the_GUNN_man

Now that I look a little closer, is that sand faced brick? If it is, have you washed it before? You have to be careful washing sand faced brick becuase you can end up making a red brick look orange when you are done.

I used to be a brick layer and we had a few rules to go by. When working with colored mortar you should have the same person make the mud every time. This will help with different people using different amounts of ingredients. You also have to make sure you cover the sand pile as if it gets wet you get different amounts of sand on your shovel versus dry sand. Another thing to watch out for is too much mud being made at one time. You have to use the mud right away. I know alot of guys hate to make singles all the time but if you don't have enough brickies laying then you will have mud that sits around for too long and dry out. When you keep adding water to keep it wet it bleeds out the color. When masons have the mud on the boards many will temper the mud too much, this will cause the color to fade. Also you will have a horrible mess it rains while you are laying. One more factor is if the masons wait to long to strike the joints they can turn a darker color. This comes from the mortar hardening and then you use your metal striker to rub the joints and you get a blackish color coming off the striker. You have to be careful washing the Limestone. When it comes to the site sometimes it has a sealer on it already and if you use to much pressure you can turn it from a brighter grey to a dull grey. You will be blowing the sealer off. Test it on a left over piece if there is one. Might consider using a brush on the limestone.

I want to let you know that I know a guy who had a similar problem and he too painted his deck and it came through the paint.

My number one reason for the x- jet is that I can get a 2 to 1 ratio from it. When I use sodium hypochlorite and downstream it always seems to be too weak once it hits the surface. If someone has a way that is still getting a good concentraion then I would like to hear it. I am always open to new ideas.

I thought the same thing to when I first read it. It does sound like he meant he bought his beard at Home Depot.

I hope you got the roof job too. I seen a lot of moss growing on the roof.

Ron wasn't too far off. You can burn the little pods off if it is brick. You just have to be really careful if you do it. I worked for a masonry compnay and we did this a couple times. We used propane torches. The trick is to not leave soot marks all over the brick when you are done. I am sure if you they are going to paint afterwards it will be ok. I would try a small area and then try and pressure wash it and make sure you can get the soot off after you are done. Maybe try it with a small little hand held propane tank like you buy at the hardware store. We used big torches.

Do you premix the emulsifier plus in a 55 gallon drum before you put it in with your 5 gallon bucket? The reason I ask is because of the 12 oz in 5 gallon bucket thing you said. Are you mixing 12 oz of powder in a 5 gallon bucket? When you mix the stuff you are supposed to mix the whole bag at one time. If you bought the 55 gallon kit you are supposed to mix the whole thing at one time. The reason behind this is the powder is not throughly mixed and if you just reach in and grab a cup it could be at a different concentrate then the next cup you grab out of it. In a 5 gallon bucket I put about 3.5 gallons of Emulsifier plus and 1.5 gallon of 12.5% sodium hypochlorite. I then x-jet it at 2 to 1. I tried downstreaming but I have found that the sodium hypochlorite gets too diluted when you try and downstream. I guess downstreaming the sodium hypochlorite could work if you had a chem spider and could pull it right out of the bottle.

I use Gutter Zap mixed 50/50 with water and add a smedge of HD-80. I have to brush a tad. I spray the solution on the brush and then wipe it down the gutter. I wait 1 minute and do some light scrubbing and it comes right off.

I am so sick of going to peoples houses to give estimates and them say that they were thinking of doing it themselves but wanted to see how much I would charge. They think by saying that you will lower your price. I don't. I was wondering if anyone had any horror pics of pw'ing done by the "do it yourself'ers". I would like to start a scrap book of pics done by home owners doing it themselves. We need to start letting these people see for themselves what happens when you don't use the right chemical and too much pressure. I guess the main thing I am looking for is decks. That seems to be the number one area people complain about being too high. I was offering to to clean and seal a deck of a $500,000+ home and they said $500 was too much. They had it done 3 years ago and there was stain slopped all over the siding. I guess I could knock $200 off the price and go in there and throw some bleach around and then just use a pump up and throw the sealer down. Don't bother protecting anything and let the sealer go where it may. They act like that is what they want. After they go to the store rent the pw bring it home, realize they need it for more them one day, then use 3000 psi to clean their deck, use the wrong kind of cleaner, leave lap marks, don't neutralize it, spend 2 days trying to do it, bring the pw back to the store, go buy some junky Thompson's sealer, probably put that on after letting the deck dry overnight, slopping it on the siding, and not protecting anything and realizing you just killed everything around the deck. Plus the 30 hours they spent on it themselves. If they only knew. So, anyway. I would appreciate anyone sharing some pics of messed up decks or concrete(or anything for that matter) done by the D.I.Y 'ers. I will post this on a couple boards and see what I get.

I was doing a search trying to find pics of badly washed decks. Look what I found in one article. Can you believe that they say use 3000 psi minimum? That is crazy. So what would be ideal? 10,000 psi? Maybe their theory is to shave have of your deck off. I guess you would have to do a lot of sanding after blasting the wood with 3000 psi, MINIMUM. POWERWASHING My deck is brand new, why do I need to powerwash it? How long has it been since the lumber for your deck was cut in the lumber mill? Is it fair to say it has been several months or more? What would your freshly washed face and arms look like if for several months they were exposed to all of the outside climatic conditions of sun, rain and pollution. Would they look brand new? You can take a white kleenex and wipe your face after a few hours of being washed and it will be covered with a black residue. The new decking you describe was first cut and stacked for shipment. After sitting around in a lumber yard for sometime, then being handled several times with a fork lift and other equipment before it is delivered to your building site is once again exposed to more abuse from sun, dirt and handling. You must therefore correct this problem by powerwashing the entire deck area with a minimum of 3,000 PSI powerwasher. In addition, it may be necessary to sand all sections of the deck to remove any blemishes or shipping marks prior to applying Deck Boss™. By powerwashing the entire surface you will insure maximum penetration of Deck Boss™. Remember, proper preparation prevents poor performance.

Tony you say you add gutter zap 1 to 3 with water and then a dash of HD-80. Say I had 1/4 gallon gutter zap and 3/4 gallon water equaling one gallon. How much HD-80 would you now put in that? Yesterday I had a standard size spray bottle mixed 50/50 with gutter zap and water. I put a dash of HD-80 in that and the gutters turned out beautiful. The only problem I seemed to have was that is was a aluminum sided house and that mix would leave spots on the siding. Did I add to much HD-80 to it? I added a dash to about 1 quart of solution. When you say you add a dash, to how much gutter zap/water are you adding it to?

I wash cars. I use soft water to wash and rinse. I have one guy go behind me squeegeeing the cars and towel drying them. I soap up the cars and use a high psi rinse. I have thought about doing the DI rinse but here would be the problem. The cost of a DI water will run you about 10 cents a gallon. That is the figure you get when you figure the cost of the charged tank divided by the number of gallons you will get out of it. I use about 12 gallons per car. If I used all DI water it would cost me $1.20 per car. I have thought about washing with my soft water and rinsing with it then having another guy come behind me with another wand and do a light rinse with DI water so he doesn't have to wipe down the cars. That would speed things up. The car lots around here pay between $2.50 and $4.00 a car. I don't see how guys make money off a $1 a car. When I wash cars the guy behind me wiping them down actually wipes off dirt that I can't get off with my wand. I don't see how people not wiping them down are getting then totally clean. I wish there was a way I could eliminate the having to wipe the cars down. I am going to try a DI tank soon and see what difference it would make. But if you were going to try and save money and only use the DI water for a light final rinse then you would have to have two machines and a second tank for the DI water. We can wash 25 cars an hour. We have only been doing it for a month so I am sure things will speed up. I can wash probably 40 cars an hour but ever so often I have to stop and help my guy get caught up. If I had a second guy drying we could go fast. I bet we could get up to 50 cars an hour. I said 40 before because I do have to stop for certain things like rolling out hose, adding more hose on, etc. If I had it where I could go non stop I am sure I could do 50 an hour. I can't hire the second drying guy right now because I don't have enough car lots to justify it.

Mine cost $800 and I got a really good deal. Mine is more commercial then residential. I think it can handle up to 10 gpm. Why would you want your brine tank and your softener together on the rig? That is just taking up extra room and adding extra weight. The brine tank can weigh an extra 200 to 300 lbs. My brine tank can hold 250 lbs. of salt plus the water that is in there. I can run 3000 gallons through my softener before I have to recharge it. Half of that if it is well water. Mostly city water in my area though. If I ran my machine (5.5 gpm) non stop, I would need to recharge my softener after 9 hours. So I will never have to recharge in the middle of the day. I just recharge it when it is close. Salt doesn't cost much so I will recharge it when it is only half way sometimes. So even if I recharge when it is half spent then I am only losing maybe $2 at the most, if that. I can go 4.5 hours non stop for well water. So you figure I can pretty much handle any job.

I use a Fleck water softener. I mount the softener on my rig and leave the brine tank back at the shop. I just run my lines to it when I need to recharge. Very easy. You have to be careful what kind of head is on the softener. I have an open trailer so I have a manual head on mine. The up side is I don't have to worry about protecting it. The downside is that I have to wait while it goes through it's cycles. That can be an hour. Usually during it's 50 minute cycle I go grab something to eat. You can get the automatic heads but they are electronic. They can get sensitive to the elements. If you are running an enclosed trailer then they might be ok. If I get caught in the rain one day and am driving down the road doing 55 mph then it can cause problems. I am switching to a enclosed trailer this fall and will be switching to an electronic head.

Beth and Rod, I was just wondering what was the difference between the two? From what I understand do you clean with the EFC-38 and you strip with the HD-80? I know you said EFC-38 will strip, but does that mean it will only strip older finishes? When you use HD-80 can you neutralize with Oxalic Acid?

I would like to know more about this product(HD-80). I am assuming this is a stripper. Where do you get it? How well deos it work? From what I have been reading everyone likes it.