Tips/ tricks to increase speed

Hey guys so I’m new obviously speed will come with more experience but My jobs seem to be taking me longer than they should/ expected and I’m not sure how to cut my time down. Again I know it will come in time with experience but my actual house washing time isn’t too bad. I’m soaping and rinsing an average house in about an hour maybe an hour and a half. What’s killing me is my set up and my breakdown, including my property protection. I’m moving fast but rolling all my hoses out, getting my downstream bucket filled, taping all outlets bagging light fixtures or cameras and then removing all the bags over the light fixtures and the outlets and rolling up all my hoses seems to take me the same amount of time as actual washing. So a simple 2,000 sqft vinyl home that should take me an hour to hour and a half from roll up to roll out is taking me like 2.5-3 hours. I’m not sure what I can do to curb this. I have hose reels. I feel the property protection part takes the most time. Any tips or tricks would be great this was my first year and I learned a lot but need to lear more.

Thanks
Brian

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Wont the SH discolor or tarnish some light fixtures? I’ve encountered a lot of the black / brushed nickel lanterns style that go by peoples front doors. I assumed it was better to bag then to allow water to get behind the fixture. Their is always a little gap between the fixture and the mounting plate. Same goes with electric meters or ac disconnects I usually tape them.

It shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes to roll and unroll hose. DS out of a tank, not bucket. Don’t spray around lights with soap. Stick a Tshirt bag over door cameras. If they are mounted on the house, don’t spray them.

Perhaps rarely. I’ve not had a problem yet.

Every 50-100 houses you’ll have something go wrong. The paint on the front door fades, you break a flower pot, you fry an outlet. It happens. Charge enough that you don’t even flinch when it occurs. It’s part of doing business. Stuff happens.

I’ve never bagged a camera. Heck some people have 5-6 around their houses now and a lot of them up high. I try not to spray mix straight on them and always rinse them well. Heck, they’re outdoor rated. The acid rain probably does more harm than our mix would. On the ring doorbells I just use either grocery bad but usually just a rubber glove which fits nice and snug. Always have a few used ones in truck.

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Got any photos of your trailer / truck set-up?

I had one fixture discoloration, a brass door handle. Some Nevr-Dull fixed it. Otherwise I just spray fixtures with plain water first, soap and water rinse them soon as I can and never let it dry.

@Innocentbystander would have fired me by now, I don’t tuck in my shirt, pick up my surface cleaner while it’s spinning and don’t bag anything.:laughing:

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What/who are you comparing your times to?

The reason I ask is if you’re comparing yourself to guys with better equipment and more experience you’re just tinkling in the wind.

Also, there’s the reality that some folks like to lie about their times in order to make it seem like they’re just incredible at what they do.

Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear.

Today I washed a 3400SF house, around 3000SF of wood deck, around 2500SF of concrete and a 1000SF detached garage in just over 4 hours. Five hours total time on job from arrival to departure and that includes stopping to talk with customer a handful of times. I have no idea if that’s “fast” or not but I made my target hourly and I’ll be back there again in a year to do it all again. Last year when I washed the exact same stuff it took me almost 8 hours.

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Out of curiosity, was it bad last year, or did you just make efficiency improvement.

Dang speed racer, I’m there all day. Of course I’m fat and old, so that accounts for some of the delay.

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Much worse last year. Equipment and process didn’t change.

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Lol well don’t feel bad. I’m no David Goggins but I can hit a lick when I want to.

No, but that’s part of the problem being my first year I’m doing it part time still. So my truck set up isn’t as efficient as it could be. I load and unload the truck every time I have a job. The only thing that stays on the truck are my reels.

It’s not really comparing to other people, Obviously if you’ve been doing it for years and have an 8 gallons a minute versus my 4 gallon per minute and a more efficient setup it’s apples and oranges. The problem is I’m not hitting my hourly goal and my pricing is right, ( I think) I’m just taking too long. If I pull up to a 1,600 sqft ft cookie cutter ranch with vinyl siding and I charge $199.00 figuring I’ll be out in an hour and I’m there for two and a half. I’m losing money and I can’t charge for it it’s not there fault and the job dosnt warrant it.

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Do you have a place to store a trailer? If you can’t permanently mount to the truck, you’d likely be better off to pick up a 5x8 and set everything up on that.

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The job warrants whatever price you need it to so that you can make money…whether or not you can close sales at that price is a different animal. The fact is you can’t take jobs for a losing number, and figure it out. You’re doing the right thing by figuring it out of course. I htink everyone here has hit on it already, you need to find a way to improve your equipment/setup so that you can be more efficient. Some things you can improve in your workflow over time, but they won’t be game changers. Equipment is almost always going to be the thing that will drastically improve your time. Going from a 4gpm to an 8gpm will cut your rinse time in half, but you’ll probably never get 2x as fast just with experience, no matter how long you do it (unless you ID significant process changes). I think figuring out equipment is going to be your biggest potential benefit right now.

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Okay good. If you’re not just the slowest walker in the world you should be able to setup your equipment and tape off a cookie cutter like you described in about 15-20 minutes. You really don’t need to bag lights and cameras but if that’s what makes you feel comfortable then by all means go for it. I did that for the first few months then said no mas.

It sounds like you’re not doing terribly bad. You’re probably just better equipment and more experience away from being where you want to be. Remember, it’s a learning curve so as you gain experience your production will increase exponentially.

As far as the financial aspect of it goes, don’t get too hung up on your target hourly. For 90% of the people that get into washing the target hourly most guys shoot for is significantly higher than they would be making working for someone else. $80 an hour isn’t great money for a guy with a built out rig and multiple jobs on the schedule but it’s not bad at all for a guy just starting out.

Unless your expenses are just astronomical, you’re not losing money. What you’re doing is gaining experience at your own pace.

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Watch @Racer videos, you’ll learn a ton , the right way. I’ve poured hours and hours of time of watching and reading from all these guys and im not even a house washer.

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