How to Start a Pressure Washing Business

Summary: The pressure washing business is an ideal start-up business because it is extremely profitable. To generate revenue quickly, you must know what you are doing. This article offers tips on how to start a pressure washing business.

One of the hottest start-up trends today is the pressure washing business.

As long as you plan correctly and you do things right, this business can earn you a lot of profit.

Getting into this business is not at all complicated. It does entail a lot of hard work but every business does. What’s nice about it is that you get to generate revenue rather quickly. It also allows you flexibility in terms of time and range of clientele.

Your market can be classified into two groups: commercial and consumer/residential markets. The advantage of servicing the consumer market is you will only need a fraction of the start up capital you need to invest should you opt to cater to the commercial market. The latter on the other hand may cost you more initially but it also allows you to earn more because the service contracts in this market tend to be larger.

You need to choose your preferred target market. Once you have made up your mind, then you can look into the competition in your area. Find out who the major players are and how big a chunk of the market they’ve been able to sink their teeth into. Find out why your competition has this few or this many clients. Try to outdo your competition. Do better, charge lower, and meet whatever your customers needs have that they can’t meet. You need to be cutthroat and aggressive especially during the early stages of your business. This is the only way you can survive the competition.

Develop a business plan. This is crucial to every start-up. The value of a business plan goes way beyond a mere loan requirement. Your business plan will serve as your map as set forth reaching your goal. Chances are, you’ll be drifting off track without it.

Include a detailed list of the services you aim to offer in your business plan. Typically, pressure washing is done on concrete surfaces like walkways, parking garages, or driveways of banks and restaurants and similar establishments. Other uses include but are not limited to: exterior of buildings, wood decks, vehicle fleets, kitchen exhaust etc.

The type of pressure washer you need to acquire will depend on this list of services. The range of pressure washers available today is wide and varied. The main things to consider is your usage requirement, in particular, consider the number of hours the washer was designed for and its cleaning capability. The five factors that affect its cleaning capability are: heat employed, chemical solutions used, nozzle type, PSI and GSI.

If you plan on investing on a pressure washer, make sure you choose a vendor that can provide you with the best technical support available. Also, see to it that the equipment you buy is easy to maintain and that its parts are readily available. This is for when your washer conks out (maybe not soon but it will eventually). In line with this, make sure that the components (pressure regulator, pop-off valve, inlet regulator, by pass line etc) of the equipment you get are not molded together. This will make repairing and replacing defective parts it so much easier.