First commercial job confirmed!

Big news for me! got hired for a $1,000 flat work job at a local daycare. our work is the entire front sidewalk strip and curbs, the driveway entrance (underneath the roof, whatever you call that), it has some tire marks i plan on getting f9 groundskeeper for, and the concrete walkways for both playgrounds. This looks REALLY easy. concrete is disgusting and should come out looking incredible. the job is confirmed for next saturday. i have a 4gpm setup with an x-jet, 12.5%sh and elemonator and a 16inch whisper wash, and a friend to help carry my x jet bucket around and swap out on surface cleaning. What do you guys think? i don’t think i’ll have to rent a setup, this is all stuff i’ve breezed through on residential jobs. My only concern would be the tire marks and water buildup. there are sewers in the parking lot, and i think i can just push the water into the dirt at the playgrounds. I’m using SH pre-treat for everything but the playground, as the client said she didn’t want to pay the extra $100 for chems for each playground. so no pre soaking required for the most part.


What do y’all think? did i do good on the pricing? should i rent a hot water setup instead of my cold water 4gpm? not sure if hot water is required for tire marks or not. i’ve heard some say it definetly helps a lot, i’ve never cleaned tire marks before. i’ll be referring to the f9 cookbook with groundskeeper.

Any and all tips are GREATLY appreciated. you guys have helped me tremendously. 6 months ago i had a 2.3gpm ryobi and was aimlessly high pressure spraying everything for my first year in business. I’ve gone from a complete noob doing $60 driveways to now closing my first commercial job all within 2 months. i have learned more than i ever thought possible thanks to you guys, i hope i can turn this into a lifelong career.

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this client also says her entire family runs their own businesses. i imagine if i do a good enough job i’ll have a good chance at earning some more commercial jobs/contracts.

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Careful on the surfactant on flat work. I use very little.

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There’s a good chance you’re going to have to pre-treat with SH on the concrete around the playground. You’re only talking a few bucks worth of SH so I would use it. It’ll make your life easier and save time. Going forward I would automatically assume you need to pre-treat any concrete covered in organics. You can always up sell the post treat, though. Others might have different opinions.

How sq/ft of concrete is it? I always measure and have sq/ft pricing. I think it just makes it easier when bidding. I can usually eyeball it and estimate my time but I just like the sq/ft method. Makes it easier to adjust the price for different factors. Plus, it’s easier to price commercial properties because even a penny or two per sq/ft can make a difference on if you land the job.

Congrats on your growth.

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Will less surfactant still mask the bleach smell? from my experience it doesn’t do as good of a job but i could be wrong. i’d like to make sure by the time the kids come back on monday the smell will be gone, should i be good? i’m doing it on saturday morning so roughly 40-48 hours till the kids will be there

It should be fine, yes less Elemonator, less mask of smell. I use concentrated scent, not soap if need to mask smell and not using Elemonator.

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didn’t get a sqft measurement, i’ve been only eyeballing lately because i’m too lazy to go grab a replacement measure roller. from google earth it’s roughly 4000sqft plus 200-230 linear feet of curbing

Bleach smell disappears quickly after cleaning so I wouldn’t be too concerned about it. Also, I always post treat my concrete work personally. Most of the time it only costs me 3-6 bucks and it always helps the concrete turn out better and hide any striping. Good result, happy customer, repeat business and referrals👍

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@MDA1775 opinion on my pricing? i bid $1,200 client said everyone else was “significantly lower” and asked if i could do 1k. ik you guys will probably scold me for that but i really wanted this job, i’m still happy with the price. roughly 4k sqft and 230 linear ft of curb

I dont know the average pricing of curbing or how hard those areas of concrete are to access but that seems pretty good for only ~4k ft^2 of concrete and 30 mins of curbing

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I think that’s pretty good for 4k sq ft and 250 ft and curb.

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here are the before and afters of the job. took a little over 10 hours total. had a few issues that came up that delayed us a bit, had to fix an oil leak and some problems with the spigot and hosing that we got solved by a handyman friend, he was a lifesaver really.

overall the work came out great and the customer was very pleased. i used an X jet to pre-treat and was able to run over with my WW 16” pretty fast for the front sidewalk. the playgrounds gave me some issues with streaking as i said the customer didn’t pay for the chemical treatment. @marinegrunt you were 100% right there. i didn’t plan ahead and would have if i didn’t run out of bleach or else i totally would have went ahead with the chems. i was contemplating running to a nearby pool store but i probably would’ve spent more time doing that. only took an extra 10-20 minutes going back over in total, only streaked in a few spots near the building. i just went over horizontally instead of vertically and they came out fine.
There were some organic spots left over which i assume would have been resolved with either a post treatment or maybe i didn’t go hot enough.

I also was not very satisfied with the driveway, didn’t come out looking much better and there were tons of these black dots that didn’t come out. kinda looked like black bird poop. i assume hot water would eat it up?

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Get those photos stamped with your logo. Thers some very honest hand on heart people that come through this forum.

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I honestly never though about people stealing pictures for from other people for there own gain but makes sense. I’ll keep it in mind too