Not sure what you mean by basecoar. I spray bleach on mildew and rinse
See my pic above. It’s just a section you spray first very lightly with your roof mix about 3-4 ft above gutter line. It kind of acts as a barricade for the heavier roof mix that you shoot further up and helps prevent as much runoff.
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Sorry @Innocentbystander, I got you confused with @Racer . I consider y’all the 2 wise men of the forum & have been stalking your posts.
I forgot to ask @squidskc if he ever cleans roofs & skips the rinse like mentioned above & also, I’m under the impression you can clean a roof with a xjet lol but will probably get a roof pump sooner then later.
You CAN clean a roof with an x-jet. But it’s not fun. Takes a long time. Not the right tool for the job, but you can make it work. Just can’t make much money doing it.
I rinse everything. I’m not sold on leaving that much SH on anything with nails and aluminum flashing and metal roof vents. It takes about as long as to soap as it does to rinse. I rinse all my roofs.
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Roof pumps aren’t expensive, just need to figure out how & where to fit the 55 gallon drum on my trailer.
I wouldn’t want to skip the rinse either, at least not till I’m really comfortable but the gypsum & the chemical used to protect the plants is interesting.
Kind of sounds like @Racer cleans roofs solo?
The more time I spend on here, the less I want to clean windows. I am literally thinking exterior water fed pole only IF they get a house wash to go with it.
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I’ve only done two roofs and held my breath for about a week after both praying I didn’t kill anything. I would have been a basket case if I had left it on the roof. Both turned out great and the customers loved it. One lady cried she was so thankful because we saved her about 10k on a roof job. Once I get back rolling full time I will do more and plan to market it fairly aggressively
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I think you’re over engineering this a bit. Do you think you might get bogged down with ALL the services instead of focusing on getting REALLY good at 3 of them?
I’m a firm believer that house washes are the golden ticket to getting started in PWing. If all I did were house washes every day, no concrete, no roofs, I’d be perfectly content and make more money than I can probably spend (partly because I’m a tightwad). If I didn’t have to do any of that other stuff, I could do 4 houses a day and be home by 2:00 with $1300 in my pocket.
The other stuff can be used to fill holes on the calendar. I don’t do decks or wood of any kind except composite. Get calls all the time. I can’t do them as well or as fast as house washes. From May15ish to September I won’t take a roof. Too many houses to wash and early days to hang out with my dogs.
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I do like the concept of that plant wash. Has anyone used it with success. Sorry I just saw where rick had mentioned plant wash. I knew I read it somewhere. I have senior moments
Yeah I thought about that & I have read your posts about becoming a master rather the a Jack of all trades.
To answer your question though, I won’t really know what will work/sell best in my area till I get out there. Maybe like you I’ll focus on house washes only. I still think WFP exterior window cleaning would be a easy add on & it would be really easy to train someone to do.
I think stone, wood & roof cleaning would be the hardest to train somoneone on but IMO everything is fairly simple. I just need to develop a process.
I agree partially and have been guilty of trying to do to many things. But if you’re already on the job site it’s quick and easy money. I’m only going to try to only market residential windows to the houses that I wash. I don’t have a problem doing insides as long as I can do them before I get started outside while I’m still clean. But my focus is washing houses enough flatwork to have a steady check during the winter and roof washing. But I will admit I would enjoy a day of cleaning storefront windows
@Patriotspwashing just posted a golden nugget to add WFP to your house washes as an upsell. I’ll tag you in it.
But many times it’s not.
I’ll put it this way. If I were a handy man business, I’d pick the 5 things that have the largest profit margins in the least amount of time and market the mess out of it. Handy Andy’s: Ceiling Fans, Toilet Installs, Drywall patching, Flat Screen Tv Mounting, and Picture Hanging. Or whatever. And I’d make sure as many people in Kansas City knew we were the best in the city at these 5 things.
What @csteez said about ease of training an employee is so overlooked. Simple is best. The easier it is for you to train someone how to do it the better. @Innocentbystander “simplified” and nailed down an incredibly specific market in a manner that’s easy to train and does 7 figures. I’ve seen the Quickbooks screen shot. If that doesn’t speak to becoming a specialist, I don’t know what does.
I started of window washing as you know & mop/squeegee work is a skill & takes some time to master.
I am already thinking of cutting it out as much as I can. Teaching someone to use a waterfed pole is simple & not to mention the house wash would have already prepared cleaned lots of thh dirt and grime on the window of not all, the brush & pure water system would be to ensure no streaks are left behind.
Once I get the process down on everything I will know what works best but my goal is just like you mentioned, being able to train people easily to do quality work.
I get it and agree. It’s just my son and myself and really have no desire to have crews. I’ve been down that road and it got to where it wasn’t fun anymore. I’m going to be 54 in October and want to have fun working. I don’t have to make a killing anymore. So I’m making my business model based more on less stress and jobs I enjoy while still making a living. With that said my outlook would be different if I had a young family and mortgage payments. I’m still just focusing on three major areas
I spent over a year analyzing industry before I got in it. I started as a roof cleaning company and then gradually added other services over the years since usually people who had dirty roofs had other problems also. But roof cleaning is by far the single most profitable part of exterior cleaning. Less competition, people in general more aware that it takes a professional. (Most think any wanker with a power washer can clean a house) but they’re leary of letting the same guy do their roof. If I can get in front of them, it’s very rare I lose a roof job. I don’t even talk much about price except in generalities - I sell them on my process, equipment, how I’m going to protect their plants, previous experience, etc. People with nicer homes care about all of that. Price is almost incidental but I try to be fair in that also. Plus cleaning a dirty roof and making it look new again very rewarding to me.
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Well said
The reason I am thinking roof cleaning is going to be the most profitable is because nobody around here really markets for it.
Almost all homes around here are brick & not many vynil. So yes you see a stain on parts or along the bottom but not extremely noticeable.
You can spot a dirty roof from far away, I literally plan on leaving door hangers on dirty roofs till they call me lol.
There’s also lots of stucco red tile roof homes here but I want to be more experienced before I get into that market as most are million dollar plus homes.
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There’s your market. I’d start there instead of HW if that were my market.
This method worked wonders. This time around I had very minimal runoff. I used less mix on a roof that was worse then the last one. I did not rinse. There was several brown spots left but the roof turned from black to light grey. I’m hoping that the rain will wash away the light brown spots that are left. This customer is also a freind so I’m waiting for a few rains and he will call. Fingers crossed. I’ll update here after the rain
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Yes sir, only problem is I’m solo right now. I know I’ll eventually figure it out I just have to get out there & find out what works best & try to make my process as efficient as possible.
