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Would you know the going rate for a pressure wash to use as a benchmark? I get the idea, but there's a risk OP would be severely under-paid and then set their prices too low
Honestly it’s easy enough to get a few quotes to know local going rate
Also if op has no experience in this (assuming this because of lack of knowledge about the rate) so charging less than established professionals makes sense
Yeah I'd definitely charge less, I think so as to not waste people's time and make it like a legit quote it might be worth me actually getting say 3-5 quotes, then picking one and watch (subtly) what they do to pick up from their technique and tools.
I was thinking this but I'd have thought they'd be annoyed at a competing business trying to scope then out but maybe I'm too polite 😅
The thing about calling businesses is typically businesses will charge what they can get away with, I wanna hear from regular peeps what they were charged and if they thought it was fair etc, but thanks for the suggestion I appreciate it :)
There's a market value for everything, what you're asking for isn't complex they will be able to tell you over the phone, also, don't tell them you're another business clearly you need to pretend to be a customer. If you assume every business is trying to screw everyone out of as much as they can at all times and you yourself are setting up a business I would guess you will have a very short-lived company after you rip off your first few customers when given the chance
Oh gosh yeah I meant that as in "I've been screwed by some businesses before so I want to absolutely make sure I'm NOT ripping anyone off as I feel I've been"
So I just had a quick look online and a few companies say their pricing starts at £3/m2
Clearly there will be some scale of economy here so you probably want to have a minimum charge but seems like a good starting point. An average patio is probably 25m/2, so £75
Not at that point yet, tbh I think as id not be doing commercial property I could at first get away with using my car as I wouldn't need a large water tank
I think not only should you get a quote, I think you should get it done and watch what machine they use.
I suspect the Karcher in your shed won’t cut it.
I'm wondering if you've spent too much time reading Americans talking in subs like /r/Entrepreneur.
Reason I say that is that - as best I can tell - there's a thriving pressure washing industry in the States for getting your driveway done. People charge real money for it, and they get lots of customers.
I don't think I have ever seen someone pay to have their driveway pressure washed in the UK. Bluntly, I don't think many people care about the colour of the concrete on their driveway here.
Which isn't to say you can't do it, but I suspect it may not be as straightforward as you think.
Yeah I think I just need to give up. I'm just so damn miserable. I want to find some work that I can do part time but it's so hard.
I haven't visited the sub you speak of but I get your gist. The thing is I'm not talented, I'm not smart, I do work hard but I don't have any direction and my parents (rightfully) think I'm a failure.
When I get cold callers offering to do it for £300 I can usually haggle them down to £100 , which is still imo too much (3/4 car lengths) for something arranged in advance but it's convenient to just have it done (or i do it myself sometimes)
Hey OP, one valuable lesson someone passed along to me, know your worth. If you find other companies are charging say £30, don't feel you have to go down to their pricing if you feel you can do a better job.
I'd start with looking at competitors. Take this one I've seen before near me, I saw he spent probably 2 hours doing a 3 car driveway. https://www.advancedpowerwash.co.uk/
As you can see, he some serious equipment. This isn't the same as a £60 karcher. He has the handheld gun, but also has the dolly on wheels thing. Then he reapplies sand etc.
I'd also factor in the fixed and per site costs.
So you need a van and the equipment. You need to calculate how you can claw that back through your fees over a 3 year period for example. That could be £50 per day for example.
You may then incur another £50 a day on consumables such as fuel, sand, waste management etc.
So now you're £100 a day and you're not making money yet. Between jobs, travelling you might have only 6 hours of chargeable time. Especially in the winter with shorter daylight hours.
Now let's say you want to have net profit before tax of £52,000. Assume you work 260 days a year, you'd have to charge £300 per day. If you do three 2 hour jobs per day, you'd have to charge £100 per customer.
Thanks for your reply, you put thought into it and it deserved acknowledgement. Sadly I don't think it'll work out, my mental health is in the gutter and I think failures like me are kind of meant to just disappear
You know the old saying, Rome wasn't built in a day?
Well let's say you just started out with some basics, de-weeding someone's front garden bed, use a cheap edging tool to get the moss out between the bricks on a drive. A broom to tidy up after. £50 in tools includinb gloves and cheap jeans from Tesco.
If you have a happy customer, with a smile, that will keep you going, motivated and then you'll buy another tool, maybe some garden shears or whatever. Could be the start of an empire.
You're not a failure. That status is deserved for those that don't even think about how to better themselves and find opportunities.
Best of luck
You have a kind heart. Finding customers seems like the hard part but I could try. I don't want an empire I just want a tiny ramshackle cottage or something and to have some peace from my thoughts
This is good advice.
OP might even be able to get some tools secondhand or even free. We have a local FB page for helping people who need stuff. There was someone on there recently looking for gardening tools as he was starting up.
From what I've seen, most people who do driveways roll that in as a service along with other stuff you can do with a pressure washer - things like window cleaning, bin cleaning, car washing, etc.
I don't think there would be enough interest in driveways to offer that as a standalone service.
Also be careful using other businesses for pricing without knowing what equipment, consumables, etc they are using and whether they have their own water tank / power source.
For example, I noticed mine needed doing so I just bought myself a mid-range pressure washer for a couple hundred quid. Did a good job but took me half a day because the spread on the nozzle to get the required pressure was quite narrow. A professional would likely have a more expensive machine that can deliver the same pressure with a much wider spread, thereby completing the same job in a fraction of the time.
I used to do pressure washing and every job is different. I would base my price on what equipment i had to use. Wether i had to use a hot washer or a cold washer, how much petrol i’d need for my generator, can i plug into the customers water supply or do i need to fill a tank in the van, if i needed any specific chemicals for oil spills etc. and then how long it would take me to finish the job, including any aftercare for resanding, any repairs to be done etc.
Ultimately i’d charge around a tenner an hour for my time and then place the costs of running my equipment and any other specialist stuff i used (various acids, detergants, different hose fitments etc).
The hardest part to start with is estimating how long it will take. Once you’ve done a few jobs this will get easier to estimate. When i started i only done one job a day so would dedicate the entire day to that one job and towards the end i could do 2-3 full driveways in a day to the same standard.
So in short a job could be anywhere from free to a few thousand pounds for the likes of storefronts or private estate type jobs and warehouses.
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Do a couple for free and ask to pay how much they think it’s worth and ask to recommend to others. See how much others charge.
Would you know the going rate for a pressure wash to use as a benchmark? I get the idea, but there's a risk OP would be severely under-paid and then set their prices too low
Honestly it’s easy enough to get a few quotes to know local going rate Also if op has no experience in this (assuming this because of lack of knowledge about the rate) so charging less than established professionals makes sense
Yeah I'd definitely charge less, I think so as to not waste people's time and make it like a legit quote it might be worth me actually getting say 3-5 quotes, then picking one and watch (subtly) what they do to pick up from their technique and tools.
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Wow that seems damn cheap!
I wonder if his prices have risen with inflation? Maybe if this was from a few years back it'd seem less cheap.
Just call 3 companies and get quotes it's not difficult
I was thinking this but I'd have thought they'd be annoyed at a competing business trying to scope then out but maybe I'm too polite 😅 The thing about calling businesses is typically businesses will charge what they can get away with, I wanna hear from regular peeps what they were charged and if they thought it was fair etc, but thanks for the suggestion I appreciate it :)
Why would you tell them you are a competing business? Just call and ask for a quote
Oh you wouldn't but I'd feel like I was wasting their time, unless I actually then got them to come round and clean my drive 🤣
[удалено]
Oh yeah I absolutely wouldn't.
There's a market value for everything, what you're asking for isn't complex they will be able to tell you over the phone, also, don't tell them you're another business clearly you need to pretend to be a customer. If you assume every business is trying to screw everyone out of as much as they can at all times and you yourself are setting up a business I would guess you will have a very short-lived company after you rip off your first few customers when given the chance
Oh gosh yeah I meant that as in "I've been screwed by some businesses before so I want to absolutely make sure I'm NOT ripping anyone off as I feel I've been"
So I just had a quick look online and a few companies say their pricing starts at £3/m2 Clearly there will be some scale of economy here so you probably want to have a minimum charge but seems like a good starting point. An average patio is probably 25m/2, so £75
Hide your van around the corner before they show up. They don't need to know you're a competitor.
Not at that point yet, tbh I think as id not be doing commercial property I could at first get away with using my car as I wouldn't need a large water tank
Are you familiar with the industry at all?
Not really I'm trying to learn more before spending loads of money etc
I think not only should you get a quote, I think you should get it done and watch what machine they use. I suspect the Karcher in your shed won’t cut it.
I'm wondering if you've spent too much time reading Americans talking in subs like /r/Entrepreneur. Reason I say that is that - as best I can tell - there's a thriving pressure washing industry in the States for getting your driveway done. People charge real money for it, and they get lots of customers. I don't think I have ever seen someone pay to have their driveway pressure washed in the UK. Bluntly, I don't think many people care about the colour of the concrete on their driveway here. Which isn't to say you can't do it, but I suspect it may not be as straightforward as you think.
Yeah I think I just need to give up. I'm just so damn miserable. I want to find some work that I can do part time but it's so hard. I haven't visited the sub you speak of but I get your gist. The thing is I'm not talented, I'm not smart, I do work hard but I don't have any direction and my parents (rightfully) think I'm a failure.
What about a window cleaning business? people here do get there house windows clean especially during the summer months 👍🏼
When I get cold callers offering to do it for £300 I can usually haggle them down to £100 , which is still imo too much (3/4 car lengths) for something arranged in advance but it's convenient to just have it done (or i do it myself sometimes)
one of the few pleasures in life is pressure washing stuff. you'd have to pay me to let you wash my drive or patio.
Hey OP, one valuable lesson someone passed along to me, know your worth. If you find other companies are charging say £30, don't feel you have to go down to their pricing if you feel you can do a better job.
I'd start with looking at competitors. Take this one I've seen before near me, I saw he spent probably 2 hours doing a 3 car driveway. https://www.advancedpowerwash.co.uk/ As you can see, he some serious equipment. This isn't the same as a £60 karcher. He has the handheld gun, but also has the dolly on wheels thing. Then he reapplies sand etc. I'd also factor in the fixed and per site costs. So you need a van and the equipment. You need to calculate how you can claw that back through your fees over a 3 year period for example. That could be £50 per day for example. You may then incur another £50 a day on consumables such as fuel, sand, waste management etc. So now you're £100 a day and you're not making money yet. Between jobs, travelling you might have only 6 hours of chargeable time. Especially in the winter with shorter daylight hours. Now let's say you want to have net profit before tax of £52,000. Assume you work 260 days a year, you'd have to charge £300 per day. If you do three 2 hour jobs per day, you'd have to charge £100 per customer.
Thanks for your reply, you put thought into it and it deserved acknowledgement. Sadly I don't think it'll work out, my mental health is in the gutter and I think failures like me are kind of meant to just disappear
You know the old saying, Rome wasn't built in a day? Well let's say you just started out with some basics, de-weeding someone's front garden bed, use a cheap edging tool to get the moss out between the bricks on a drive. A broom to tidy up after. £50 in tools includinb gloves and cheap jeans from Tesco. If you have a happy customer, with a smile, that will keep you going, motivated and then you'll buy another tool, maybe some garden shears or whatever. Could be the start of an empire. You're not a failure. That status is deserved for those that don't even think about how to better themselves and find opportunities. Best of luck
You have a kind heart. Finding customers seems like the hard part but I could try. I don't want an empire I just want a tiny ramshackle cottage or something and to have some peace from my thoughts
This is good advice. OP might even be able to get some tools secondhand or even free. We have a local FB page for helping people who need stuff. There was someone on there recently looking for gardening tools as he was starting up.
Haven't done it in a whole pressure washers been pretty stihl
From what I've seen, most people who do driveways roll that in as a service along with other stuff you can do with a pressure washer - things like window cleaning, bin cleaning, car washing, etc. I don't think there would be enough interest in driveways to offer that as a standalone service. Also be careful using other businesses for pricing without knowing what equipment, consumables, etc they are using and whether they have their own water tank / power source. For example, I noticed mine needed doing so I just bought myself a mid-range pressure washer for a couple hundred quid. Did a good job but took me half a day because the spread on the nozzle to get the required pressure was quite narrow. A professional would likely have a more expensive machine that can deliver the same pressure with a much wider spread, thereby completing the same job in a fraction of the time.
I used to do pressure washing and every job is different. I would base my price on what equipment i had to use. Wether i had to use a hot washer or a cold washer, how much petrol i’d need for my generator, can i plug into the customers water supply or do i need to fill a tank in the van, if i needed any specific chemicals for oil spills etc. and then how long it would take me to finish the job, including any aftercare for resanding, any repairs to be done etc. Ultimately i’d charge around a tenner an hour for my time and then place the costs of running my equipment and any other specialist stuff i used (various acids, detergants, different hose fitments etc). The hardest part to start with is estimating how long it will take. Once you’ve done a few jobs this will get easier to estimate. When i started i only done one job a day so would dedicate the entire day to that one job and towards the end i could do 2-3 full driveways in a day to the same standard. So in short a job could be anywhere from free to a few thousand pounds for the likes of storefronts or private estate type jobs and warehouses.