Marsh Window Cleaning

A lot of people in my line of work would not write about this, but I feel like it is a public service. Besides, I cannot find this information anywhere else online. It deals with power washing and paint damage, and it’s something you need to know about BEFORE you paint your house.

I will begin by telling what happened recently at one of our jobs. My long time customer had some remodeling done on their home, so a lot of cleaning was getting done that had been put off. We were asked to power wash the pool screen, the drive way, and the front walk. Then we were to clean all the windows inside and out. We did what we have always done: bleach the stained areas of the pool screen and drive way, and then blast it off with plain water. This has been done at this home on several occasions with no ill effects.

This time, it was brought to our attention that the paint was badly discolored from coming in contact with the bleach. I told her that since this had never happened before, and that it might have something to do with the paint. A man in the paint business once told me that there are some pigments that are not able to be cleaned with bleach. Immediately, the cleaning lady weighed in with, “They must have had the bleach turned up too high!” This is not physically possible, and I said that we do hundreds of homes without this ever happening. The homeowner said she would call the contractor and get his opinion.

In the interim, the pool guy also stopped by later in the week and added his two cents, “Yeah, they were using too much bleach.” The contractor got back to her with a different painter than had been used, and they said that the paint had been “burned” because too much bleach had been used. The customer then informed me that it would cost me $1200 to repaint the affected areas.

I knew then that I was going to have to find a knowledgeable source to clear myself. I looked around on the Internet for information about this, but came up empty. So I went to a local paint store that also sells pressure washers and chlorine bleach for power washing. Don Pinks, owner of Gator Paint in Gainesville, took the time to go to this woman’s house and give his expert opinion.

Before we went there, Mr. Pinks told me that his store once had to fix a paint job for a very high profile customer because the colorant used in the paint was not maintainable by ordinary pressure washing with bleach. It was a colorant that they have since discontinued using.

When he saw the paint and talked to the lady, he said that there are several ways to arrive at the color she has on her house, and that the computers used in the stores to match the paint will often calculate the cheapest solution to arrive at that color. And it seemed apparent to him that their color solution included the use of a colorant that should not be used outside.

His response to the idea that the bleach was “turned up too high” was, “can’t be done”. The injectors can only allow so much bleach due to size of the nozzle that allows the bleach  to enter the stream. It mixes water to bleach 5 to 1, and that is an industry standard.

Mr. Pinks offered to make himself available to my customer when she contacts the paint distributor (who has never called her back in the two weeks since she called them the first time, and the contractor, who he knows. In his opinion, this is an issue for the manufacturer.

This is a rare occurrence, but we clean so many houses that it is not unreasonable to think that it will happen again. I asked Don Pinks if he thought it was a good idea to use a spray bottle of Chlorox Clean-up to test an unobtrusive area of the house before giving an estimate. He thought it was a  good idea, and encouraged me to write about this on the blog.

I am withholding the names of the contractor and the manufacturer until I see how they handle this.

I first noticed Angie’s List on a TV commercial a couple of years ago. You’ve probabaly seen the ads. It shows some person working in someone’s house, making a mess of things, and then the homeowner gives him a bad review. I had tried to start a site like this myself a few years ago, but it took more time to get people on board than I had hoped. I gave it up, and then I found other sites that were doing basically the same thing. One of them was Judy’s Book.

Judy’s Book is free, and there are quite a few reviews of Gainesville businesses already. I reviewed several myself. I gave a few bad reviews, but mostly good ones. Here’s the link to the Gainesville page.

Angie’s List is a paid membership for homeowners. They are new to Gainesville, so it’s free to join for the first year. There ain’t much there right now, even after a couple of years of their national advertising that can be seen in our market.

From a homeowner’s point of view, it’s a no-brainer. Judy’s Book is way better. From a contractor’s point of view, Angie’s List is way more sophisticated. There is an opportunity for you to respond to bad reviews and give your side of the story. The site is very conducive to finding resolutions to disagreements. I like that. However, the paid membership is still a sticking point for me.

If you are one of my customers, I urge you to join Judy’s Book and give me a good review! And check out the other reviews before you buy.

Don Marsh

For quite a number of years I have focused on the residential market. This has been good to me, but I now need to diversify in order to aid expansion. Growth in the residential is slow andd steady, but it is not enough to augment the cost of employees, workers’ compensation, and marketing efforts. Besides, the residential market is a bit seasonal. I don’t EVER want to have another summer like this one!

At this time, I am reaching out to the following markets:

• Property management companies
• Retirement communities
• Homeowner associations

The biggest boost we are getting is from power washing. It is well over half of my business now, and it is a natural upsell to my window cleaning customers. Unlike window cleaning, power washing is not just a cosmetic service. It is prevention maintenance. Mold is the gateway to paint deterioration and rotten wood, so it saves people money to get this service.

I wanted to give something away for free that would make some sort of positive impact, and ingratiate us to the neighborhoods. So we are taking it upon ourselves to clean these filthy street number signs. Some of them are so covered with pollen that you cannot read them. And how would the Pizza driver find you?

Not every neighborhood suffers from thsi problem. It’s usually an affliction of signs under tree canopies. But if you have illegibly dirty signs in your neighborhood, contact us and we will put it on our Dirty Signs To Do List!

In a rare concession to Mother Nature, Marsh Window Cleaning stayed home for Tropical Storm Fay. Of course, the fact that no one wanted us to come over had something to do with it. We look forward to being able to go back to making a living on Monday! Please call!

Although window cleaning is our primary business, we do a LOT of powerwashing, and it does make for the best before and after pictures! Patio Furniture is one of those things we do automatically when we come out for your patio or screen enclosure. Most patio furniture is made to be cleaned with bleach, so you don’t worry about staining it. From time to time we come across something that is not obviously colorfast, like this cloth umbrella. But it IS supposed to be white!

Like this!

Chris King putting screens back in.

Just because it’s been raining, don’t think you have to keep looking out dirty windows! We did this house after power washing it, and its screen enclosure. When we got there, it was raining steadily. Our customer asked what we were going to do, and I said, “We’ll work around it.” I let the guys start inside while I got the power washing done. By the time I was almost done, they started on the outside, and they finished up right behind me. And the sun was shining!

When you live in Florida, rainy weather is a way of life. But dirty windows don’t have to be. Neither does a moldy house.

Donnie Marsh, getting close to the end.

I did this job today before cleaning the windows. I called  the cusotmer and told him he might want to do this first, instead of doing it himself after the windows get cleaned…

I always have my pressure washer with me, and I usually have some chlorine on hand, so we made a quick deal, and today turned into Instant Gratification Wednesday!

When you get that dark mold growing on your house, it’s a good idea to take action before it begins to break down your paint. And that is what will happen if this is left alone. If you wait until the blackness blots out the color, you will be able to run your finger across and uncover bare wood! Maintenance is cheap when compared to repainting.

Hello, Don Marsh here. I am in the process of moving window cleaning information from my home site, DonaldMarsh.com, to this one. The other one confuses some people because it’s about more than just window cleaning. Too many people type DonMarsh.com, and a host of other problems. This site will be window cleaning centric. Come back soon.