How to make the transition from pressure wash to hypo wash (on a driveway clean)

Hi everyone, looking to start softwashing slowly but steadily. Need to price up a fair sized block paved front driveway clean for a regular windy customer tomorrow & i know it’s quite bad. Pressure washer always brings great results but i thought with a bit of chemical it would make it pristine, + get me a bit of softwash experience from a paying customer. I’ve always priced on time & materials (e.g.sand & petrol) rather than per square meter.

So...lets say i would price the driveway at 4 hours labor £160 + sand (lets say 3 bags £15) + re-sanding charge

How would i go about pricing the same driveway if using SH to boost the results? Do i simply add the cost of the chemicals e.g. £10, + an extra hours labor to allow for the dwell time?

Or is there a standard way of pricing up these jobs? Thanks in advance for any advice/help given it’s always appreciated

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The whole industry prices things on area size so if I was you, I would follow the pack. What can be easier than measuring length times breadth? keep it simple. @Incheck

scottish cleaning service said:

The whole industry prices things on area size so if I was you, I would follow the pack. What can be easier than measuring length times breadth? keep it simple. [mention=5882]Incheck[/mention]

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Thanks. If you’re going on the basis you mentioned before of £6 per sq/m. Would that be your “go to price” for softwashing in general? In terms of render, exterior walls, patios, drives etc. I know roofs are different i’m not looking at getting in to that for a long time, maybe not at all.
Obviously complete lack of experience in it so i’m at odds and ends regards pricing. I’m so used to looking a something and going “that’s half a day, that’s two thirds of a day” etc etc.



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Incheck said:

Thanks. If you’re going on the basis you mentioned before of £6 per sq/m. Would that be your “go to price” for softwashing in general? In terms of render, exterior walls, patios, drives etc. I know roofs are different i’m not looking at getting in to that for a long time, maybe not at all.
Obviously complete lack of experience in it so i’m at odds and ends regards pricing. I’m so used to looking a something and going “that’s half a day, that’s two thirds of a day” etc etc.



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Say you are powerwashing a driveway, 20m by 4m means 80m2 which equates to £240. You provide the kiln dry sand in the job. Say they want it treated with bio before you sand, extra £1, so £320. Say they want you to hypo it because its in a bad state then another extra £1 or £2 depending how bad. Say they also want you to seal it with resisblock then an extra £2 or I would tell them to do it themselves or if they insisted then I would do it and charge well for it.

Say you see a job and its 3m by 10m then it would be £90 but I have a minimum of a ton so you say £100 and if they argue you say the minimum price is £100. Just keep it simple, because your gear is worth nearly 5 grand.

I think Softwash walls are £100 a side which equates to £300 for a normal semi so I read.

Incheck said:

Hi everyone, looking to start softwashing slowly but steadily. Need to price up a fair sized block paved front driveway clean for a regular windy customer tomorrow & i know it’s quite bad. Pressure washer always brings great results but i thought with a bit of chemical it would make it pristine, + get me a bit of softwash experience from a paying customer. I’ve always priced on time & materials (e.g.sand & petrol) rather than per square meter.

So...lets say i would price the driveway at 4 hours labor £160 + sand (lets say 3 bags £15) + re-sanding charge

How would i go about pricing the same driveway if using SH to boost the results? Do i simply add the cost of the chemicals e.g. £10, + an extra hours labor to allow for the dwell time?

Or is there a standard way of pricing up these jobs? Thanks in advance for any advice/help given it’s always appreciated

Sent using the Window Cleaning Forums mobile app

Click to expand...

£160  for 4 hours work is way to cheap , you need to take into consideration ware and tare on the washer : petrol , labour , hypo: etc I would suggest your price should be double that , if however you are looking to get experience then it’s useful to get some work to learn evan if it’s not great money but at that price I don’t think you will be earning any more than the minimum wage after expenses , this isn’t a criticism but you need to make decent money on this type of work or it’s not worth doing it , also you shoot yourself in the foot when you realise you have done it to cheap and they recomend you to there friends and expect it to be a similar price , when I started I was too cheap but quickly realised and altered my pricing accordingly 

Pjj said:

 
 
 
£160  for 4 hours work is way to cheap , you need to take into consideration ware and tare on the washer : petrol , labour , hypo: etc I would suggest your price should be double that , if however you are looking to get experience then it’s useful to get some work to learn evan if it’s not great money but at that price I don’t think you will be earning any more than the minimum wage after expenses , this isn’t a criticism but you need to make decent money on this type of work or it’s not worth doing it , also you shoot yourself in the foot when you realise you have done it to cheap and they recomend you to there friends and expect it to be a similar price , when I started I was too cheap but quickly realised and altered my pricing accordingly 

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Yes fella i am with you on that one. I have just started adding wear and tear and tool maintenance costs on to jobs, i put it separate to the labor in a “tool upkeep”
E.g
labor £
Materials £
Tool upkeep £

Total £

I even do this for first cleans window cleaning now as on first cleans i need to justify the pricing. People are looking at me shocked sometimes if i quote them £40-£100 for a first clean, but in my mind, it’s busy season.
If it’s gonna take me 2-3 hours including blading paint, frame restoration etc, and i can do a patio clean in the same time, why bother with the windows if they dont want to pay the rates? I may get less window cleaning work as a result but it saves messers and people who want to spend £15 once a year to clean them when a regular maintenance clean costs that.
End of the day as good as our products & equipment are, they do cost, as does everything.
Brush heads, unger rub out, magic sponges, blade scrapers, water fed poles, sticky stuff remover etc etc.

I think people assume i’m like their previous window cleaner who just shows up and is either a wfp master who does a splash and dash, or that i’m going to just show up with a ladder & bucket and squeegee and just give them a tradding. I mix and match depending on what needs may be



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Can someone give a definition of soft wash please


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Charlie@AquaClear said:

Can someone give a definition of soft wash please


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Check utube and watch some videos.