Anybody know of a good place to shop for pressure washing goods in the Portland, OR area? I’m trying to find a local place to buy house wash surfactant, since Home Depot does not carry Elemenator (or anything besides pre-mixed stuff like Zep).
Would love to know a good place to buy 12.5% SH too, and curious if you guys/gals have any recommendations for local repair shops. Just getting onto this as a side hustle during college, and don’t want to pay $16 shipping for just 1 gallon of Elemonator.
You’re just going to have to get used to paying shipping. You’re not going to find anything decent at a big box store. When you look at the big picture $16 for shipping is nothing. All costs should be passed onto the customer anyways so it’s not even coming out of your pocket. You have to spend money to make money. Chems are just a tiny part of it.
As far as SH look for pool stores or call some chemical companies. You should be able to get some drums delivered if you can find a buddy with a commercial location. Sometimes small Ma and Pa hardware stores will let you use their loading deck. A local farmer should be commercial too.
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First off I’d advise to buy a 5gallon jug of elemonator. Second you need to figure out all of your your expenses and charge accordingly. If you don’t, you’re going to work a lot and not make much money. This business has pretty High profit margins so if you miss calculate for a month or two you probably won’t be in the hole. You’ll figure out how much each house is going to cost after about 10 different style/size houses.
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I’m in Portland and I order Elemonator from Pressure Tek. Haven’t seen anything comparable. I use what works.
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Good advice. Thank you.
Thanks for the info. I won’t waste any more time looking for local surfactants 
Like you say, gotta use what works.
Got a good Portland hookup for SH? 8.25% is $3.50/gal at Home Depot, and I hear the going rate should be ~90¢/gal for 12.5% in bulk.
Unfortunately I’ll probably have to pay more, because I can’t handle bulk. This is a side gig while I’m in college and I might do 1 house this summer, and a few driveways.
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I think the only place you can get it for under $1 a gallon is FL. I’m in Illinois and I pay about $3 a gallon when ordering drums. I pay a little more if I have to buy gallon jugs locally. Seems like $2-$4 a gallon is about average around the forum. If you can get it for $.90 a gallon in bulk just buy a drum. If you market a little you’ll easily go through it all this summer. If not who cares at that price.
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Yeah, you’re not going to get SH for 90¢ a gallon anywhere outside of FL.
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You would have better luck with liquid pool shock from Walmart.
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Thanks. I’ll see what they have. Haven’t been to a Walmart in years, but it may be my best option for this, especially since I’m not in a position to be buying in bulk.
