Response from Ned Stevens Gutter Cleaning
This review is completely unfair and inaccurate. We are 100% open to doing equal trading on any deal that is sold by any website, but especially Angie's List. Now, is sq ft of pressure washing a brick house equal to the same sq ft of pressure washing a deck? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!! 1. Decks are harder to clean than houses. Houses get dirty over time, with dirt water dripping on the sites, dust and grime collecting on the siding and brick, the windows and doors. For this to get really dirty has to happen over many years because the walls of the home are vertical and it's hard for dirty to fall on them and stay. Decks are flat, horizontal dirt traps. Dirty leaves can fall on the side of the house, but will most likely continue to fall, landing on the deck where they will dry out and decay on. 2. Decks require different, pricer chemicals. We have to use different chemical compounds for decks than what we use for siding. The chemicals are stronger (see number 1). 3. Decks take longer to clean. In the time it takes to do a 200 sq ft deck, a crew could clean a 2000 sq ft house. In comparison, houses are much easier to pressure wash. Decks are, by far, the hardest thing to pressure wash on a home. This is part of the reason why we do not offer many pressure washing deals that include decks, because they are some difficult and complicated. 4. Decks are easier to damage in a cleaning. Some decks are painted, and depending on the quality of the painting job, it can be extremely difficult to avoiding chipping paint. When I read this review, I was dumbstruck. I want to use an analogy to better describe what the poster is proposing: You have a coupon for a $2 gallon of milk. You go to the store that sells milk. You go up to the counter and say, "You know what, I'm lactose intolerant, so instead of buying a gallon of milk for $2, I'd like to buy a gallon of champagne for $2." That may sound like an extreme and outrageous analogy, but that is the essence of what the review is proposing. They wanted to take a service of a comparative lower value (when compared to the other service) and exchange it evenly for a higher valued service. I can't pay for a Taurus, then go back to the dealership and say, "instead, will you take the Taurus back and just give me a Porsche". When we sell these deals, we are specifically selling them for the service that is indicated, and end up doing these services for a significant discount. To do a trade on washing home siding for washing a deck, when we are taking a dramatic cut on the usual fee, and the deck is way more expensive in both chemicals and man hours to clean, it would be cheaper if people just called us up and asked us for $40. I apologize if this review wound confrontational, but this just seems like a review written without an conscience to what the review is saying. We got a C for not doing a deck in exchange of a home. The bottom line of this review is "This company didn't do work above and beyond the scope and cost of what we paid for, so we want to warn people that if you buy a deal from these people, beware because they'll, well, they'll do what they said they were going to do, but if you want them to do more than what you paid for, they'll say no." I cannot think of a single restaurant that will serve me steak and charge me for chicken, or a department store that will give me blu ray when I pay for dvd, or a carpet cleaning company that will deep clean my furniture instead of cleaning the three floors I paid for. I am writing all this out of shock, and humor for the situation in general. I'll be petitioning Angie's List to remove the review anyway since the review proposes an act that is inaccurate and untruthful in the sheer incorrect use of one word: "Equal". That's enough defensiveness. I'm now going to call me dentist and see if the filing they are doing tomorrow can be traded for a crown, since it's the same tooth and therefore equal. :)