Palmetto Home and Deck

MudDuck, You may be right. I was at my local lumber yard last week buying an IPE 2x4 to build a gate for one of the decks I stained last month when the salesman wanted to show me a display for a new product they are going to carry. Its new to me, but others here may have seen it and I would like to hear from anyone that has. This is pine, but rather than chemically treated it is cured in a steam oven. You can check it out at www.eco-thermowood.com . Anyway, it looks like a good product and I am sure I will run into a deck with it soon so I told the salesman I would be interested in buying a short piece of it so I could see how it is going to stain. That is when the salesman told me that according to his sales rep that the only thing that should be used on it is Penofin. So there you go. It seems like it is the sales reps that are indoctrinating the store salesmen into pushing Penofin onto the unsuspecting customer as the only thing that should be use on their decks.

The boards run from the house out to the edge. I measured the total length of the railing around this porch to be 265' long. The owner said there was $40,000.00 in IPE alone in the porch. I'll post some pictures as soon as I get a chance.

Asheville is about sixty miles north of me. If they can hold off until this Fall I might can help them out.

Or even worse...you have an eighty foot man lift rented for the day and your pull rope brakes in the middle and you are an hour from the nearest place to buy some more rope. Now I keep an extra pull rope handle and some extra line to make a new pull rope if I need to in my tool box.

[ I really don't know what to try anymore. Wouldn't the Melamine not only get rid of the red streak, but also the actual paint of the house?] Pat, I don't know what the Melamine will do on the ink stains, but I don't think it would do any harm to the paint. Our Black Lab (PITA) has a favorite air conditioner vent he likes to lie on when he comes in from outside. You should see how dirty he gets the base board and the wall he leans against while he is cooling off over this vent. Anyway, we use the Melamine to clean the base board and wall with no harm to the paint at all.

Jeff, I enlarged Pat's pictures and it looks like the red stains are actually something that is running down from underneath the laps in the siding. That leads me to think Richard has a good point...the stains may be coming from the house wash solution getting under the siding and dissolving the ink writing on the weather wrap. I can see how this could happen. I saw a new house under construction the other day where they were putting up the weather wrap. The wrap had the local lumber yard's name printed all over it in bold red letters like some kind of big billboard. So if this is ink on the hardie board I was wondering if Melamine might work on it? Since you put me onto Melamine I am a believer in it now and keep a supply in my truck at all times.

While cleaning sections of a house where where my house wash mix was certain to get on a recently stained deck, I have actually kept water running continuously from a garden hose over the deck until (like Beth said) every thing is rinsed , rinsed, rinsed.

Gutter Squad, The shirts I get at Walmart are the 65% polyester/35% cotton. I think they were right around $15.00 or so. The silk screener moaned just a little bit about putting my company name just above the front left pocket flap. I think they get used to doing t-shirts and the pockets with the flaps give them a little trouble, but the guy did a great job and the shirts take the silk screening very well. Celeste, Thanks for the cleaninng tips with the HD-80. I'll have try that.

Celeste, Can't believe we are just talking about this. Today I picked up something with wet stain still on it and got stain on my new Dickie shorts. Bumber! (Well, that's not exactly what I said) When you put pants in HD-80 do you neutralize them afterwards or do they just go in the wash? Richard, Hope you don't mind us borrowing your thread..... How did your Dickie shorts do?

Rick, Man, I wear the oldest and rattiest clothes I have for sealing decks. I think I read where someone soaks their clothes in HD-80 before washing them, but I usually just go to the Salvation Army store and buy old t-shirts and blue jeans for a couple of bucks so I don't worry about messing up my better clothes. I actually do take along a fresh pair of Dickies to change into just in case I have make a stop somewhere on the way home. Hey, after that rag caught on fire with me I started worrying about my clothes. I no longer come in and through them in the dirty clothes basket. They go straight into the wash from now on.

I wear Dickies. I have the khaki shorts and the khaki button shirts with my company name printed on them. I bought the shirts at Walmart and took them to the silk screener for printing. I have spilled straight 12% SH on them and you can't even tell it. Another good thing about Dickies is they dry fast. You can get them soaking wet and they will be dry in just a little while. Try that with jeans and cotton tee shirts.

As my helper and I were applying Wood Tux to an IPE deck today I noticed that I smelled something burning. We stopped and looked at the house, around the house, looked into the woods behind the house, checked out the air conditioner and everywhere else we could think of, but we could not see any signs of any thing burning yet we kept smelling something that smelled like paper or a rag burning. We were putting down the Wood Tux on four or five IPE boards at a time then we would go back after a few minutes and wipe the boards down with a rag. As the rags become saturated we tossed them over the side of the deck onto the pine needles next to the deck. My helper asked if I wanted him to gather the rags up and put them in a trash bag or in a box. I told him that could cause a spontaneous combustion and we would go around and pick up the rags and put them in a bucket of water as soon as we were finished and was cleaning up. Well, that almost turned out to be a disaster. Still smelling something burning and standing almost on top of one of the saturated rags my helper reached down and picked up the rag. It turned out that it was smoldering underneath the bottom of it and burst into flames when the air hit it. Also the pine needles caught on fire when they were exposed to the air, but we quickly stomped them out. I have heard of fires starting from oily rags, but I thought they had to be kind of heaped or piled up together in a trash can or plastic bag or something. The instructions on the side of the Wood Tux pail does say dispose of or put any saturated rags in a bucket of water, but I never thought about a single rag lying out in the open and especially within twenty minutes time could ignite like that. (Russel is probable saying I tried to tell you so) Well, it didn't take us long to find a bucket and fill it with water to put our rags in and as soon as a rag become saturated we took it straight to the water bucket from then on. The scariest thing to me is how easy it would be to have a real disaster if someone just tossed their rags in a trash can or bag and left it next to the house or even put the rags in their truck thinking they were going straight to the trash dump. Taking that lesson learned today, we checked, double checked, and triple checked all around that house for any stain saturated rags that may have been missed before we left for the day.

I like to smoke hams around the holidays. I started out smoking a ham just for our family dinner, but now every one wants one to take home so I end up doing five or six at a time. I start out with a 10~12 lb. Boston Butt. Then I prepare a dry rub of torbino sugar, course back pepper, a little cyann pepper and a little dried musturd. I then place the ham on a large sheet of aluminum foil (enough to wrap the ham with no seems). I coat the dry rub onto the ham and fold the foil up over and around the ham. Then just before sealing the ham tight in the foil I pour about a half a cup of coke down beside the ham into the bottom of the foil. I close the foil up tight and put the ham in the smoker. Since smokers cook with such low heat you can't hardly over cook anything so I usually put the hams on late at night and go to bed. The next morning I get up and remove the foil as the hams have actually been steamed and are so tender they will practically fall apart. Then I lay the water soaked wood chips in the smoker and cook the hams uncovered for about another hour and a half. That last cooking uncovered in the heavy smoke firms back up and puts a nice glaze on the outside of the hams, but the ham inside will be one of the most tender and juicy hams you have ever tasted.

Jeff, I haven't tried your technique out on a house yet, but I tried it out on the side of my Xterra that had Artillery Fungus on it. I took it sort of easy at first not knowing what it might do to the finish, but apparently there was no harm done what so ever. I bet the fleet wash guys will also be interested in this as it will probably remove dried on bugs easily as well. I didn't even think about that stuff getting all over the side of my Xterra when I parked it next to a mulch bed...

I lost a nice job earlier this year because of artillery fungus. It was all over the front of the house and the lady asked me if my pressure washing would remove it. I told her no and that pressure washing would not remove it. I could see it in her face that was not the answer she wanted to hear. I tried to tell her that there was no known way to remove it and that were countless articles she could look up about artillery fungus herself. It is evident that she finally found a pressure washing contractor that told her what she wanted to hear because you can go by her house now and see from the street the wand marks left in the vinyl siding where someone used very high pressure and from the looks of it up very close in an attempt to remove the AF. I've been tempted to walk up to the house to see how this guy came out with removing this stuff with maximum psi right up against the vinyl siding. The devil in me would also like to tell the home owner "I told you so" as well, but I know I won't. It is too late for this lady as her vinyl siding is ruined, but I am hoping that next time I will be able to tell some that no regular pressure washing will not remove artillery fungus, but there is something I can do about. If this works (and we ever find out what it is) I would like to cast my vote for Jeff as Pressure Washer of the Year.

I have about thirty five years in bridge and heavy foundation construction. I have poured hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of concrete. I can't be sure, but my guess would be that the contractor that poured the pool apron applied a curing compound to the freshly poured concrete to prevent the concrete from drying too fast and causing curing cracks. Some curing compounds are silicone or waxed based. they form a film on top of and penetrate slightly into the concrete to hold the moisture in the concrete mix until curing has taken place. These curing compounds would eventually wear off in a long period of time, but we could not use them where we would be pouring against them again or applying any sort of concrete paint on top it. If we had done so the new concrete would not bond to the earlier poured concrete and any concrete paint coating would spall or flake off just like in your pictures. I seriously doubt if pressure washing will remove one of these curing compound easily. Maybe repeated washing...I just can't say. If we accidentally used one of these curing compounds in the wrong place we had to sand blast the surface area. See if you can find the contractor who poured the concrete and see if they used a silicone or waxed base curing compounds on the pool apron. At least you will know what you are up against.

I'm with you Beth and Rod. I'm sitting here reading this with anticipation as I keep scrolling down hoping I will finally learn the secrete to removing AF. Now I have to leave to go to work...I will be thinking about this all day anxiously wanting to get back to find out what to do with artillery fungus.

I have never had a problem with the hose coming off the barbed fitting on my X-jet. It usually fits so snug that I have to use some force to pull it off so a slight tug will not pull it off. However, the end of the hose will stretch and wear over time. When the hose starts to feel like it is not fitting as tight as it should I snip about an inch off the end of the hose so I have a fresh end to slip over the X-jet barb.

The weather in the upstate of South Carolina is hot and humid...it should make you feel right at home. Actually, we are suppose to cool off some this week and have highs in the mid eighties and lows at night in the fifties. We haven't had any rain here to speak of in over three weeks. Looks like our drought is continuing on. Our lakes are getting low again and some areas are are already talking about restricting water use.

I'm sure I can help find you a place to get a beer or six after work. My girlfriend is out of town so I might just join you after work myself. I know where those tanks are.... Let me know if you run into any problems or need anything.

Rick, I'm just about 30~40 miles away from you in Anderson. Actually I just moved to Liberty a few months ago, but I still work in Anderson all the time. If you can get away why don't you come up sometime and I can show you some things I have done to make the m5-x jet easier to use and what cleaning solutions I use. Len

Hey MudDuck, That's exactly what what a lot of companies near me around Anderson, S.C. do.

Rod, That's pretty much what I do too. Using $1.00 per lineal foot per floor as a base price just as an example (everyone will have their own price) for what I call a normal house wash (normal shrubbery and plantings around the house, but otherwise easy to pull hoses around the house, maybe even just one ladder set up just to get a better angle on a dormer or gable, etc. I can come up with a price to clean the home. When the terrain gets tough or they have plants and flowers everywhere leaving only walk paths you have to constantly be careful pulling the hoses through the price may go up by $0.05 per foot. If there will be multiple ladder set ups or any other out of the normal difficulties the price goes up for that too. On the other hand, if I come to a house with a flat yard, minimal landscaping, no gutters on the house, etc. I may come off a little from my base price. One thing you mentioned I really think rings true even though you may have said it jokingly is PITA factor # 5 [5=25% (Problematic customer, abusive or otherwise) :lol: JK on this one.] There have been times I have charged more to do a job than I normally would have because the customer come at me with some kind of attitude where I knew they would be hard to work for. Some customers can make a job just as difficult as any rough terrain or multiple ladder set ups you can run in to.

Ron, Thanks for reminding me about that site. I am a member on there, but I have just flat out forgotten about it. I just went there from your link and found out I have not visited there in three years. I guess I like the Grime Scene so much I rarely go anywhere else.

I live just outside of Clemson about 13 miles from Anderson. Give me a call when you come up. 864-933-1728