Fresh meat... Kinda

Ok so I am new here, I have been lurking in the shadows and taking notes … I am in Florida, west coast, just west of Tampa. I currently own and operate a lawn and landscape business and do small pressure washing jobs for my customers in the slower months. I was in construction for 30 years ran heavy equipment and became a project estimator for landclearing etc. Until the economy crashed is 2008 …went back to college…and ran into a friend who said he was doing good in the lawn business so I decided to buy some equipment…still going now own a dump truck, 20’ enclosed trailer, zero turns stacks of weed eaters etc. Yada yada yada … Any way it is a bullshoot business to be in… Every schmuck in town is doing it too cheap… Can’t compete with the over head and non paying customers… I am looking to maybe get BACK into pressure washing… Yes you read that right I said BACK INTO… 1989 I rolled a truck and broke my neck… Was told I would never operate machinery again… So I bought a trailer mounted Landa unit… Steam unit… I don’t remember all the specs it was a long time ago… I do know it had a v twin 18hp engine??? Paid 2k for it… And did decent with it… Had a few strip malls and worked for a guy who did pool deck coatings on commercial pools… He gave me all his pressure washing and prep in front of him. But my heart was in moving earth and I went back to running equipment I’m a tough SOB like that…so what if it hurt…I was young and didn’t know what kind of opportunity I really had… I should have stuck with my plan of eventually cleaning restaurant hoods… any way… Before I left the earth moving industry my old boss gave me an old pressure washer he had… TS2021 and it had an old 11hp Briggs… (That went through a flood in my last house so I just put a Chinese motor on it… Power horse 420cc from Northern Tool) it’s putting out 4.5GPM I k ow I can get better pressure out of it but I am using 5.0 nozzles and getting around 2900 psi… I know there is a guy on here that is gonna call me a cheap SOB and I’ll never make it with a 4.5 GPM unit … I won’t mention who that could be we all know who I am sure LMAO…that’s a joke…kinda… Anyway I really enjoy @Racer videos dude my hats off to you…I owe you a dinner or two from the vast amount of information my brain has absorbed from you !! The world needs more laid back folk like you… my name is Doug… looking to build a soft wash rig and put a trailer together soon… Thanks for letting me be a part of this group.

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Welcome. Best of luck to you!

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Thank you!!! Luck is part of my plan… LMAO

Hi welcome, get a cold drink, sit back, relax and read this forum every day for a few weeks before you buy anything. That’s the best advice i can give you

Good luck, and work smarter, not harder

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That’s in the plan…my lady calls me the research king…

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I’m new as well, started in September. Mine is an add-on to my window cleaning business so it dovetails nicely with the ‘whole house’ marketing I try to offer to my customers. Soon as I mention power washing, they start asking about sidewalks, algae on siding etc.

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Welcome to the forum Doug. I’ll have to get some tips from you. In the middle of setting up a landscaping division.

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Twice in the last 10 years I’ve bought a lawn service with the intent to do the same . Both time I realize afterwards running both would be impossible for me and sold the equipment. Your market and season are probably much different than mine though

I’m not looking to turn it into something big. Going to start it kind of slow and see where it goes. Have actually had some washing customers ask, but going to be selective on clients. Profits not as good as washing, but is somewhat complimentary. But startup costs a lot more. Leaf season pretty big up in this area. Plus though a lot of people downsizing, still a lot of large yards up here.

Hope it works for ya . Two incomes are definitely better than one . Good luck

LOL, will probably be following in your footsteps in a year or 2

Anything I can do to help …any questions I’m happy to help

Trying to decide between open trailer or enclosed at the moment. I love my open trailer for washing, but with yard stuff not walking back and forth to trailer every 10 min. And a lot of expensive equipment that’s easy to walk off with.

Enclosed without a doubt.

FWIW, there are a zillion lawn care companies here in KY (as you can imagine) and the vast majority use open, double axle trailers.

Now the actual landscapers use enclosed trailers from what I’ve seen, usually with drop down ramps.

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I have enc,osed for 2 reasons…security and weather…one down side is it gets hot in the enclosed and I sometimes have a problem with vapor lock on kawasaki engines and some stihl equipment. …I vented the floor unerneath with an exterior dryer vent and it directs air upwards underneath the kawasaki engine on my mower…helps a little

If your not going to store it in your shop, then do enclosed crooks LOVE leaf blowers and weed eaters. Had mine stolen right of my truck from my racks. I was behind a house cutting and they knew it. Even took my gas cans. BUT i wouldn’t put to much money into the business with everyone in thier brother doing landscaping its hard to make good money in it and getting a fast profitable route takes a good bit of time. To make your overhead its fast past and back breaking work.

Are you wanting to get into regular maintenance. Weekly mowing sort of stuff?

I started with an open utility trailer and moved up to an enclosed after I had made some profit built up. If you have the money, I would definitely do the enclosed if all you are doing is mowing. It’s so much nicer not to worry about your stuff and just keeping your equipment out of the weather is worth it to me. If you get into spring/fall cleanups where you need to haul debris away, or mulching beds, a utility or dump trailer would be a great addition.

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A large percentage of the lawn/ landscape companies around here pretty much give away the lawn maintenance and rely on the landscaping for the profit. Although I have met plenty of single- three man crew that turn good profits by being very smart and selective about there clients. This usually takes years of taking on customers and dropping ones that don’t make sense .

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