Mark Gallison

I have a customer that has these spots on their concrete porch and have never run into this before. You can see from the dry photo compared to the wet one that it appears that the water doesn't penetrate those areas,. To me it looks possibly like leftover sealer from one point? Thinking if thats the case maybe Xylene or some sort of paint remover etc would take it off? Any thoughts or suggestions.

No as seen in the photos, the one shows it after rinsing with hose and the areas stay light in color and dry for the most part so I am assuming it may be sealer? I haven't physically been to the site, the customer sent me these pics.

Looking for info on proprietary equipment for cleaning tile and grout, interior hard surface cleaning. Something with vac system etc. I would like to add this service to my lineup and looking for info from someone that may be offering that service currently or has done more extensive research into this. . I know I have equipment already that could be retrofitted perhaps to do this work but thought there may be some insight on specialized self contained, portable proprietary equipment for this. Not really interested in cleaning carpet but have had opportunities to clean hard surfaces both from new leads as well as current customers I do other services for. Is the need really to get the grout back to really clean as well as cleaning the tile face surfaces? I have experimented on a few areas and am finding that grout doesn't come clean that easy unless you want to get down on all fours and scrub with chems. Does the market demand that the grout lines become clean back to "like new" or is it more like getting the dirt and grime up and removing stains and soils from the main tile field itself? I stumbled across a company called "The Masters Touch" and am continuing to get more info. Do any of you use this system or similar system? Any help and info would be greatly appreciated. I would like to be able to generate some "off season" revenue indoors during the colder months as well as increasing sales with a new service line during the "working months"

Around here I have yet to find a city that will let you hook up at all, meter or no meter. So many of these condo / town homes situations simply do not have outside water taps. I have had to pass on several office centers as well as there was no water source available. Many retail situations are getting the same way except they will usually have a riser / mech room with water tap and we just run a crap load of feeder hose to our tank.

I have used my own meter when I have had this come up.. The cost is so insignificant per gallon you can tell them that you'll cut them a check for the water. I hook up to one unit per building and usually can find one homeowner that is willing to do that. On some instances the Association will discount the owners fees towards reimbursement for the extra few dollars on their average bill if you can supply them with gallons used per tap.

I suggest staying away from washing gars at dealers. Lots of hassle and need extra labor to manage hose, dry vehicles etc. Too many "groups" out there doing in for practically nothing, driving up to the lot in their 20 year old f150 rust bucket.. But the lots don't care, they just want it done cheap! We do primarily flatwork, commercial and love it! Got ta have a hot machine for that. We run a 4000 psi 9 GPM, gotta love those cleaning units!

Does Viper renew do anything with rust ?

I will be adding awning cleaning to my service line this year. Not sure if this is the best category (residential pressure washing) to post this but I am wondering what those of you that do this due for equipment. I don’t want to be using my high-pressure equipment even dialed down and want to have something separate. I am thinking like using a separate gasoline driven pump, putting out somewhere around 250-350 psi and 2 or so GPM. Need to push trough 200" possible of 1/4 to 3/8 hose to feed the awning cleaning attachments. Want to use the right equipment and look and be professional as with the rest of our services. Any info you can share would be great! Mark Gallison Clean Mid West / MarKir Services Inc. mark@cleanmidwest.com

I certainly understand that after being in the biz for so long.. I do know that many people are not comfortable with any association to pressure washing when it comes to their awnings. I am fully aware that my machine is capable of doing the similar work but am thinking about having a separate group of equip that is tailored for that work which would not require that much GPM etc. Having a skid type sprayer pump set up in a van will also give me more ease of parking in tight spots and make considerably less noise. Using my PW is overkill in any sense of its application. I also will be using DI water through the systems and DI and High pressure pumps do not get along well and I would not have that issue with the types of pumps i am looking for. I was hoping that someone out there could just give me some vendor references for that type. I think I would be best inquiring on a lawn spraying site possibly. Thanks for the feedback

Thanks for the feedback. One of my goals is to set up a separate trailer of small van with only the awning cleaning equip and have that as a separate division. Also something that would push water a couple hundred feet through smaller diameter hose if access was difficult and we cant get very close to the work. I would like something that is a little more quit as well if we are just cleaning awnings so thats why I am inquiry about a different set up. I want to send the message that we have the proper equip for the job because I am finding out through research that when you use or reflect anything related to "pressure washing" when dealing with awning customers it gets people very nervous. having a very low pressure decent GPM machine would give me the ability to apply more water for quicker presoak and rinsing without using much more than garden hose pressure. Also having an on board tank will eliminate the need to try and find a close spigot and not having to run out a bunch of feeder hose.

We do a lot of residential cleaning but when we do clean siding we sell more jobs because we use soft water. When we rinse off the widows after applying soap to the house the results are really great and the windows end up being really clean. Perhaps not exactly like a hand cleaning but all of our home owners like the fact that they don’t have to layout extra cash for the windows. Offering this technique gives us the definite edge when selling the house siding cleaning as well as aiding in cleaning the house better and with less chems as the soft water makes the product work much better. The added cost of using a resin bed to run water through to fill our supply tank is very minimal and again does tons in getting work that may have gone to a competitor while still charging overall a little more for the complete job. Plus there is no ladder work, which keeps our insurance costs down. Feel free to eamil me with any questions directly if you would like. mark@cleanmidwest.com

I have been doing some research on this and every home will be different in regards to the solution or fix. As stated before the lack of insulation is a factor but sometimes more important is the proper ventilation under the roof deck There needs to be a space between the insulation and the roof decking. This combined with proper soffit through peak ventilation will keep the roof cooler and help cut down on the melting and refreezing. Of course removing heavy snow deposits after storms are one of the best things to do.. Also it sounds like (gathered from research) that using steam rather than heavy stream of hot water works much better, allowing surgical melting and removal of controlled sections without having a flood pouring down on to the ground making more problems. Just my 2 cents, (jury still out)

I use MD - 80 from eaochem if the deposits are heavy. Safe restore works good as well but with MD-80 you will use less chem. Apply anywhere from 50/50 mix with water to full strength depnding on the scope of the leaching. The biggest thing to remeber is that the staining is caused by the salts etc leaching from the brick when water works it way out of the brick. High pressure should never be used to rinse as it can force more water back in and soon the same aituation is back. I apply the chem in one to two applications then and let it dwell a few minutes, then I use a soap nozzle and stand back so when I rinse I only get a gentle rain like amount of water on surface just enough to remove the remaining chem. Like most situations the chems do most of the work. With MD -80 you defintly want to use gloves , filtr mask and face sheild to be safe. Sherwin williams will stock the product usually or will if you ask them to.

We sell many house washes by advertising that we use soft water to clean and rinse with. The nice thing about soft water is that it reduces the amount of chems you need to clean as well as giving the ability to rinse windows clean. It makes the water "wetter" and cleans more efficiently. I have a bracket on the front of my rig and I mount a large tank and feed source water through it and into my holding tank, then pump through system. This should not be done with a DI tank as DI water can raise havoc with certain metals in your pump, boiler etc . When we do a large window only job, say a commercial building with several hundred windows we use a DI bed and pump into holding tank and then pump out of that with a shurflo and out through garden hose to the water fed poles. I pay $135 for each Soft bed which usually will usually treat about 3000 gallons for a cost of about 5¢ gallon. Di will give me about 1000 gallons before reaching 50 TDS PPM and those tanks run me $155. Which isn’t much at all per window.

Wouldnt recommend expanding into a lot of flat work without a surface cleaner. Most of our PW biz is flat work, lots and lots of mall sidewalks, gum removal etc. Some driveways to but we focus mainly on commercial. Love that flat work, love parking lot striping more tho!! I bought a 20" Northern and whne the swivel bit the pickle I retroed a high quality swivel. I like the big three wheels all caster for manuvering

Joe Walters here. Checked with local companies and they either didnt understand the PW biz or they quoted a ridiculous rate

We use a long aluminum telescopic pole and can reach third story. The pole is really light and makes fast work.

I clean exteriors windows with DI and water fed poles, and my windows come out great!!! However a job I did recently had poor results. Long story short after investigating I find a greasy build up along the top of the glass 1-3" down, minor on side edges and another band 1-2" along bottom edge. I went back and tried to clean up close and personal window chamois and squeegee. My chamois now had greasy deposits on the ends and was difficult to remove from the equipment. I contacted the contractor (this was new construction clean windows have been in place since last July) and we met to look at the problem. He seems to think it might have something to do with some sort of protective coating that might have been on the window mullions when installed that is now spreading and spattering from rain. He said he also noticed heavy finger prints and smudges on the mullions after install that he was disappointed with and is thinking that these are all related... Anyone ever run into anything like this and any ideas on what to use to clean off the film. I need something that will clean it off but also not itself leave a residue????? Any help would be appreciated...

I started driving school bus. its not a ton of $$ but better than working PT in retail or something. I also have the time in between routes (usually 9am-130pm) to do some marketing on the PW biz. Have Been reasearching steam vapor cleaning equip for cleaning tile and grout as well.

we use softwater to clean all our houses. We never have any streaking problem cause the soft water is wetter and drians off better. then when we rinse with just softwater (no chems) and the windows are streak free. The softwater gives us an edge when selling the job over our competition. Also we explain that we also offere DI window cleaning which will leave their windows totally spotless and it gives us the opportunity to get some add on sales. We mounted a softwater resin tank to the front of the trailer. Run source hose to soft tank then from that to main holding tank and feed our pw'r. We do not run DI thru Pw'r. We have a low pressure pump to ffeed our wtarefed poles.

I used it on rust stains at the bottom of a bunch of windows on stucco. Full strength little dwell, worked great. I was the PM's hero stucco rust.bmp

We remove a lot of gum when we clean concrete but sometimes the amount of "Hot" water we use is too much water for the situation. I have seen info on a unit from gum busters?? Anyone familiar with this or have similar equip. They claim you can clean gum all day and use only around 8 gallons of water and it doesnt leave the noticable clean spot and usually removes the shadow as wel. You do have to run a generator if not able to hook up to AC nearby??? Any comments?

I hear ya but one of the probs is that when we spot clean gum it leaves such a "clean spot" that it can looks as bad as the gum. Sometimes the PM or owner doesnt want the whole sidewlk clean and then there is the matter of finding room to park and relocate PW if needed and such, but I see ya workin

Hey Larry Thats where I first saw it as well.. That show is so cool.... They charge 40¢ sq ft depending on the amount of gum that wouldnt be to bad for a large account but I think that the prices could be adjusted for smaller jobs to make it profitable but still reasonable for the PM. I have sent two emails and left two voice mails for the company to get info on franchisee's but havent received any responses????? I did get somew othyer info that said something to the effect that the compny sets you up with a van and four machines but didnt say anything about other fees... I would think thre would be something out in the market place that is very similar to get started without that huge investment. I just want to add it as another entity to our company.