Where to begin?

Read up for months on end, hours a day. Bought a 4gpm belt drive and everything to go with it. Practiced on my house and a few friend's then made a website and got the trailer wrapped.

I've made a few small mistakes since then but learned from them and still read everyday. Now I'm doing anything from a small Ranch for 150 up to larger cedar shake homes for $2k.
People will stop and ask when you're working, chat them up and go from there. You could leave in the morning with one job expecting to be done at noon and end up not getting back until 8pm and doing 3-4 jobs that day.
 
I started with focusing on solving customers' technical problems..
That is.. answering the tougher questions ..the ones the competition did not, and relentlessly following up..
..this "conditioned me" to be a relentless troubleshooter, and teacher of equipment bulletproofing to my customers.
If you do this for your customers, you will provide really good work, you will make fewer mistakes, and will manage sustainable contracts.
Be the technical (cleaning) guy for your customers, and let people like me be the technical (equipment) guy for you.
 
1979 high school job for Master Kleen in Largo Fl. cleaning the warehouse, boss's car, GTE and Fl power fleets, and parking garages. Later started cleaning houses and tile roofs to prep for a painting company and was hooked.


Doug Rucker
Clean and Green Solutions
Pressure Washing Roof Cleaning School
Call or Text 281.883.8470
 
BrooksPW said:
Only use top quality equipment and chemicals, You'll get results. keep reading you'll learn something new everyday and on every job. Good luck with it.
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yeah, i feel like using the best chemicals will make my job that much easier... Im debating on not using my 2.7gpm 3200psi machine, and just buying a 4gpm 4000psi washer so im starting with something decent ... But maybe the 2.7 will be a good learning tool before i dump money into this...
 
You can get a 4gpm 4000 psi direct drive machine for like $800. I started my business 2 years ago with a little 2.7ish GPM machine. Did a handful of jobs with it, then bought the 4 GPM direct drive. The speed and efficiency was night and day. Also, makes you look more professional as opposed to a small machine that a lot of homeowners have already. More professional look = more neighbors scoping you out and approaching you for work on their homes
 
Direct drive wont last as long as belt or gear drive, but I'm still running mine 2 years later and it's paid for itself over and over again. I don't run it as often as my belt drive, but still put probably over 1000 hours on it
 
Tiger Pressure Wash said:
You can get a 4gpm 4000 psi direct drive machine for like $800. I started my business 2 years ago with a little 2.7ish GPM machine. Did a handful of jobs with it, then bought the 4 GPM direct drive. The speed and efficiency was night and day. Also, makes you look more professional as opposed to a small machine that a lot of homeowners have already. More professional look = more neighbors scoping you out and approaching you for work on their homes
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Yeah, if you get a machine with a 13 hp engine. In a month or two you could get another pump for it. I got a 4.6 gpm pump for less than $300. Or you can talk to Russ about a gearbox pump comb, for a couple hundred more.
 
I would say upgrade to the direct drive machine asap...as was mention not only will it look like you have the real equipment you will also be able to move along a lot faster.

I have never owned a direct drive machine and I know they dont have the life that a belt drive has but for you using it as a start up machine only doing work on the side hopefully you could get a year or two out of it and make enough money to buy a larger 5-10 gpm later and maybe use the direct drive as a backup machine.

Wishing you the best!!
 
Years ago I bought an oil-less pump dewalt pressure washer at home depot- 3100psi 3.0gpm, for home use. Anywho, had so much fun with it, bought a goofy 12" surface cleaner attachment and started doing side work with it. The pump fried with me not knowing to add an unloader, or a ball valve to be able to keep water flowing through. I took it over to a local shop, and the owner smiled and asked if home depot at least bought me dinner first. He was cool and told me he would look at it for free, and offered me a 3000 psi 4.0 gpm machine to finish the job I was doing. Just that 1 gpm difference was enough to about knock me over compared to what my machine was like, and I was sold on how much more a difference the gpm made.

Fast forward- bought a 4kpsi 4.0gpm machine, at the time was doing more detailing than pressure washing. I like dealing with the public more with pressure washing, I now am trying to focus on that. I'm using a 3k psi 9.5 gpm cold water rig now, and I'm saving up for a bigger trailer, hot water, and many more toys. Beings I went through it, I don't recommend that path haha. But job endings and family issues led me to pressure washing, and wanting to be knowledgeable led me here, so no regrets in the end!
 
I really like all the comments here. They're all good!
Me, I did a lot of research and bought the least expensive commercial grade 4k psi, 4 gpm unit I could find, strapped it down in the back of my pick up, and went to work. In my neck of the woods (literally, woods), there's a lot of poultry farms, and they need regular washing. That got me started. Bought a subscription to The Cleaner Times, and read every word. I went to a round table, joined the cleaning assn. that sponsored it, and got certified in house washing, and kept reading. Bought Quickbooks by Intuit, and found that Intuit has simple websites for less than $10 a month. Got a web site. Went to PWNA convention and got certified in wood restoration. Learned how to get web site on 1st page on search engines. Getting more jobs. Went to Vista Print and designed my own business card for cheap. Put a whole bunch out. Got a whole bunch more jobs. Now I have my old machine, and a 3500 psi, 8 gpm hot water unit that allows me to do just about any job that I come across. And on and on.
Here's the real kicker. I found out right off the bat, provide the service, do a real good and thorough job, and always, always, always, find something you can do for your customer that you don't charge them for. It'll be something that doesn't take much of my time, but stands out to the customer.
So, know your business, do it well, do it for a reasonable price, and do something for free. You'll hook 'em every time!
 
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I am probably going to have some used Hot Water washers (Aladdin, 5gpm @ 3000PSI) for sale soon. We cycle our equipment, and it's time. They are far from worn out, and only have about 1200 hours on them. The problem is, we use them 4 or 5 minutes at a time, 60 times a day. It just makes sense to buy new machines to replace them, at a certain point, to regain the reliability factor. I am probably going to let them go for around $2000 each. I might change my mind, though.
 
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