Like many of you, I have decided not to offer any wood cleaning services. My question, when speaking with a potential customer, what is your go-to “sorry, we don’t clean wood” spill? I sometimes have a hard time telling customers no so I want to type something up, stick it on the wall above my desk and anytime I hear the words, deck, dock, pier, fence, etc… I can quickly look up and not beat around the bush about it. I’d rather not say “wood is a PITA and I’d rather make $ doing easy work…” Let’s hear what ya got!!
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If you don’t want to do it price it ridiculously high. Tell them it takes a long time and time is money.
Find someone in your area who does wood and sub it to them ( or give it to them). Tell them what you will do and to call you back when they have something that falls into youre line of work. Even if you dont do the job yourself just helping them out one way or another will make sure they remember you. They might call back or refer you to a friend.
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Expensive to do it properly and far too easy to damage. Best to call a painter that will sand and prep before a solid stain or a very expensive wood restoration company. Otherwise the end product is rarely what anyone really wants.
I did pressure wash an ipe wood deck a couple weeks ago because the stuff is hard as a rock, easy to blend starts and stops, turns out beautifully, and earned $600 in 2 hours.
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I price it High and if they except it I do it.
I get about 50/50 and the 50% that except makes me some good money😉
Not that I can’t do it, I just prefer not to. I kind of do same with roofs. I price them semi high. Only because SH is a pain to get in my area and I have to use 1 gallon jugs. Just becomes a pain. 30 miles to get it each way then open and dump all the jugs. I prefer to stick to house washes but at the end of the day ill do it all if they pay.
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I have no problem sending away just a deck cleaning/re-staining project but when they want a couple services I offer + wood cleaning is the issue. I do have a local competitor who advertises wood cleaning but obviously don’t want to send him the whole gig. Wish I had someone who specializes in wood I could refer that part to. Another issue is that I hope to scale eventually and no way I’m sending a tech out to mess with wood.
Wood is not too bad. Most of the decks I clean are in rough shape anyway. Set expectations low. Charge accordingly.
If I sent away decks I’d be sending away the whole job.
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