Survey 1

How many of you guys are 1 man operations, if any?

1 man here, sometimes my wife helps, but she don't like the striping end of the business, Here fav. is running the sweeper or snow plows.

Added a poll for Spike since it's an interesting question.

Doing it all myself for 6 years but just cant keep going full throttle for 14 -16 hours a day. I'll be hiring a helper this year.

I made more money when I was a one man operation, but I also paid a lot more taxes.

Getting too old to do all the work, but was just me and Moe this year.

Night & day & Holidays & weekends & why am I doing this myself and am I still married...

one man basically....sealcoating and striping....my younger sons do help me a bit

I marked me and 2+ man crew, but I try to let the crew/s do the work as often as possible.

For the first 5-6 years I worked alone about 75% of the time. Just used a helper when necessary or when a friend really needed some money, I'd let them help out. I hired a full time helper a year ago (this coming, Tuesday January 17th). Believe me I will always remember that date. Worth every single dollar I've paid him. No question. Now, my dilemma is, I've got enough equipment to run a second or even third crew, if necessary. But we work well together and I don't really want to train another helper or two at that. Fortunately, for now we're staying on top of things. I'm sure as the weather warms up and the work picks up, I'll have to kick him out of the nest Hopefully, I can find a couple more, just like him. I'd have to say the biggest benefit in my eyes, is being able to walk without pain when I get out of bed the "day after" a big job. I'd also have to say that the linedriver I picked up Nov. 25, 2005 (also a date to remember) almost qualifies as an employee. Not a necessity, but if you have the funds available, worth every dollar.

Glad to hear you got the LD, Dwayne. Along that same note, I've found a second Lazyliner is worth its weight in gold especially if you have a helper. Even if he doesn't stripe, its faster to ride than walk to go get supplies from the truck (or to push a blue machine or a Billy Goat). I have two LL's in both trailers. One is always connected to the red machine because almost every job has firelane. The other LL is used for various other machines, white to yellow, blue, stain, billy goat, etc. We also use them for lay-out pulling stringlines, measuring overall dimensions. I agree with Dwayne, a Lazyliner is worth at least one employee. If I were just starting out in striping and had to choose, I'd take a Lazyliner over an employee even if he were experienced. No kidding!

2 man operation with the ability to call any one of 4 experienced part time helpers when needed. This season should require the addition of a full time 3rd helper. Painting and signs only.

I do about 50% of all my jobs I do by myself. However, I have 3 friends who like to earn a little extra so I try to get them out whenever I can. If I have a big job and a few days notice I can get usually get 2 or even all 3 out to help. Short notice jobs or small jobs I usually do myself. I like to have a helper for new layouts but I do a lot by myself with a chaulk/tape holding device (similar to a bigfoot). I'm going to trying to get my "guys" to do more themselves this comming spring as they are very competent esp. at retracing. My wife & kids have definitely made it clear they would like to see more of me in the spring, summer and fall, so I'm going to try and use the "guys" even more this year.

For the most part it is a one man operation on restriping lots. But, on the larger new lots i prefer 2 or 3 people to help. I want to get on and off that lot as quick as possible and go on to the next job. I have found alot of lots have low spots in them and reqire extra people to hold the strings down when i am doing 3 0r 4 or more double rows at a time or more. My best investment i ever made was a line driver. I now have 2 line drivers and 2- 5900 gracos. The only time i get off that line driver is to spray arrows or handicaps.

One man operation with a summer student, I ran a second crew for two years and found that the extra expenses & headache of more staff was not worth it.

6 full time staff members, 1 Office admin.> that job involves invoicing, quoting, daily job sheets, doing the wages etc 2 I have just taken on a full time marketer. This job is calling back on past customers, following up leads, cold calling, quoting etc Quite often I find that the parkinglots we marked 3 or more years ago are now under new management and that management has no clue who painted their carpark last time. I also get the second striper in the trucks (not the driver) to write down every parkinglot that needs doing whilst they are traveling to their job. That list get handed in daily to the marketer who then follows them up. Its really paying off. I have 24 hour shifts going with 4 painters, two to a truck, each truck and trailer is fully equipted to handle any striping job. Our equipment includes 3 x Lazyliners {ii] 1 x Graco 200 hs 2 x speeflo 8900 3 x speeflo 6900 and some back ups machines, that are gathering dust! although they work perfect 1 x Graco 5900 2 x wagner 207 We only work with 2 colours in this country yellow and white so each unit has two dedicated machines. I keep a lot of machinery out of paranoia as i don't want down time because I'm waiting on parts to be flown in from the states. After 8 years of being totally anti lazyliner/ linedriver ( thinking it would make the staff become lazy and also wondering how it would be quicker to have to drive a machine out further back to line up and spray than to walk it over to the next line) I bit the bullet and brought lazyliner(ii) from Jpanz had it flown over and with in the first week of using it I was kicking myself for not getting one before hand! I have since brought 2 more and I have never looked back! Brilliant machines. The hardest part of this job has to be finding decent staff. I am lucky to have very excellent striping staff and a very good marketer. Who take pride in their work and love the job. My biggest regret is not getting lazyliners earlier, and the second regret is going over the top on cleaning the frames last winter with scrubbing pads and thinner not only did i remove the roadmarking paint I also removed the silver protected coating on the frames so I have to get them galvanised at some point before the frames go really rusty! Kens frames maybe full of paint but they will last alot longer than mine!

Wend; You have a spray gun in 1 hand and a machine attached to the other end or the hose. Seems simple, just turn around and paint the machine with your traffic paint, It becomes the color you are using making sure no one can grab the wrong one and any splatters don't show next time. By the way your pin on the map is in Texas, is that because that is ware you want to be?

absolutely love Texas. Met and stayed with the nicest, kindest people ever Ken ( stripes ) and Marybeth ( Kens wife and Chips bit- on- the side so I call it me home from home. Would I live there - in a heart beat . wanna swap a greencard for a lazyliner!

wend wrote on Jan 14, 2006:Go to #16

Kens frames maybe full of paint but they will last alot longer than mine!

That's the real reason I converted all the Lazyliners to 11 and 13 hp. It wasn't for the electric start it was for the extra weight.

Here in Wahoo, Ne.,,, Myself and a Teenage stepson(a boot in the a$$ helps to get him going)when needed...................rasabat