A full job, start to finish: quoting, setup, pretreatment, cleaning, edges, rinse and cleanup.
Being filmed. The written lesson, the steps, the action task and the downloads below are complete — work through those now and the footage will appear here.
Measure the area, assess the condition, check access and the tap, identify the drains. Price it from the rate card, not from a feeling. Include the path, the bin pad and the kerb crossing or exclude them explicitly.
Wide shot of the whole area from a fixed position you can return to, plus close-ups of the worst patch and of any existing damage. Mark where your feet were.
Identify and bund the stormwater drains. Pre-wet every plant and garden bed in the zone. Cover or move anything that should not get wet. Cone the footpath.
Apply your mix across the whole area and let it dwell. Do not let it dry — rewet if the sun is on it. This is the step that turns a three-hour job into a fifty-minute one.
Constant speed, third overlap, one direction, pulling backwards. Do the whole open area before you touch an edge.
Against the garage, against the garden, the kerb crossing, the expansion joints, around the drain grate, and the path to the front door.
Oil, rust and tyre marks do not come out with a surface cleaner. Spot-treat them with the right chemistry after the main clean, so you can see what is actually left.
Wide tip, top of the slope to the bottom, including the footpath, the kerb, the garden edge and any wall you splashed. Rinse the plants again.
Everything off the property, covers removed, site swept. Then walk it with the customer and ask directly whether there is anything they are not happy with. After photos from the marked positions. Ask for the review before you drive away.
This is the sequence. Do it in this order every time and the result is consistent whether it is your first driveway or your thousandth.
Before anything comes off the ute. Photograph existing cracks, oil stains, lifted edges, damaged render at the garage, and the neighbour's car. Two minutes now settles any argument later.
Cars, bins, pots, door mats, kids' toys. Close windows on the wash side. Note where the downpipes and drains run.
Drain mat or sandbags. Decide now where the water is going — landscaping if it is a plain wash, contained if there is oil or degreaser.
Apply a mild sodium hypochlorite mix (2–3%) across the surface with the black nozzle if there is any organic growth — green, black spotting or lichen. Ten minutes of dwell removes what twenty minutes of blasting cannot. Spot-treat oil with a degreaser now so it has the same dwell time.
Knock off the loose material with a fan tip. Keeps grit out of the surface cleaner and stops it dragging.
Half the head's width of overlap on every pass, and keep the speed constant. Zebra striping comes from two things: inconsistent speed and insufficient overlap. Move at a walking pace, not a stroll and not a march.
The surface cleaner cannot reach edges, corners, expansion joints or against the garage. Do these with a 25° tip, working with the direction of the pass so the finish matches.
A light SH mist after cleaning kills spores in the concrete and buys the customer another 6–12 months before regrowth. This is a genuine differentiator and it takes four minutes.
Rinse everything, including the walls you overspray and the path to the letterbox. Photograph from the identical position and angle as the "before". Same spot, same height, same framing — that is what makes an impressive pair.
In the portal these tick off and save as you go.
These come with the lesson when you enrol.