RyanH

I've used mine on many occasions to clear 100' of line and haven't had any problem. If you do it often and are worried about the seals wearing out why not put a feedback loop and purge line in your setup near the pump so with the twist of a few valves you can pump stuff back through your line into your source (like chemical tank).

Has no one thought of the obvious Cooter Brown?

I've poured the outdoor clorox directly onto tannin stains from leaves and it has worked really well. Perhaps putting some in a sprayer and covering the area will be effective on mulch stains as well....I think chemically the stains are similar.

Perhaps they would want to split the cost with the new owners...being the buyer of the house I would want a quality job done as opposed to a cheap job....no sense buying a plastic lemon.

Alvaro, Got a guest house or bedroom there my wife and I can crash in? From the looks of this picture, I think we'll be coming to Portugal sometime in our lives. Beautiful place. HF is only bad because of the way it reacts with the calcium in your bones. The acid itself won't do much harm the way sulfuric or hydrochloric will....those burn. HF will be absorbed into your skin and displace the calcium in your bones. Fluorine is the most reactive and electronegative element and as such will rip the calcium away from the carbonate ion with reckless abandon. Sounds cool, but wouldn't want anyone to try it!

HF is hydrofluoric acid, also referred to as hydrogen fluoride solution, aqueous hydrogen fluoride. Babelfish gives the translation from English into Portuguese as fluoreto do hidrogênio or ácido hydrofluoric I think quarteira is in Portugal. Am I right? You could do a search relating HF and Portugal to see if there are any suppliers.

Ascorbic prevents scurvy. Together, sulfuric and nitric can be quite bangin'. Lysergic is a trip. Deoxyribonucleic is the building block of life. Don't know how useful they are for cleaning, though. Well, maybe sulfuric in dilute amounts...fantastic at removing drain clogs (MUCH better than sodium hydroxide) and good for cleaning grout.

LJ Long, Thanks for pointing that out. I guess I was thinking that a larger wire acted as a bigger resistor and would restrict flow....makes sense though that given a larger pipe the electrons can flow more freely. Here's something I never understood.....why are larger wires given smaller gage (sp?) numbers? Things like that have always made my brain spin.

Keith, Heard Disney was top-notch in the way they treated their customers who were stuck in the resorts during the storm. Radio show host Neal Boortz was there during the storm and is giving rave reviews of how great everything was and is actually recommending that people stay there during the next hurricane. Glad to hear you made it through....sorry to hear about your neighbors.

There is an embedded .swf file in it...shockwave flash. Why? Maybe someone experimenting with web page design. Pretty cool, though.

You can buy an AC/DC converter for a few bucks from almost any store that sells electronics (Best Buy, Radio Shack, Circuit City, Waldamnmart, etc.). Just splice it into a cheap extension cord (by cheap I mean one with thin wires so you don't lose much current) and you will be good to go as long as you do a good job splicing it and then putting enough electrical tape to seal the connections from water. Clip the female end of the cord and rig any type of connection you want to a 12 volt pump (direct permanent connect, alligator clips, etc.).

Alan, That technique is getting VERY popular here (in GA) now for new stores like big grocery stores, all warehousing giants (Sams, BJs, Costco, although they have been doing that forever). Even many smaller, upscale clothing stores are getting into the trend. Shane, Just from the pattern it looks alot like a sponging application followed by a high metallic content floor finish. Most floor finishing chemicals have something like a 25% metal complex polymer that can make the surface look like its wet....looks awesome on a clean floor.

Mike, sounds exactly like my little brother. If it has wings and flies around his general vicinity (even some jumping things, like crickets), it might as well be a mad-as-hell hornet with precision-tracking abilities and he's the feast. And his eyes are like a hawk. We can be carrying on a conversation and suddenly his stare freezes and locks onto a lumbering bumblebee 100ft away and he goes into defense mode. Craziest damn thing I've ever seen. The only thing for which I have an irrational feer are snakes and women with mustaches, but my brother will let snakes hang all over him at zoos and think I'm crazy for not wanting to get near them. Just letting you know, you aren't alone with that fear thing.

Is that Captain America's kitchen? Looks great! How did you do it? Sponge the stain on for the texture and follow with a sealant, or acrylic finish?

TSP is the recommended additive to house prep mix, just watch out around glass as it will etch it (TSP is partially converted to sodium hydroxide when mixed with water). Keeping the pH factor in mind when using TSP, I wonder if you should follow up with a weak acid mix? Perhaps some wood-care blokes can chime in as to the care required when blasting cedar (pressure problems). As for the pricing, why not do about a 25 sq. foot area (5 x 5) and see 1) how effective you are at removing the paint and 2) how long it takes you. I've had situations where I can rub my hand over peeling paint and it flakes off with no problem, but when turn on the water and try to pressure was it off it becomes more difficult...the paint sticks to the surface because of the water. Turned out it would have been *easier* to take the paint off with a stiff brush followed by a rinse to remove the excess dust then a few good coats of paint (after water has dried).

I must be a cheap ... I painted a room for one of my janitorial customers last year. Approximately 2400 sq. feet of wall space (8 foot ceilings, four walls) for $550 and they paid for supplies. Also included about 560 linear feet of trim (ceiling and floor) and about a dozen windows. Only took me about 12 hours to do it by hand and with a roller, so it wasn't a total loss. I think that price was what she was quoted by a few painters, but they never could come up with a scheduled time that worked for everyone involved.

Hell, Jon. Come back to GA and have your friend on the north side give you some REAL country cooking. If he doesn't know of anyplace, I can name quite a few. Do you have *sweet* iced tea in CA, or is that just a southern thing?

Nah. I learned that stuff in a chemical safety course in the engineering program I went through. They wanted chemical engineers to be able to know and take into account with the design of a process the dangers of chemicals in question to be used. No point in trying to use a chemical as a solvent if it kills the people who come in contact with it for longer than 15 minutes or it explodes when exposed to air...that kind of stuff. We had to do so many case studies and evaluations on how to make sure rooms had adequate ventilation and concentrations would be in sufficiently low amounts so as not to cause injury that the stuff just kind of stuck. It's more useful to me now than it was then. Glad I could be of some help.

TLV-C = Threshold Limit Value Ceiling...basically tells you the maximum concentration to which you want to expose yourself, or don't want to expose yourself, regardless of how brief the encounter. TLV-TWA = Threshold Limit Value- Time Weighted Average...the "average" maximum exposure to which you are exposed to over an 8 hour period...HF is around 3 ppm I think. TLV-STEL = Threshold Limit Value - Short Term Exposure Limit....The maximum amount of exposure you can have in a 15 minute interval before suffering irreversible damage or excessive irritation...basically if you hit this number you may not be able to walk away from the situation....HF is around 6 ppm for 15 minutes. These values are OSHA values....some other regulatory agencies like NIOSH are a little more lenient.

HF manufacturers suggest storing the acid in a particular type of plastic bottle due to its proclivity to degrade glass and corrode metals. You might can use one of the plastic hand pumps used for the 5 gallon kerosene fuel cans that you usually get with an indoor kerosene heater. I know they sell for around $3 at home depot and Lowes. I don't think they would be a seasonal item. If not there, support a local small hardware store and check them out....they usually have EVERYTHING you need and can't find elsewhere. Before jumping on the HF bandwagon, though, I'd take the advice of paul and troy...if you can find something else designed for the white stuff, give it a shot first. There is no point in endangering yourself unnecessarily. If you do decide to use HF or HF containing products, pay particular attention to the TLV and TWA numbers given in the MSDS.

Try to keep the final concentration on the ground to a level below 2 ppm (.0002%). Basically, flood the area that will come in contact with the acid, spray the wall with your solution, flood the surrounding area again while the solution dwells, do your washing thing with the wall, then rinse the area again. You're going to have a problem with that window, though. HF is used to etch glass, so getting any overspray or drips on it will ruin the surface, even with frequent rinsing. I would cover the entire window with plastic and tape it off such that you have a good overlap of seams and that any water running onto the plastic will not make contact with the glass (overlap the seams top sheet over bottom sheet, not side by side). And use that safety gear....the previous poster is absolutely correct about religiously using gear on something like this. HF is nasty stuff and you don't want that monkey on your back.

I had this problem awhile back and billed the customer an additional $15 per can I had to use. I had the 20ft spray cans, so I just walked around the house and had some good target practice.

Bill Cosby had some stuff out years ago that started out similarly to this. Funny stuff.

I *think* I remember reading that HF (hydrofluoric acid) will do well to remove efflorescence. Not sure where people buy it, though.

Just a little of my experience.... I thought it would be relatively inexpensive to do residential work. Spent $1000 on a machine and about $200 on some extra hose and found out that that alone was worthless. The "big" guys with the good toys and the professional looking equipment will spend upwards of $5000 on their units (for hot water stuff). The goodies like the Xjet, surface cleaner, ladders, sprayers, pumps, additional low pressure source hose, and extension wands are absolutely necessary to really make any money and can cost more than the unit itself. And a trailer to haul everything. Then there is the knowledge that comes from doing the work. And above all of the toys comes the chemicals. They are (now I know this) the most important part of your arsenal. BUT, you can get started with around $1800 (not including the trailer) and make your money back quickly. Don't get discouraged by your initial difficulties, and take full use of the vast bank of knowledge on this site. We are all (I assume) willing to help out with questions, and I will be glad to offer any help I can as I started out on a tight budget with the idea that I could do it cheap and it would be easy. It's not cheap, it's not exactly easy, BUT it is rewarding and you can make good money with it as your experience and tools grow. Good luck, and welcome. Ryan H.