What’s up guys? My name is Brodie and I own Squid’s Pressure Washing LLC in Kansas City, MO. Pressure washing is my primary business, window cleaning is secondary, but I’d like to be a better window cleaner and grow that side of the business.
I sub out a little over half of all the window washing because I’m an average window cleaner at best. Big fan of Luke the Window Cleaner’s YouTube channel. That guy is an artist man… Looking forward to soaking up a ton of knowledge from you all.
Hi. I do cross the river. Quite a bit actually. I don’t go much further west than Lenexa or Leavenworth/Lansing though unless it’s commercial. We’ve done some PW work for Dairy Queen’s in rural areas like Gardner.
I use to be the Theatre Techincal Director at Emporia State University and was in and around the KC area a lot. I bet the tax paperwork for that area is crazy…two state taxes, two KC taxes, and all the big and little towns around KC…Or, do they have a common tax rate?
Everyone has their own dang tax rate, but the good news is that I have an awesome CPA and I literally just plug daily mileage and scan receipts into Expensify. It creates expense reports for me and the CPA and sends them via email. Every once in awhile I drop off my bank statements at their office.
It’s not a bad deal. One problem with Kansas City (It could be a plus I guess since it doesn’t cost anything) is that there is no license for pressure washing companies unless something has changed recently. Some of our marketing and forms say “Insured”, but people inevitably ask if I’m “licensed”. I have to go into the spiel about how Kansas City doesn’t have a licensing requirement for pressure washing. It’s a small hassle, but one that could be avoided and potentially help marketing efforts to say that I’m “licensed and insured”.
I am going to disagree with you. We are in KC and you are suppose to have a business license with the city of KCMO and KCK. Also, you can get tagged if you do not have individual licenses for certain cities if not all of them. I will give you a few examples of how you get tagged.
Lets say you are washing concrete at a commercial or residential jobsite. The local city/county sewer municipality stops by make sure you are not running chemicals down the sewer and they will check your occupation license and you will get immediately shut down and tagged with a fine.
City of Kansas City has a safety division that goes around even on weekends and checks jobsites. I know you are lift happy with your powerwashing and if they see you operating a lift, they will stop and check that everyone operating the lift has gone through training and certifications. They will also check your occupation license and forms of work comp and insurance.
I could give more examples but those are the ones we have ran into recently.
My advice, make sure you are fully insured, trained, and have occupations license with KCMO and KCK and all of your major markets you do work in. If you are only in a town once a month or less then I would not worry about a license unless it is a big $$$$ jobsite. Licenses don’t normally cost much… your looking at $25-$75 depending on the city.
I’m glad you disagreed. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I called the city when I first started the business and the woman I spoke to gave me bad info apparently. I’ll be blocking off a day next week to go to at least two city offices until they give me a business license.
Honestly, I had no idea.
As for the lifts, I’m the only one that gets on them. Do those standards apply to the owners? Also, I’m never on a jobsite more than 3-4 days max and 99 times out of 100 it’s one day.
and i would cover your ass with basic lift training. OSHA doesnt require it, but your work comp or insurance company may deny a claim if you dont cover yourself.
