I’m putting together a quote for limestone cleaning at a home that I already service. There is about 1000 linear feet of limestone cap that is stained with mildew. It’s worse in some areas, lighter in others.
I’ve contacted Prosoco and plan to use their Limestone Restorer product. I think i’ll need about $200 worth of product, but that’s a rough guess. The plan is to apply with a pump sprayer, agitate if necessary, re-apply if necessary, and rinse at 1000psi. This is the process that was recommended to my by a Prosoco products specialist.
Any ideas on how I should price this? Any help would be much appreciated.
Don’t forget to figure in the cost to wash and rinse the wall beneath the cap. You may not have to buy detergent to wash the wall below, but you will still have all of the labor.
Do twenty feet for free. They don’t even really know how dirty it is until they see it clean. I can’t imagine that it would be less than $3,000.00 and if that is out of their current budget, how about we start a rotation and just do a couple of hundred feet each year?
I don’t think the budget will be a concern, it’s the daughter of a local billionaire. There may be some sticker shock though. doing a stretch of it for free is a good idea. i’ll see if i can set that up.
I remember one of those calls I went on early in my career. As I was gently explaining the highlights of the process and trying to build value as I told her the price, she interrupted and said “I didn’t ask how much, I asked if you could do it”.
Yes ma’am. Been doing it every since.
You’re not doing it for “free” so much as you just want to do an area to make sure that the results are what she hoped for.
Here’s an update on this job. I stopped by today and did a few sections using the process i described above. I’m pretty pleased with the results. The Limestone Restorer sure does make that mildew come off easy. Just a quick blast with a 40 degree tip and it comes right off.
However, i can still see some deeper green algae type stuff buried in the pores of the stone (see photo below). I’m wondering if an application of SH with a 10-15 minute dwell time as a second step would be worthwhile. Maybe it would kill the remaining biologicals and brighten up those spots? I’m not sure if that would work or if it’s even worth it. Any thoughts?
Another question on this- the stone walls have lots of the same mildew as the limestone. I can clean it off pretty good using pressure alone. Would it make sense to use chems on this anyway? My thinking is that SH would kill whatever’s on the stone and keep it from coming back quickly. Am I right about that, or will I get about the same results just using water?
I’m thinking about offering the customer an option of just a simple cleaning or a chemical cleaning. Different pricing for each option… would this make sense?
hey larry, you have experience cleaning limestone in this condition?
the reason i’m liking the limestone restorer is it seems to take much less pressure during the rinse phase to get the staining off. i’ve used SH before, but compared to how this stuff worked today, it seems to be more effective.
just reviving this thread from last summer to update. just scheduled it for april 25 at a little over $4500. thanks to everybody for the advice and feedback- you guys gave me the confidence to go for it.
…now i just need to buy a trailer and get my new 8 gpm/roof rig setup done in the next two weeks with literally zero available time to do it…
Congrats! post up some pics when you get done with that bad boy. Hot water helps tremendously when I run into limestone that dirty. If you have a hot water unit it’ll speed things up for you. Good luck.
I’ve done some limestone, and I’ve used that product before, and its tough to get the last bits of green out. I’ve heard SH is a no-no but never had an explanation as to why. I must need to raise my rates…but congrats on getting a great price for the project.
