# How to bid this job...



## bradleyheathhays (Jul 20, 2018)

Since I happen to have a good 4200 psi power washer the manager of my mother's building has asked me to give her a bid to clean it up. 
The bldg has mild darkening on some of the siding but the brick looks fairly good. It seems like a simple job but since I don't have any experience bidding something like this I thought I'd come here first. Here's the place...




























It's an L shaped building and each leg is the length in the first pic. The front, ends and back of the bldg are shown. The highest points are at the ends of the bldg at about 30 ft. 

How would you figure the bid on something like this?


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Others will chime in with more specific advice but a basic tip about how I 
approached bids for bigger jobs was to break the structure down into sections (each end, one half of the front, etc) and compile my numbers for them as if each were a stand alone job, and then added them up. A larger job always felt less overwhelming when viewed as a collection of smaller ones, at least to me.

This one has a repeating design which should make doing that even easier. But obviously, areas that might have weathered more will need to be adjusted for.


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## cardgunner (Feb 29, 2016)

I'd figure in a lift. to get you up high easily.Looks like you have good open sapces to operate in.


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## Gymschu (Mar 11, 2011)

Also include in your bid some time for getting residents to move their cars. Even though you're likely just using water, it's amazing how angry someone can get when they find water spots or mist from the PW spray. If you are using any kind of cleaner, that just doubles potential problems. Then there's always that one person you can never track down to move their vehicle, and they always end up being a "problem person."


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## deadend (Aug 1, 2013)

...wages+expenses+overhead+profit...that's a lot of work and a lot of risk...price accordingly going forward...


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Gymschu said:


> Also include in your bid some time for getting residents to move their cars. Even though you're likely just using water, it's amazing how angry someone can get when they find water spots or mist from the PW spray. If you are using any kind of cleaner, that just doubles potential problems. Then there's always that one person you can never track down to move their vehicle, and they always end up being a "problem person."


Good advice about the cars. It’s amazing how clueless or nonchalant people can be about having their cars out of harms way even though they have been given ample warning. But if any overspray were to get on their vehicles, the s**t would hit the fan.


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

I painted Amoco stations for almost 5 years. We would block off an area with the big orange traffic cones and 14x16 drops, and some of these morons would try to squeeze their car in between the cones to pump gas, even though the other side of the station was accessible.

We used to tell them what WTF can't you see this area is blocked off and do you want gloss oil paint splatter on your car. Most would just give us a dirty look and continue pumping.

The most hilarious was when people would drive around for ten or fifteen minutes trying to figure out what side of the car the gas tank was on! If only we had cell phones with cameras back then.


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## Holdenholden (Feb 6, 2018)

Invest in some rain gear for sure. Unless it’s a hot one and u can do it in your swim trunks. Lol. I’d bid by the hour. Maybe 2-3 days with a helper. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Peanut (Nov 19, 2015)

Not sure how to delete replies...


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## Peanut (Nov 19, 2015)

Hopefully Mods can remove these two accidental posts. Sorry about that.


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## Peanut (Nov 19, 2015)

Honestly PSI isn't that important, it's more about the GPM. If your machine is less than 4 GPM I would pass on the job. Research downstream injectors. There is ton of good info on this site and pressure washing resource .com. I learned I was washing the hard/slow/inefficient way for many years...


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## MinneapolisPainter (Mar 5, 2019)

Looking into starting a pressure washing business. Threads like these are helping figure out whats involved.


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