Tronman

The awnings are vinyl and in pretty good shape. They just want them cleaned. I will use Delcos AC22. It sounds pretty labor intensive. Delco recomends pre-wetting, then spraying on the chem., then scrubbing with a brush a 4-6 ft area then rinsing with a hose. I will probably rinse with either my M5 at 60 degree spray or my Phelps wand. There are 19 awnings that average 2,850 sq ft. I planned on charging $800. Feedback?

I used Delco's cleaning chem with a truck brush. I pre-wet the awning and then mixed a five gallon bucket of chem. I applied straight from the bucket to the awning using a yellow soft truck brush. I scrubed each area twice up and down adn worked my way across. I even began letting it sit on the awning for a while beofre washing with my M-5 X-Jet. It removed green mold, bird poop, and a lot of the black stains but I was left with some dark black streaks. It is either from years of bird poop or from a couple of metal signs above the awning (rust etc.). Has anyone had a similar situation? What did you do to remove the black streaks?

Just wondering about the difficulty in staining a deck that had to be sanded with 60 grit sand paper to remove a blistered marine finish. The wood is smooth. Do we have to let it weather for a few months or can we just put several coats of oxalic acid to open up the pores. I am afraid that the wood pores are now filled and the wood is non-pourous and the stain will either not be absorbed or it will just turn out very very light.

Thanks i'll post when done.

Where do you get Citriclean? Emulsifier Plus is a floor stripper - why would you use this on house siding? And if you did how much would you dilute it?

I need an EFIS repair guy in Clearwater Fla. A car hit an EFIS (stucco) sign and did some damage. It's a bit far for us to drive. Please call 281-793-1935.

Since we do not do a lot of drive thru's, parking, or dumpsters and only occasionally bad gum sidewalks we stick to cold water with a portable hot water unit. We run 4-6 4gal/min wheel around pressure washers and station them at different points so we can have 4-6 guys working at the same time. This is almost impossible with a all-in-one rig. I can set up 6 or more guys throughout an apartment complex and pressure wash multiple buildings/roofs/parking garage levels, etc. at the same time.

How is it your fault? You did not force the truck off the road...

Just finishing up on a log cabin. We used thier "Wood Gaurd" "Honey" on the inside and our Gray-a-way Gold and Brown mix on the exterior. We used 40 gallons on the inside and another 40 on the outside. We still have the detatched garage to do and some more trim. We are doing that on the ground.

We sprayed everything and had 2-4 guys brushing and pading behind me. I have never sprayed stain without using a pad to insure the stain is uniform. The ceiling was a real treat... We did not do a lot of prep as it was new construction and all of the floors were going to have treatments. We did of course wet all of the concrete with water and then covered it with plastic and then put water on top of it. Even though the stain was oil based the odor was not that bad. We had adequate ventilation. But you get that wood gaurd in your eye and you better have a bottle of water nearby. The cabin logs were not "chinked" (caulked) until after we stained it. The builder was trying to get us to cut off the tar paper between the logs that had oozed or stuck out. Without more money it did not happen...

The owner showed up every day at 4:30 to see the progress... I like the exterior color better than the interior honey color. The Wood gaurd product was difficult to use. I burned up two sureflo pumps and a 2 gal hand sprayer before I thinned the stain enough to use. The wood gaurd took several days to dry and even after a week there were still drip areas that were still wet. I didn't have to thin my stain at all and it dried within a couple of hours.

Has anyone tries to use a hot box on a pressure washer with a surface cleaner - just turn the psi down?

I used a product called Gutter Magic and it was great. Problem is I can't remember where I bought it and I do not have the jug any more... I have always used Gutter Shock and it is great also.

20 buildings, 173,688 sq ft of siding, 1120 windows(2 panes), 2 story with only North side light mold. All shot from the ground - no gutters. Bid is for annual cleaning. Houston, Texas I am bidding at .06 per sq ft on the siding and $3 per window for cleaning. Pricing thoughts?

I had a hard time cleaning a ceramic tile with pits in it. It is a slightly rough ceramic tile. It is in a steel shipping and cutting plant. They track grease into the office area on a daily basis. I tried every type of brush on my circular floor machines but they only cleaned the high points of the tile. I tried out a Karacher Vario dual cylinder floor machine. One the first pass no one could believe it. The tile looked like brand new. All the grease from the pits was gone. I used a non-Butyl degreaser and the black bristle drums. It sold me. The machine cost me about $1800 with the two black drums.

The black bristles are much better at getting into the tiny holes and grooves. I have a set of the red brushes also and they do not work as well. I tried using them for striping floors but the Vario does not have the weight that a floor machine does. I am going to use my Vario tonight to scrub restroom floors in a machine shop. Here is a pic of one of my guys using the Vario right up next to the edge of the wall.

Super Cedar - 2 Gold 1 Brown

Just finished this deck before the rain. Customer was very happy.

Is there a water source near? Sprinkler, etc? If it is lime it will have either a flat white layer appearance or a rocky white pepple appearance. Another possibility is that it is grout from when the chimney was built - simple sulfamic or phosphoric acid wash. If it is lime - good luck. I have tried Hydrochloric, Muratic, Phosphoric, Mineral Shock, turbo blasting at 4,000psi, Calcite presoak, NMD80, etc. The only thing I have not tried is Effortless from EcoChem. I had good luck with the Calcite presoak, NMD 80, and a wire brush on a house a week ago but it took three trips and applications to get the calcium off of the beige brick. Houston, Texas

They my be thinking of a diluted hydrochloric acid cleaning. When cleaning grout smears etc from floor tile you can use Sulfamic acid or Phosphoric acid. I like the Phosphoric because it is strong but not in the range of hydrochloric or muratic.

Mineral shock from EnvirOx. I try every product I can get my hands on and it is by far the best. It is liquid not paste or gel etc. You apply it with a spray and scrub with a green pad. The lime has stayed off for over two weeks so far.