I’m a firefighter trying to start my own business on the side. I’ve done odd jobs power washing for about 6 years now. I’m struggling to find the best way to quote jobs for power washing and sealing any type of concrete and whether the quoting should be different for finished concrete opposed to pavers, stamped concrete, or aggregate. For example I have someone who wants roughly 2500 sq ft of finished concrete cleaned and sealed. Thank you in advance.
2 schools of thought:
- you carry a stock sealer at a per SF price, and you offer it, take it or leave it
- you get trained up on the processes, offer full-blown resanding and sealing with a suite of products that offer several different options on color enhancement and sheen
Make an informed decision as to which avenue fits you and your business, and proceed accordingly. Just make sure you don’t try to float somewhere in the middle, that will cause you all kinds of issues.
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I’m in the same situation, did my first seal job recently. The water based deep sealer was super easy to apply so probably a good way to get started.
Prices will be different for different surfaces. Finished concrete the easiest to clean and rinse. Cobblestones, pavers, etc take longer to rinse, especially cobblestones or asphalt.
What part of country you live in, that will help determine what type of sealer you use. Good sealer will run you about .35/per sq ft for material and cheap sealer will run you .10 - .15/ft.
For 2500’ you’ll want to set you up a little cart with a small 12v to apply sealer. NT makes a small one, around 2gpm. Can build a nice little system for probably less than $400
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I bought a couple sets of spare Chapin parts (brass wands, triggers, tips) and ran a length of hose to one of these (bought 3 so they can swap it out quickly)
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Stick to washing
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More money in sealing…just not as great a demand for it.
I heard that from a contractor the other day - why do you think that is? I’m exploring offering sealing in my business (I have a couple of jobs already) and am curious why more people aren’t interested in sealing. Seems to me it would save money in the long run versus cleaning and removing sand - especially from pavers.
- it’s not cheap if done well, with quality materials
- most people are very short-sighted
- people think concrete surfaces last forever anyway (how many times do you hear people say the brick front of their home doesn’t need to be washed?)
It’s down to us educating the market. Some people just will not want to spend the money on it. Plenty of people wash their car, but never wax it. 
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Thanks Jason - these are great points. I’m trying to build a portion of my business out with offering sealing and this helps me grow my understanding and formulate my talking points. I appreciate your insights sir!
Sealing is good money for me. A great upsell item that a lot of people didn’t know they wanted or needed.
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If you get it into your SEO, it’s also a great primary service (that you can add-on washes to)
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Checkout Trident’s website, they have a ton of great content that will help you a lot
I have used pump-up sprayers, airless sprayers, and manual backpack sprayers to apply water-based penetrating sealers. I even bought all the parts to build a spray cart and was planning to a few years ago but I have found something that works much better.
I use a battery-powered backpack. You can adjust the flow from .25 to around 3 gallons a minute. It has made it so much easier and quicker than any of the other methods I have used.
I think it’s quicker than the cart because you don’t have to worry about moving the cart and it getting in the way. The downside is you’re carrying 25-35 lbs on your back. It doesn’t bother me but it can be a small workout.
I used it the other day to seal a 9,400 sq ft driveway and it took less than half a day to seal it and I used 52 gallons.
Granted, I don’t think the backpack would hold up to some of the solvent sealers so maybe that’s where the spray cart would come in.
that’s where an essentially disposable pump comes in (I also put one on our barrel of Gutter Butter, but it didn’t last too well, and started squirting across the shop when the seal went 
) We set it up with a pretty good length of hose, you just have to run stripper/water through it for a bit after the job, and run the water out of the hose before you start.
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