Need help on changing colors...

[Ronniels]

O.K.
Here's the story...
We are working on this house that has 5 decks plus a dock...
(we are also doing the house and sealing the drive and detailing the boat)
The owner is over 200 miles away. This is her weekend/summer home bat the beach. She had some additions made on 2 of her decks over the winter and wanted all of the old decking washed and then all decks sealed. (the dock is going clear)
The decks were a semi-transparant grey.
We cleaned them and started sealing them with the closest color we could find. (the original was 6 years old and faded)
Had them 75% finished and along comes her father (who lives locally) hated the color..."too dark" and "too see-through" demanded it should be solid and very light.
So I had the guys stop and I headed to the store to get a color chart for him to see.
He picked the color he liked. The owner called me and said her father had a problem and asked how much extra to do what he wanted. I told her the additional cost to buy the different sealer (a solid stain) and she was fine with it.
So, now we had to primer what we had done and started laying on the Solid color.
We were 95-98% done with all of it except one small set of rails and a fake porch for plants (I guess) which was still the first color (had not primed this area yet)

Wouldn't you know....she loved the first color and hated the solid. She wanted transparant...hates solid (as so I)
She does not blame us...she fussed about her dad...

Now the prob....removing Olympic Solid Stain/Sealer and the Primer under it....I have tried several things this week until I found something that will actually eat thru this without killing her plants.
The flat surfaces are not a prob...(except how to clean up the mess)
The rails....between the decks there is roughly 250 linear feet of railing (about 6 inches apart) and only about 45-50 feet of it is accessible from the ground...the rest is all elevated...

This is going to be messy...any suggestions?

Any Volunteers??

Thanks!

Ronnie

 

[Dan Flynn]

Good Luck with that job and customer. Sounds like you will be there forever.

 

[JR Wood]

I hope you double charged them and got the payment for the first job upfront...a customer like that will never be satisfied and you could have a hard time getting paid.I had a customer like that and it seemed like I spent a week at their house for a 4 hour job,and when I went to get paid...it was the old," my husband has the checkbook, send me the bill".
Got paid 75 days later without the late charges I tacked on them.

 

[Greg Rentschler]

Couple Suggestions......


1. How about suggestion a two tone scheme to her where as the railing is done in a solid and the floor is done in a semi-trans. We have provided this to many a decks and it looks pretty sharp. Takes 50% longer but you already have the rails practically done.

2. Olympic..... I assume it is latex... deckstrip A & L or Bix to remove. You'll have to protect the plants no doubt.

3. When using a solid stain use Flood Deck and Siding and you won't have to prime. Good product and it is easy to work with.

 

[JR Wood]

Greg,
How do you apply the solid?
Airless or by hand?

 

[Deck Works]

I would recommend definitely airless.....

If I were you I would get the check for the first job and run...like the others said you'll be there all summer and she won't be satisfied. After you get the check - Make her sign a new contract...I would charge $2/sq to strip and reapply the floor, convince her to go with a white on the rails as its almost impossible to get all the solid off and put a stipulation in the contract that you may have to rent a floor sander to get everything off the floor - tell her that is cost of the rental plus $55/hr for labor. I always put this clause on my contracts involving difficut stipping. Actually....I try to avoid stipping solids I usually tell the customer the cost of stipping is prohibitive and the best thing to do is reapply a solid. Maybe Im taking the easy way out but its a lot less headaches when the stuff doesn't come off.

Good luck and let us know what happens.
John

 

[Greg Rentschler]

JR,

We mask the floor, etc.. with 2mil plastic and apply with airless. We do 15-20 decks a year using the two tone scheme.

 

[Deck Works]

Greg...do you airless spray the floor if you are using a semi-trans stain? I spray almost everything, except if the deck is really small.

John

 

[Mike Hughes]

Ronnie,

I don't know about anyone else here, but I for one am very curious what actually happened with this job.........what did you do? Update us if you find the time.

Mike

 

[Ronniels]

It's been raining all week, but we are still working on stripping it. I kinda regret using quality stuff because it's making it hard to remove

But it does do a good job in proving how well it should hold up under normal conditions.
Will update when I have more to tell....but still have not started on the rails...sooo many rails on this one!

 

[Greg Rentschler]

John,

Whenever feasable we will spray. That job in particular we sprayed the solid base and the following day (after dry) we masked off the white sprayed the floor and brushed in the handrails.

Ronniels - Sounds like your stripping EVERYTHING eh??

Good Luck.