I was asked to powerwash a totally brick home that is 110 years old today. I usually stick with softwashing houses and have never taken on a job like this. The home is 4000 square foot. What should I charge for something like this? How would I do it and how long does something like this take? I’m assuming this will be more of a brick restoration project and a normal soft wash will not do it. Approximations are fine of course? Any help would be appreciated. By the way I have an 8gpm 3000 PSI machine and a 4GPM 4000 PSI Machine with a 125 gallon buffer tank. Both cold water units
i have no advice to give. i would make sure that the morter is strong though. i was cleaning some vinyl the other day and i applied some of my house wash mix to the brick and some of the morter started to rinse out.
If it was me, I would walk…but that’s just me.
My advice would be the same here. To many variables and the inexperience alone could cause a nightmare. Some jobs in certain stages in your business life are to much of a headache to be dealing with and something like this it is better to walk away.
For what reasons?
My guess is inexperience could cause one to do irreparable damage to a 100 year old building. Get you experience on a building where there’s less chance to damage something.
WWS, for the same reasons John T. posted. One of the keys in this business is knowing your limitations and also knowing how to say away from nightmare jobs. It’s not worth the risk, even for an experienced person…much less an inexperienced person. Wonder what the insurance value/replacement cost is worth and do you have enough insurance to cover a irreplaceable historical home? House wash, maybe…but not detail on 110 yr old brick…
I meant more in the regards of what could, or what would you expect to go wrong
First thing that could be a problem is Mortar issues. If some of that comes out it’s very hard to match up new mortar with old mortar.
The next thing would be efflorescence issues. A week later if the brick starts showing alot of white blotchiness to it was it because of what you have done causing the salts of the brick to bleed outward?? Efflorescence is a nightmare to deal with and your talking about 100+ year old never to be matched brick.
Another thing while cleaning the brick and it looks great when wet and you think your doing a job and now it looks worse when dried what are you going to do then?? Marry the job?
Hey being a business owner we have to take risk to succeed but some of them aren’t worth the downside to it… This for me would be one of those but then again I’m not one of those multimillion $$$$ companies who may have became the way they did because of some risk that they took in the past… Your call----Good Lick
What are the customers expectations? Is the house dirty? Cobwebs & regular dirt? you need to find out. Maybe a low pressure wash will be fine.
My original thought was to pass on the job so I did. I did however want to look into it further to see if it would be something that I may not pass on in the future. According to what you guys are saying, I made the correct decision. Thanks for the info.
I would have done the same thing Kurt…
