 3-4% and turbo the bad spots.
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I agree with all of y’all’s comments, but I couldn’t get the homeowner on board. This was a smokin deal I cut for a guy in my neighborhood. They were primarily focused on the home, and with good reason. image|690x387
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Lol that made me laugh 
. You gotta be careful with these landscapers there professionals in every field it seems.
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Hey y’all can we revive this post yet again?
I’ve already sold this job, 1100sf of pavers. Picture shows walkway leading to the back yard, but majority is the back patio, around fire pit, and pool deck (small pool), also an 8" wide trim of his aggregate acrylic sealed driveway.
He has chosen gray polymeric sand and I am recommending invisible sealant as he would like to keep the hazy look as he kind of hates his pavers original color.
Customer has the impression that the sand doesn’t last and also that his acrylic sealant doesn’t last so he wants yearly repeat service. (For the drive I recommended every other yr xylene/seal with advice from my PW store)
Here’s a few questions I’m hoping y’all can answer.
Ordinary paver clean sand and seal, am I removing as much old sand as possible to replace with fresh polymeric?
When or why would I use silica sand instead of poly? (Hard time finding just silica sand is why I’d like to use polymeric from Lowe’s, customer already picked gray color)
In this case, can I get away with SC and just refilling whatever sand is missing? Hopefully with the poly he chose?
Online manufacturers rec using a compactor but I notice maybe some of y’all getting away without it?
Also, polymeric sand manufacturer says to keep it away from water for 24hrs, then they go right ahead and say just make sure it isn’t rained on for 90 minutes. What the hell? Which is it?
In my mind I’m just going to turbo out the old sand where it’s obviously way too high and visible, let dry prob a whole day, broom some sand, blow off dust, give a little shower to set, wait 2 hours and seal and be done, no traffic for 24 hours.
Also u might notice these pavers are set super tight, I’m assuming I’ll need way less sand per sf than normal. (Also going to throw in removal of this rust stain in the pic before sand and seal… forgot to put in estimate)
Sorry this is a lot, any advice at all is appreciated being this is my first paver job.
We’ve done it that way. Since we are trying to focus a bit more on this, we’ve gone to using “joint sand”, and joint stabilizing sealers. The sealer then does the work of locking in and setting up the sand.
So Alex, have you done this job yet? How’d it turn out?
Honestly, pretty bad. Long story short basically the finish got messed up because he was asking me to preserve the hazy color. When I was removing the old sand the pressure altered the color on the edges. Wand marks. On one hand he was a very picky/particular customer, on the other hand I didn’t have any experience to see what was going to happen and let him know his asks weren’t exactly possible. I should have changed courses and let him know before putting in new sand, def my fault. All in all he let me know he liked me and wished me the best, didn’t want a refund. I let him know if he changes his mind to give me a call. Lesson learned 
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