When is it necessary to brush an entire house?

I have a competitor who is selling the fact they brush every house. We’ve had to brush on a couple of occasions when pigment was heavily oxidized, but otherwise have seen no reason to do so. Is it possible they do this because they are using poor technique (too much pressure, wand too close to the siding, poor mix) or might this just be a marketing ploy? If neither reason is valid, is brushing really a selling point? Curious what others think/do.

Brushing a house should never have to happen, ever. Even if someone’s house has oxidation, all you have to do is say “no thank you” to the job. People make this way harder than it needs to be.

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Your competitor is an idiot.

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No. You’d have to be out of your mind or just not have an understanding of how to be profitable.

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Yeah and if it’s a marketing ploy you should start advertising “touchless” house washes to protect homeowners. :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile: :sweat_smile:

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I love this approach. I definitely prefer to respond in a positive way than attack negatively. It will allow me to present pros and cons in a comparative way.

Exactly. In the eyes of the customer, you will come across as more knowledgeable with a better product.

I knew someone that did this. They only hand brush painted houses. They said that it was much better quality to do it that way. They didn’t say why. I don’t know if they actually charged much more, but they must have made a lot less per hour of labor?? How couldn’t they. How much would a customer pay extra for this feature? You would have to have some reasoning to tell them to justify charging more?
One reason I could think, maybe they have lots of plants around, some people really care a lot about their plants, and maybe they think if there is a chance of overspray mist touching plants, they want their entire house hand brushed.

I am pretty sure that oxidation removal is a restoration job and you need to price it higher cause the chemicals you would be using is different and cost more. Once you start brushing you really cant stop otherwise you’d have “clean spots” everywhere. They must not know or must be undercharging. Occasionally you would come across several oxidation marks in a house and its best to set expectations or offer oxidation removal service… however they must know that sometimes the paint is oxidized all the way through and most likely will just have to repaint it.

I have only done four houses in the three years of doing PW. I didn’t have to brush them to get results. BUT, an estimate I did was for a difficult customer, a know it all type, who said “you don’t need to go look at the house…just do it”. I smelled trouble and drove the 37 miles to inspect the brick home with five dormers, metal fascia and covered in tiny spider webs. Evidently it had been unoccupied a long time and nature took over. Two laborers were doing construction add-ons. I bid it high enough to cover brushing and thorough pressure wash to get a complete job. I didn’t get that job and probably saved money.