Commercial Pricing - Certified SoftWash Roof Cleaning

Mike Wedge · SoftWash Systems Master Certified Applicator

Commercial Pricing

Patrick Clark · Authorized Professional

Mike we use to do 3 locations for a guy. But are your stores getting cleaned now? If not you will have an initial cleaning, then price them every month and quarterly.

Two drive thrus or one?

Ron charges 1200.00 for an initial cleaning I believe. but some guys are getting $800 quarter .

Ron might chime in.

Couple years back I was charging $475 per location

Hope that helps

Gregg Giordano · Sophmore Member

Hi Mike:

This area can be very competitive for there is a lot of low life - non insured - cut throats doing this type of work. When pricing these jobs take into account traffic flow at the store if the location is heavy traffic you will have to arrange work off hours, also most of these jobs require hot machines and special degreasers these factors will also impact your bottom line. Other things to consider is water re-capture and residential housing location. If you have storm drains within the location of where your washing you will need to recapture your water also if you have to preform work during off hours and there's residential housing you may have an issue with noise pollution so take that into account, if you wake a resident up they won't hesitate to call the police on you. If that is the case you'll have to run the unit out of an enclosed trailer or use an electric pressure washer assuming your not trying to Softwash these areas.

Hope that helps, good luck in securing the work. I have a bunch of recurring monthly/quarterly work and it does help fill the gaps.

Best,

Gregg

Mike Wedge · SoftWash Systems Master Certified Applicator

Hey Pat and Greg, Thanks for the feed back. It's a two lane that merges to one. I was planning on going in at 14cents a Sqft to make sure I land this job. This guys family owns five McDonald's here on island so I figure it might be worth it to come in a little low. It Will probably come in around $600-$700. I have a 3500psi hot water machine at 4.5gpm and a 20" surface cleanerfor the flat stuff and a turbo nozzle for the curb and such. I also have a 4009 tip I plan to use on the outdoor furniture, chairs and planter boxes so I'm thinking 2-4 hours for the initial cleaning since it has been maintained regularly 3 times a year. I will definitely push to do this at night to minimize traffic. I do have a concern about water recovery. I plan on covering any storm drains and pumping excess water into barrels or planters. The barrels I could take to water treatment plant for disposal. Also not sure what kind of degreaser I should use if any. This will be my first commercial pressure washing so I just wan't to look like I know my stuff. I know I can clean it properly I just want to cover my rear on the EPA stuff. Any suggestions for covering the drains would be nice.

Thanks Guys!

Gregg Giordano · Sophmore Member

Hi Mike:

You could use a water dyke just before the catch basin this will prevent the water from entering the storm drain, set your pump up there, hopefully you can pump into an area that will not need to be hauled away! at 4.5 gpm your gonna fill a 50 gal container in @ 25 minutes unless you have a bunch of these containers and a way to lift and remove to recycle facility your gonna be in a bind. The product we currently use which is enviro safe but you still can't allow water into storms is "Prosoco" you can use there degreaser and concrete cleaning, two step process, here is the vendor we use to purchase from feel free to call them and pick there brains very helpful when it comes to this stuff. www.kenseal.com/products/

I was also given a product heads up from someone on this board the other day and they sent me pictures of concrete they cleaned with there product looked awesome so check into that as well, they called it EBC Cleaner available through www.jracenstein.com.

Hope that helps, good luck.

Best,

Gregg

Zach Maynard · SoftWash Systems Certified Applicator

Just be careful bidding low to get the job as you will be locked into those rates for a while with that company.

Mike Wedge · SoftWash Systems Master Certified Applicator

Great advice guys, I decided I was going to bid higher than others and do a more complete cleaning after seeing the facility. I plan to do it in sections as there is five storm drains that are fairly far apart and just pump it straight to the planter boxes nearest each drain. They are mostly filled with gravel and a few plants so I should be fine.

Bill Booz · Junior Member

100-120 an hour monthly. Push them to the monthly. Charge a lot more for quarterly. Quarterly isn't fixing their problem. Monthly means they never have to think about it again. Also demos sell!

Bill Booz · Junior Member

Also ask if those storm drains are part of an on property retention system. If they have their own storm water filtering ( as many are required too) it does not feed to ms4 and you can use them.

Mike Wedge · SoftWash Systems Master Certified Applicator

Thats for the tips Zach.

I will definitely take that into consideration on the next one. This guy wanted 100% his 12,000 sqft facility cleaned every four months and it had to be recovered and not pumped to the gravel flower beds with no flowers. I quoted him a price of twenty two hundred and you should of seen his face. He told me that he has a guy that currently does it for $700 and I told him to never lose that guy. There is no way I would consider investing all that time, effort and energy into a $700 job every four months. Not happening. I realize he may have told his buddies about me and I could of possibly got more facilities, but there is no way I'm spending 8-10 hrs on anything for less than$1500 unless my equipment goes down on a 4 hour job. Hell, I can get $700 for cleaning the food court at Costco once a month and it,s only 3200sqft of concrete without oil grease and tire marks.

Doug G · Junior Member

See, personally, I hope he tells his friends. People who realize you turned away the job because you're better and do the job right will call you.
Then again, it does depend on how he twists the story...