Ok so I don’t clean fences very often at all. I got a call to clean a wooden fence and it measured out to be 3,250 sq/ft. We charge .41 a sq/ft for wood which is a bit cheaper than others in my area and this would come out to $1,332. When you guys price for a fence does your sq/ft charge include the inside and outside clean or just one side. So my question is basically should I charge this job as a 3,250sq/ft or as 6,500sq/ft as they want both sides done? What are you guys charging a sq/ft for fencing? I have a guy who also pressure washes and he told me it would take like 50 hours if I’m washing by my self. Sorry if these questions are dumb but I rarely do fences and never one this size. I don’t want to bid the job to high and look stupid but I also don’t want to bid to low and regret it half way through the job. I really want to get the job as there are a ton of other houses in the neighborhood and I could probably get more business off of it. Any help is greatly appreciated!
If that is a 6’ tall fence that is around 540’ long. I don’t see how that is 50 hours if you clean it the correct way. Even with brightening the wood after cleaning you can get that done in a day
Thanks for the reply. I was wondering how it would come out to 50 hours also and yes it is 6 feet tall. Any ideas on how to price this for a full inside and out clean?
We can’t tell you how to price as we don’t know your area and market. Estimate how long it’ll take and charge by the foot for both sides.
You said in your post you charge .41/sq foot. There you go
Im still amazed that 90 percent of the new people that come on here the first thing they ask is how much to charge. then you look at their profile and they generally have less than 15 minutes read time. I may be old school but if you have to ask how much to charge you probably don’t have enough experience to do the job as a contractor.
Got a pic. Different style fences can take substantially different times.
How dirty is it? What equipment do you have? What type of wood is it?
The fence in that picture is 3 different types of wood is the one you are cleaning exactly like that?Oh also are you just cleaning it or preparing it to stain or paint?
The one I will be doing is only one type of wood. It’s pine wood. It is also fairly dirty. Also yes I will be preparing for stain but the homeowner will be staining. I have a 5gpm 4,000psi machine.
Don’t underbid. You should absolutely offer to clean either one or both sides. 1080 feet shouldn’t take you more than 12 hours.
You have a 12v pump or are you going to be using a pump up to apply chem?
You can downstream also.
Downstreaming has never really worked well for me cleaning wood
Not if it’s pretty dirty as he says. Reason pics always help. His really dirty may not be what you or I consider dirty.
Here’s a novel thought since it’s a pretty big project - why don’t you tell the customer that you’d like to do a demo to make sure they’re going to be happy and just be honest with them and tell them because of the size, you want to make sure you’re pricing it fairly for both of you.
Go clean an 8’ section, do it right and time yourself. Allow that you’re probably not going to be able to keep the same pace all day long, allow for an occasional break, etc and then you’ll have your chems figured out and your time. Win-win for both of you and you’ll be able to give them a fair price for both of you and they’ll know what to expect. Shouldn’t take you more than 30min to an hour.
Downstreaming has always worked for me in the past. I’ve cleaned some pretty nasty wood. What chems are you guys using.
@anon37135677 @Racer
2-3% SH using the 12v. 800-1000psi rinse then post treat with oxalic or citric. I’ve had better results with oxalic but I’ve only washed a handful of decks. Here’s one from a couple weeks ago. Had to hit it twice with 2.5% and 1000psi before I post treated with citric.
That one was dirty enough that you could have added some hydroxide to your mix. Doesn’t have to be a lot.
