Well, it definitely took longer than I thought it would, but in the end I’d say pretty good. I got to the house right on schedule, got the welcome mat and such out of the way, hose ran, all that stuff, went to start my rental washer, and lo and behold, the ripcord broke. I kinda freaked out internally for a sec, and I’m still a little annoyed that the rental company would go so long without replacing a ripcord that’s clearly old as dirt. Anyway, my parents live near the customer(much closer than me), and I ended up having to excuse myself momentarily to go over there and fix the machine.
I felt bad that I ended up starting later due to an equipment failure, I feel like even though it’s a rental when it comes to my business the buck stops with me. To show good faith, I threw in their brick planter at no additional charge. Those took much longer than I expected, mostly because I had underestimated how much I would have to shimmy between bushes and overestimated the speed of my derpy little Harbor Freight pump sprayer. The flatwork went pretty smoothly, although I took longer there than I probably should have too, mainly because I think I was being a little over conservative with the surface cleaner. As I went along I started trusting myself more not to leave stripes, and even though it hadn’t dried totally before I left, I thought it looked pretty good.
I followed up with the homeowner and he said it looked good, and he wants me to quote him for his office soon.
I’ll continue to do flatwork since there’s a definite market for it, but the pain in my back is inspiring me to try to get into house washing. I haven’t really done a house wash before, but I’m lucky enough to have several family members within a few miles of me, and my uncle and parents have said I can practice washing their houses in addition to mine.
Today was a great learning day. After taking all my expenses into account, it was pretty much a breakeven job, but it was a foot in the door. I have full confidence that next time I can do equal quality work much more efficiently based on what I’ve learned today, and I expect that learning curve to continue to be a little steep for some time. I really appreciate all the encouragement here, I don’t personally know anyone in this line of work, so having everyone on here to talk to has been unbelievably helpful.
