I'm in georgia and i do some new construction washing, and i also do some building. i would do more of the washing, but i won't work as cheap as these builders think i should. I have a few custom home builders that keep me fairly busy, typical job for them runs $250.00 for whole house, deck, porch, garage floor and driveway. if its a larger house i charge more, for a basement floor its typically $100.00 extra. still not a lot of money, but i'm making min $50.00 per hour and they are all repeat customers. The bigger track home builders thinks you can do all that for $125.00 to $150.00, they try to dictate what they will pay. being curious i followed a guy that does alot of these builders houses. basically he walked around the house, hit a few dirty spots with no chemicals, and did the driveway with a surface cleaner. and was gone in a little over an hour, so he is making pretty good money. I can't work that way, i wash the whole house with chems, remove red mud stains, handprints off cornice, i clean the ext windows, porches decks, scrape drywall mud and glue off the garage floor and do the driveway. here in georgia red mud stains is a problem on concrete, siding and wood decks, so you will have to use chems. between concrete acid and house brite i'll use 30 to 50 dollars in chemicals depending on the house, probably 10 dollars in fuel for my machine, 10-20 dollars for truck fuel if the job is fairly close, alot of them are not. plus the wear and tear on equipment, what is left for manual labor? I have done a few smaller new houses with short drives for $175.00, but those are rare and it is usually two or more houses in a row. a builder is not going to go broke over fifty bucks, but they will make you think they are.

jeff

Thanks Jeff
That is about what the track builders I talked to say they pay. I am trying to do some mail outs to about 100 builders so I will see how it goes soon.
Since you do some work for builders can you tell me if they require workers comp ins?

georgia is about the only state left that does not require builders and gen contractors to be state licensed, that is all changing and by july 2007 licensing is required in georgia, so now the insurance companies are getting richer. to be a licensed builder they will be required to carry general liability and workmans comp. therefore the contractors are requiring all their subs to have both, even if you are just one person you will have to get a workmans comp certificate which cost about $800.00 per year and you can't use it if you get hurt, to me this is organized crime. If you don't have WC, the builder will probably deduct 15 percent from your invoice, because ultimately it falls back on them, someone has to pay it. I don't have workmans comp yet, so the builders i'm working for tell me to inflate the invoice fifteen percent and show it as a deduction for WC. they are only doing this because i have worked for them a long time. if i were seeking more builders to work for i probably couldn't get their business unless i have WC myself. alot of builders here don't even carry gen liability, but they make sure their subs have it. a gen contractor gen liability policy cost about 10K per year, so the insurance companies are double dipping if all subs are required to have 1 mill coverage and then the gen contractor must have 1 mill coverage.

thats about all i know about it.

jeff

Almost all of the pressure washing I do is new construction for builders some residential but not much. In new construction it is alot easier than residential except i use very low pressure because the concrete is new and will chip, pit and leave marks. I generally takes me about two to three hours for a home that small usually two or three car garage the driveway, sidewalks, and front entrance ways and usually very easy because it is generally just construction dust and dirt its the garage that takes up most of your time. Generally builders only have a certain amount in there budget for that so if you bid too high they will get someone else. You will get faster as time goes by and learn new tricks. The builders in my area pay between 100 to 150 depending on the size and i average about 50 to 75 an hour depending on the time it takes me.Sometimes you get really lucky and everything comes off with little to no scrapin or prep and it only takes an hour or so just depends how bad it is.

I know several builders and i have done some building myself, a builder generally makes 15 to 20% minimum profit on a house. and it really makes me mad when they try to jew me down $25.00 on a $150.00 job. they want it done right, but they don't want to pay for it.

Jeff

don't do it. how big is the job? u talking us $$?