What to charge for pressure washing
Price it by the square foot, and give every surface its own pace. A driveway, a wall and a fence are not washed at one speed, so the hours are each surface's square feet divided by how fast you wash that kind. Add cleaners, fuel and the trip, pick a price above the total, and divide by the square feet.
By TailGateBid. .
One pace does not fit a property
A flat price for a square foot treats every square foot alike. On the job they are not alike: the wand covers open concrete at one speed, a wall with windows in it at another, and a fence with two sides and a hundred gaps at a third.
So the boxes below take the surfaces one row at a time, each with the square feet you wash of it in an hour. They add up to one job with one cost, and the calculator shows a price for a square foot across all of it.
To see what one surface costs by itself, clear the other rows. That is the figure for a line of its own on the quote.
Where a pace comes from
- From a job you timed, and from nowhere else. We looked for a published figure for how fast any surface is washed, and found none we would put a name to.
- Take the square feet of one surface and divide by the hours the trigger was pulled on it. That is your pace for that kind of surface, with that machine.
- Keep one for each kind you wash, and write beside it how dirty the job was. After a few jobs the row fills itself in.
Work out what a job costs you
Start with the surfaces
Give each surface its own row: its square feet, and the square feet of it you wash in an hour. The boxes add the surfaces up, work out the hours and put both in the calculator below. A new row opens when the last one is filled.
Length times width. A wall is the distance along it times its height.
From a job you timed. A driveway, a wall and a fence each have their own.
Unloading, running hose, covering plants, moving furniture, rinsing down, loading up. Yours to type.
What you pour in the tank and the machine. Water too, if you haul it or pay for it.
Type the square feet of the first surface. The total shows here.
Two people for a day of 8 hours is 16.
A rental, dump fees, a sub.
Type the size of the job to see a price for each square foot.
If you want it checked. Leave it empty if not.
Type your hours and what an hour costs you, or your materials. The answer shows here.
One property, three surfaces
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
Say a property has 920 square feet of flat concrete, 1,440 of wall and 1,200 of fence: 3,560 square feet. Say you wash the concrete at 460 square feet an hour, the wall at 720 and the fence at 400: 2, 2 and 3 hours, 7 in all. Say setting up and putting away take 1.5 more: 8.5 hours, which at $57.05 an hour is $484.93. Say cleaners and fuel come to $38 and the trip costs you $45. The job costs you $567.93. Charge $812 and you keep $244.07, which is $30 of every $100. Across the whole job that is $0.23 a square foot.
The same property at five prices
An example with made-up numbers, not a going rate
| Price | You keep | Of every $100 |
|---|---|---|
| $632 | $64.07 | $10 |
| $710 | $142.07 | $20 |
| $812 | $244.07 | $30 |
| $947 | $379.07 | $40 |
| $1,136 | $568.07 | $50 |
Two surfaces where the method sets the hours
- Vinyl siding. The siding makers' association says to read the manufacturer's instructions for both the siding and the washer before you begin, that some siding makers do not recommend power washing while others limit the pressure and the cleaners, and to be cautious around windows, doors, wiring and plumbing: Polymeric Exterior Products Association (formerly the Vinyl Siding Institute), How to Clean Vinyl Siding. Each of those is time: a question to the customer before the quote, and slower work round every opening. Your pace on a wall is not your pace on a driveway.
- The same page says to rinse a cleaning solution off completely before it has a chance to dry on the surface. On a big wall in the sun that can mean washing in sections, and sections are hours.
- An asphalt shingle roof. It is not a pressure job at all: the roofing makers' association says not to use a power washer on one. What it describes is a solution of household bleach and water, left on for at least 15 minutes and no more than 20, then rinsed off with a gentle spray, with care taken for the rest of the building and the plants around it, and no other chemical without the shingle maker's approval: Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association, Algae Discoloration of Roofs.
- So a roof is priced as a job of its own. The solution is a material, the wait is hours, and so is protecting what is under the eaves. The page for pressure washing businesses says more about both surfaces, and how each is measured.
What gets missed
- Water. Whose tap is it? If it is the customer's, say so on the quote. If you haul your own, the tank, the fill and the time to fill it are your costs, and they go in the boxes.
- The hours with the trigger released. Unloading, running hose, covering what must stay dry, moving furniture off a patio, putting it back. They are in the job whether you count them or not.
- The machine. A washer, a surface cleaner and a trailer cost money on the days they sit: what an hour of your machine costs you. Count it once, in the hour or beside it.
- The trip. A small driveway carries the whole drive: what a trip costs you, and what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- The gutters, if you are asked while you are there. They are sold by the foot and have their own sum: what to charge for gutter cleaning.
On a quote
In TailGateBid each surface can be a line charged by the square foot with its own price, or an option your customer picks: driveway only, driveway and house, or all of it. How quotes work.
The hour under every figure here is what an hour costs you. If that is still a guess, start there.
Where each number comes from
- When this page works out a price for you, it never aims to leave you more than $90 of every $100. TailGateBid's own price suggestions stop at the same place. A price you type yourself can leave more.
- The ladder shows the prices that leave about $10, $20, $30, $40, $50 of every $100. The steps are our choice: a ladder to read across, not advice.
A calculator works from the numbers you type. Check the answer against your own books.
This page is about one kind of job. TailGateBid works for any trade, and Bid Partner is built to price a job in any of them: how it works for your trade.
Sources
Related
- Pressure washingEvery surface by the square foot on one quote, and a before and after for your website.
- What a machine costs an hourIn the example, a machine that works 500 hours a year costs $26.60 for each of them, before anyone is paid to run it.
- Trip and minimum chargeIn the example, a job 25 minutes away costs $93.92 before any work is done. See what your smallest job costs with the trip in it.
- What an hour costs youIn the example, $25 an hour of pay turns into $57.05 for every hour you can bill.
- Gutter cleaningFeet of gutter at two heights, each at your own pace, with the downspouts and the trip, worked into a price for a foot.
Put each surface on a TailGateBid quote as a line of its own, and send it from the driveway.
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