Long post (sorry eh) didn’t realize it was gonna be this long when I started typing. Thanks in advance for those that take the time to read it and offer input.
A brief intro:
My name is Chad, 37yrs old, I live in Edmonton (Canada). Currently I do handyman work and most of my work comes from a close friend that’s a realtor. I do everything from basic handyman work making simple repairs to larger renovation projects, concrete work and moving furniture. My base rate of pay when I charge by the hour is $35/hr but sometimes make up to $50 or $60 if I’m doing concrete work or a job that I give a quote as opposed to charging by the hour. Most handymen in my area charge $30-45/hr so I do have some room to increase my prices a bit, but I’d like to make the switch from a generalist to something more niche where I can make $80-100/hr.
The reason my attention has been brought to pressure washing is because the realtor I work for has me pressure wash his house and driveway every year or two followed by sealing his driveway. I recently poured my dad’s driveway and it’s going to need a wash and seal this coming spring as well. I’m glad I found this forum because I originally planned to set out with my dad’s home Depot pressure washer and go about it the wrong way. All in I have about $7000-8000 to put into getting this started. That would have to include equipment, marketing and insurance.
My initial plan of attack is to market my residential pressure washing services, window cleaning (done lots of reading on here but more to do still and need to start reading about window cleaning) and concrete sealing. I plan on doing snow removal, hanging Christmas lights and handyman work in the off season as we only get about 6-7 months of PW weather. I’ll continue to do handyman work until I’m too busy with pressure washing to do it anymore. Eventually I’ll offer roof washing and commercial services.
My market:
My city has a population of almost 1 million people, 1.8 million if including neighboring towns and rural areas.
It’s a pretty dry climate here, not a whole lot of mold and algae to clean but there are the odd cases of it, mostly would be just dirty houses with lots of spider webs.
My competition:
A quick Google search brings up about 35 pressure washing companies. The top 3 most reviewed are franchise companies (men in kilts, gorilla property services, can’t remember the third). Every other company only has at most 10 reviews, although most of them are 4-5 star reviews.
I’ve only found one company (so far) offering prices on their website which starts at $167 for roughly 1000sqft bungalow. I’m assuming the bigger companies are in the $200+ range for the same thing.
As far as Christmas light hanging goes there’s a few pressure washing, landscaping and roofing companies offering it here. I’ve found prices from $1-2 per ft ($149 min charge) for home owner supplied lights. Up to $1000 per house for commercial supplied lights and storage for the year
My equipment: currently putting together a list and plan to build a belt drive unit 3600 psi and 5gpm. For now plan is to do a truck build on 2009 f150 5.5’ bed (tight fit for everything) or I could possibly convince my dad to sell me his 6’x12’ single axle utility trailer for cheap.
My first question: based on the population here, am I crazy trying to break into the PW market with so many companies (35ish) here offering it? And with such a short season?
