NDL Forum

And I picked up my first batch of Hydro-Chem soap and mixed it up in my 55 gallon drums. I have two 20 gallon drums on my tank that I will use for my cleaning. Now I can finally get my costs down to a science since I am stuck in one soap now.

Washed my son’s vehicle and my truck, gotta say the bug cleaner thin is freaking amazing. Chad said mix it at 5:1 but I called him and told him about the trucks I will be doing and he said go 1:1 or even stronger. The straight trucks I am doing tomorrow looks like they were painted black up top from all the bugs. Should make for good before and after photos.

Triple post alert

plasma1896 wrote:george, what do you charge to power wash a 2 car driveway and walk way to the front door. walkway is maybe 25 feet from curb. just curious as i have a power washer at home and i see about 90 of the 109 homes in my development need cleaning. just a ballpark estimate. probably take 2 hours or less.

Honestly I don't really know. There are a lot of factors. But ballpark is $0.12-$0.25 per square foot. But I'd advice against it if you aren't using the proper tools. First, you should have insurance I'm case you mess it up. How new is the concrete, less than 18 months and you can take the cream off it. You should be using a surface cleaner, not a wand and a turbo tip, 0* or 15*. You should be using a 40* if you are doing your own and don't want to use a surface cleaner (which you 100% should be). Your chemicals do the cleaning for you. Different factors to cleaning, heat, chemicals, GPM, psi and aggitation. If you are lacking in one or more of those then you need to make up in the other areas. PSI should be no more than 2000-2500 psi on residential. DO NOT PRASURE WAS ASPHALT!

I'm sure I am missing some stuff, if you have questions I can find the answers for you in my power washing forum for professionals.

ReignOnU wrote:It sounds like you're answering the question in a round about way. You're grossing 35k a year now, but it's with a workload that is highly spread out. So you do have room to fit in quite a bit more and could max up to 140k. So now you have to get to the question of whether or not you can get those accounts locked down and settle on your cost, you'll have an answer. Seems to me that you're doing fine considering the time that you've spent and what you have to show for it so far.

I can Max up a lot more than $140k. At that point though my wife quits her job and does the booking and secretary work. I hire employees as well and buy another machine or 4 that mount to a flat bed and a straight truck.

Just posting to stop George's streak

nick wrote:Just posting to stop George's streak

Haha, I was just getting to go with another. Don't think I ever had a fivefer

Runner Freight this morning. They are a regional distributor for NAPA Auto Parts. These bad boys were filthy. Bugs caked on. New soap worked pretty good but we have some dialing in to do still. What do you think?

Good stuff there George!

every time i read the title of your company i think of the Simpsons.. "The hunt...is onnnn"

Went back to clean 5 more trucks for Runner Freight (pictured above) and the trucks we cleaned on Friday were covered in bugs again. I'm going to try to talk the owner into having their trucks cleaned weekly.


Also, I was contacted this morning thru my Facebook page. Asked if I’d do some trucks in Lincoln, which is about 40 miles away. Asked the guy where he heard of my company and he said at a local carwash. I forgot I dropped some business cards off on a table that had a bunch of cards from various companies. Didn’t think it would ever be worth anything but I thought what the hell.

The guy was told to find a local washer and ran across my card. He passed on to the dispatch and said they should contact me tomorrow. Problem (good problem) is they have 344 tractors (semi's). No clue in how many would be in the yard at any given time. I haven’t really done a bunch of tractors so I’m not sure how long it takes to clean them. I know I can knock out 8 straight trucks in 2 hours from set up to year down.

Just received the word that The Pressure Is On, LLC has won the Hy-Vee's Omaha Fulfilment Center contract. Exciting times here!

That adds an additional $25k to the bottom line for the year. And there is a possibilty that they will want to do weekly cleanings. All this leg work is starting to pay off, still waiting on 3 other companies that sounded promising.

Awesome.
So how many hours per week you gonna be working now to make all this moolah?

The_Niddler wrote:Awesome.
So how many hours per week you gonna be working now to make all this moolah?

Not sure yet. I know they have 9 straight trucks (we cleaned 11 in 2:32 today), 16 box Vans (think of the vans at the airport that take you to the garage) and 10 sprinter vans. So maybe 6 hours tops, every other week. So we are looking at around 25-30 hours a month

That is awesome.
So how many hours do you have total per month and what does that equate to for money per month?
Maybe you will have to extend your company out here in Ohio with a GM that lives here! lol

The_Niddler wrote:That is awesome.
So how many hours do you have total per month and what does that equate to for money per month?
Maybe you will have to extend your company out here in Ohio with a GM that lives here! lol

That is 25-30 hours a month that I would work. Bringing in roughly $4500 a month. Not counting the 2 extra paychecks. Taking into account I am not sure if 2 of my contracts will continue during the winter. Let's assume they do I will bring in $56,300 on the year working those 30 or so hours a month. If they drop out during the winter I will still bring in right around $49,000.

I still do not know if Hy-Vee will increase their schedule to weekly cleanings, which I hope to god they do. That contract alone will bring in $40-45k yearly done weekly. I should have a meeting coming up with them to introduce myself and explain the cleaning process.

I'm still waiting to hear from Sapp Brothers to clean all of their trucks and Schwann's to clean their trucks. Schwann's is 20 trucks at $25 a piece bi-weekly. Sapp Brothers, I have no clue what they have on their lot so I asked for a walk thru with their fleet prior to putting in a bid.

If you are serious, I can point you in the right direction to start this adventure.

ReignOnU wrote: You need to figure out net ASAP. (not sure why it's taking so long, you don't have that many factors to at least be in the ballpark) From there, you need to ask yourself 3 questions: 1.) Based on my net from these 4 accounts, how many more accounts of a similar nature do I need to secure to reach 40k net? 2.) Am I capable of securing the necessary accounts? 3.) If I do secure the required accounts to reach 40k net, how does the effort/workload compare to that of meter reading? You can throw in the bonus question of potentially adding more accounts and workload beyond to exceed the stable option if there is room once everything is calculated.

So, getting closer to getting my net.

Just finished my #2 soap. We were able to clean 56 straight trucks, 3 day cabs, 4 beverage trailers, 4 tanker trucks, 2 cylinder trucks, ~15 pickups, various other trucks. Roughly 90 pieces. My #1 and #2 soap costs $115 each (but had to pay $150 on shipping for my whole order). Still have roughly 20-25 gallons of my #1 soap so still really don't know the actual costs. But to get a general starting point, we are roughly at $2 per piece in soaps alone to clean those 90 pieces. Those 90 pieces brought in (off the top of my head) between $3000-$3500, this is all from June 14th. Paid roughly $150 in fuel costs and just under $500 in equipment costs. $1100 in monthly costs and brought in ~$3000, so my net is ~$1900. This will go up next month as I was able to buy more soaps (one #1 and three #2's) on that same $150 shipping cost. Next month I expect to net ~$4000 after adding the largest grocery store here.

GeorgesGoons wrote:Just received the word that The Pressure Is On, LLC has won the Hy-Vee's Omaha Fulfilment Center contract. Exciting times here!

That adds an additional $25k to the bottom line for the year. And there is a possibilty that they will want to do weekly cleanings. All this leg work is starting to pay off, still waiting on 3 other companies that sounded promising.

Was concerned that I may not have had this contract as I thought I did. Was told to talk to the assistant directors regarding logistics. Reached out to them and never heard anything back from them. Finally went to talk to them today and was assured that I have the contract and will start cleaning them Wednesday/Thursday next week, bringing in $25k a year.

Also reached out to Cintas (uniform laundry service) last week and was asked to come out and do a demo next week. If awarded the contract this brings on an additional $36k a year.

Still waiting on 3 other promising bids, may have to go knock on their door next week. If awarded these 3 bids that brings in an additional $80k cleaning bi-weekly. This would bring my total up to close to $200k gross. Fingers crossed!

You’ll be a billionaire my christmas !


Keep up the good work but please get your finances in order before you keep taking on new projects

DRiccio21 wrote:You’ll be a billionaire my christmas !


Keep up the good work but please get your finances in order before you keep taking on new projects

I got my finances in order, just cant get 100% accurate numbers since I haven't finished my #1 soap. My $2 per truck that I stated before is assuming that my #1 soap was finished as well. So in all actuality we are probably closer to $1.70 per truck when it's all said in done.

Cookin' the books!!

Weasel wrote:Cookin' the books!!

Does me no good to do that