First of all, I'll say that I appreciate everything that Daniel was trying to do for himself and potential future - trying to get out of the rat race of corporate by starting up his own thing.
Problem was that
Anyways, I could tell on arrival that he wasn't familiar with the job. He had a great attitude - as if anyone should be able to do a deck staining. He came with a very cheap under powered pressure washer - on sale at Lowe's for $100 type. He upgraded, but had to come back the next week to start the job because of it. He under estimated the time he thought the job would take and had to bring in some extra manpower once he found it was taking him too long. I had to become more flexible to his moonlighting job.
Having said that, he did make it all my decision. It was my decision to go with his 550 + tax quote - which was better than a lot of the other guys I contacted. I wasn't about to pay $4,000 just to stain a deck. Everyone else was just gouging because they had a lot of jobs to choose from.
I thought I was paying to get the whole deck done including the railings, but it was only for the sun facing surfaces. I didn't want to cause a stink so just went along with it.
In the end, most of the surface looked somewhat legit, but kind of just painted over since his pressure wash didn't strip the surface. Unfortunately, by the next spring my deck was in need of another stain as if it hadn't been stained the summer prior. This was Aug 2019 when he came to do the job. I paid him the agreed price and we parted ways.
I know what he is trying to do for himself, and I wish him luck. But he needs to come with all type of experience to these jobs. Most clients won't be as understanding as myself I don't think. I hope he appreciated that. He caught me on a good week.