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They don't get a free deck sealing because you cleaned the deck and it came clean. Clear water repellant sealers allow the deck to turn grey. They protect from water not UV from the sun. OF course the horizontals are going to be in worse shape than the verticals.  You cleaned a deck that had failing and old sealer on it. The cheap pricks don't get a freebie now. You did nothing wrong.

I meant that we agreed that I wouldn't charge him for the cleaning, but we both agreed that charging them the price I quoted to seal the deck is fair. When I started talking about the original quote, I then realized that his wife never told him about it. When I showed him the quote, he said that is fair and he realized that I didn't intend to remove the previous sealer and that I was trying to compromise with him.

I didn't see the sealer coming off prior to, it wasn't obvious until we started to wet the deck down. It would have looked like crap if we just stopped, so we proceeded to finish cleaning the deck.

I did call the homeowner and they did not answer. I left a message for the wife as to what we were going to do since she is who I had been dealing with the whole time. After cleaning the deck, the husband got involved and asked for the free work. He said she never showed him the quote that I sent and he did not want anything but a cleaning.

I mentioned at the start of this thread that I am very new to cleaning wood, new as in I've only cleaned 4 of them. This is something I did not expect and a learning experience for sure.

Aaron, that is good information I will surely be more prepared next time. Thanks.

aaron61 wrote:

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Your doing fine Glen.It's good to see someone starting out their business by doing the next right thing.I can tell you from experience that conducting your business in this posative way will pay unbelievable dividends. So many can't see the business forest for the business trees.

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 Thanks, Aaron. I kind of expected something like this to happen once we finished cleaning it, even though the deck looked good. It felt good knowing that even though we screwed up a bit by over cleaning, we still salvaged the relationship by keeping them happy and owning up to our mistake. I say our mistake because if we were more experienced, we probably would have known that sealer was going to come off. Since they did not want it to come off, it only seemed right to compromise with them and figure something out so we can keep their business for the future.

I think I will ask them what they'd like me to do in the event that the sealer begins to come off BEFORE I finish, even if I have to leave it looking a little rough. By the way, the sealer was Thompsons Water Seal, they showed it to me.