Hey guys, I was asked to give an estimate on a fence washing job. I’ve never washed fence before so I was looking at what would be a good estimate per foot or per hour or however is best. The fence is 3 board white vinyl fence and is about 1.5 miles long. Yes it is a hug fence. Its all around farm land too so id have to move the trailer around a lot. I have no idea what to charge.
PS. I borrowed the pic from here somewhere but its the same type of fence
First, consider how much your time is worth on a per hour basis plus your expected expenses for the job. Then consider how much time you expect it to take. Multiply those numbers together and you’ve got your quote.
Everyones pricing is going to be different based on their location and what type of business they run.
Have you done house washing with vinyl siding?
Vinyl fencing varies. I’ve had some a HW mix will work and others where we had to brush the entire thing.
Mile and a half is a lot, front and back? So three miles? Or just the front side?
I’m usually a $1 a foot per side for vinyl fencing with three boards
yes both sides would be 3 miles.
I’m with patriot…$1.00 a linear foot; however, I don’t scrub. I just have a pump sprayer with a hotter mix than a HW for the stubborn areas. Easy money!!
Where are you getting water
it’s in the middle of no where so probably from the owners spigot
slow fill factor in the time
I think I would figure out how much water I’d use a day depending on your machine and go rent a 1000 gallon water tank on wheels. If you need more water to run all day maybe even pickup some ibc totes ($50 used here) and stage them at certain points along the fence the night before. You could even use the 1000 gallon tank to fill the totes the night before and show up with a full 1000 gallon tank too.
The reason I mention the tanks is if he lives out in the middle of nowhere he’s probably on a well. A lot of wells won’t put out enough gpm to even run your machine. Like Sharpe said, charge for your time and material no matter how you do it. Before bidding the job go out there with a 5 gallon bucket and figure out how much the spigot puts out. Actually, if he’s on a well, you might want to haul in water anyways. The homeowner might not be too happy if you run his well dry. Ask him if he knows the specs of his well and do the math to see if it’s even feasible. If it is maybe give him two separate estimates, explain the pros and cons of each, and let him decide.
I had one, even straight 12.5 would leave it a film. Rag it would come right off, or a 25 degree with pressure. I found a guy with a quick brush was quicker.
I had another one I downstreamed and then got down poured on. Next day came back and the fence was clean.
So that’s always an option lol
didn’t even think about his water access. looks like i’ll make my way over there tomorrow and get some more info
Anyone have a rough idea how long it takes per foot? Thank you.
Done a lot of these. If you’re having to go back and forth for water, going to take forever. Rent a water truck. they’re usually pretty cheap. Or if he has good water supply - you can stage a couple of extra totes at water supply with a person there filling - get a sludge pump, or some other fast pump and just run back up with trailer, pump out of staged tanks to the one on trailer. Should take less than 10 min to fill up 275 tote.
You can make GREAT money at .65 per running ft. (that includes both sides). I’ve made decent on them at 50/ft but not really worth it. But you have to be systematic about it plus figure in water cost or downtime in addition to per ft cost. I can easily do 450-500’ both sides per hour by myself. You need to be able to get your trailer close to one side of fence. If you can’t that changes everything. You’ll probably need some pressure to knock off bird poop etc.
A smaller machine (4 or 5 gpm) actually works better than larger because uses less water so saves you time. Go look at tomorrow and get back to us with what you find out and I’ll tell you exactly how to do. I’d throw out to him that to do the whole thing probably going to be in $4500 range, depending on water just to make sure he’s on same page and before you waste a lot of your time on.
LOL . I would get $1500 for that job .
Usually I can just hit the whole thing with 50/50 then come back and hit the stubborn with some pressure. One person driving one person spraying
50-50 you’ll be killing grass. Most of what I do are horse farms. 'd get run out of town if I left a dead streak under the fences
I did this vinyl fence last year. I was able to clean 2400 ft. 1200 front/1200 back in 4 hours. I had a helper applying Sh with a 12 volt pump and I rinsed with a 4 gpm machine. I have 2-275 gal totes. Refilling was slow because the house was on a well. I charged $800.
Most fences around here have no grass under them. They keep fence lines clear of grass so there easier to mow.
There also not horse farms though. If grass was an issue we couldn’t use the easy way
