As winter has stayed long, cold and wet in my corner of New England, this has been a disincentive to my usual early spring carpet customers from calling me. However, to more than make up for this, the wood floor refinishing side of my business is buzzing. I have six jobs in various stages of completion or scheduling going on at the moment. And remember, I don't do the actual work. In this arena, I am the estimater/proposal writer/scheduler. And I try to take .50 per sq. ft. out of every job, which is more than I charge for carpet work. So diversification can be really helpful, particularly in this beaten-down economy. And I'm definitely adding deck cleaning/stripping/sealing this year. The Challenger, and - I'm assuming - any OP machine with a T & G brush quickly strips off the soil and the old finishes. Use an oxygen bleach (sodium percarbonite) product to clean; an environmentally friendly stripper to remove old finishes; an acid-based brightener-neutralizer product; and a good quality semi-transparent stain to finish. No power washer is necessary. After cleaning with an OP, all you need is a garden hose to spray away the dirt and old finish.
What is your success rate with this service?
Have you done different decks and different finishes to see if all comes out w/ just the cleaner and or a stripper?
Which green friendly stripper is recommended?
What are you applying your finish and how many coats? Are they also green friendly?
What are you using for the areas the t/g brush will not fit? If you're applying a new coat of finish onto the deck wouldn't the other areas look unfinished?
Some of these questions are answered in your other post on this subject. I have no paying customers' success stories yet. I am drafting up a flier as we speak, which will be distributed in a couple of weekly newspapers in a couple of weeks.
As a stripper I have been using READY-STRIP, which is considered on of the safer strippers, as it does not include sodium hydroxide in its formula. It seems to work well without having to wait very long, even though I've been working in outdoor temperatures colder than are recommended for this kind of work.
The safest strippers are soy-based, which I have found to work well indoors on urethane finished wood floors. I'm not sure they are practical for outdoor deck work, though, as after you have applied them to the floor or deck, you have to cover them with plastic sheet, then wait several hours for them to work.
After cleaning or stripping, you usually have to apply an acid-based neutralizer, also referred to as a brightener, to bring the surface of the wood into the neutral pH zone. Since Ready-Strip is not an alkaline product, they say that this step can be omitted before applying a sealer or stain.
The number of coats of sealant that you apply is one or two, depending upon the product you are using.
Have you figured out what type of prices you will be charging?
Does your flier inserts give a call to action discount for people coming off the flyer, is so what is that is you don't me asking?
