Pressure washing and hood cleaning

[Jtuseo]

Do any of you guys offer pressure washing services and restaurant hood cleaning? I am going to start this for 2012. Your thoughts and ideas appreciated.

 

[harryhides]

Don't.



Been there done that unless you are in a State that requires and enforces training as per NFP 96 and requires restaurants to keep to minimum cleaning frequencies.

 

[Goomer]

I would consider pressure washing if you would be able to find and fit a hot water unit in your rig. The hot water gives you ALOT more possiblities, especially with commercial work.
I would shy away from restaurant hoods. Nastiest work you could do in my opinion. The chemicals are terrible, and you'll wreck your equiptment and van with kitchen grease.

 

[MicahR]

Crappy, CRAPPY work!

Even with a truckmounted unit. You'll rely on more on chemical unless you have a kero fired pressure washer.

I used to do this and I would go through gallons of Zep's Oven Brite cause the pressure and heat from most truck mounts ain't goona cut all that grease!

Do yourself a favor and forget it. Save yourself a lot of headache!

 

[Burtz]

z]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdV4OBjJEo4z]

 

[Goomer]

i]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdV4OBjJEo4i]

Looks like it's worth looking into if you specialize in only hoods.
Seems applying the chems as a foam controls them better. I once saw 2 guys painting the stuff on with paintbrushes. That stuff burns your throat at the first breath.
Nice seeing the before and after, but the real mess is in the during.

 

[FranH]

Much easier then most say have been doing it for over 20 years just got home now from a job.
Foaming is the way to go. And the min. price for a job is $300 and that should take about 2.5 hrs for us and most around us. It is a dirty job and stinks in the winter.

 

[FLYERMAN]

Think about it. You're going to need an extra line of chemicals. An extra machine (I don't think it's a good idea to powerwash hoods with a carpet cleaning machine even if your system has the heat and gpm capacity to do it). An extra ad and sales budget. All this so that you can get into one of the dirtiest and hardest areas of the cleaning industry? Which by the way is another of the most price driven businesses around.

But hey if you're into night work, breathing in close proximity to harsh chemicals and the worse part, carrying a heavy 30 to 90 day accounts receivables load then it is a great business.

 

[NobleCarpetCleaners]

It will get old so quick your head will spin. Restaurant managers will drop you over night for a $50 difference in bids. The roof portion is quite the hazardous situation. Containing the run off on the roof is challenging because not all roofs/vents are situated the same. Many of the kitchens are a hell hole. The chems are murder on your skin. The accounting depts. for these places will take you out way beyond 60 days on payment. No corp. owned facility will ever write you a check for a COD payment. Rain does not postpone the roof work. None US born managers (especially owners) are such fun to work with.

You will never, ever put real money in the bank cleaning vent hoods. You would have to be a one stop shop and offer complete fire suppression systems as well as the hoods and ducting sales/installation to build a sellable/profitable business.