bforbis

Currently, when I quote a cleaning for the house wash the gutters are included. Most gutters I can clean with a few quick strokes from the brush. If they are really bad or for houses that have something at or above 2 stories where it really takes the extra effort to get to, a ladder, I will charge extra. I will discuss this with the home owner and walk around with them before and after, take photos before and after and give them. I find that some home owners get amnesia about how dirty things were after they have been cleaned!! Nothing like a photo to illustrate.

The above notes were based on Bernouli's Equation: It basically states that for an increase in velocity there will be a decrease in pressure. The increased velocity comes from a resitrcition, any restriction. The ball in the injector, at the gun and bends all create a loss in pressure. Where there is a pressure drop you loose the ability to draw chemicals

It's been a few years since I've done the calculations but here's a stab at it for a quick explanation: There is a drop in pressure from point A to B based on the energy required to move the liquid from A to B, plus any bends, restrictions etc. It can be calculated from the diameter of the hose, flow, and density of fluid and of course the length. It is usually given per foot of length for similar diameters. Also, within the injector there is a ball and spring mechanism. That creates another resistance to the flow. If the ball is oversized for the flow, it will not pull chemicals. This is based on Bernouli's Equation. It basically states that for an increase in velocity there will be a decrease in pressure. The increased velocity comes from a restriction, any restriction. When that pressure drops within that restriction, you lose the ability to draw chemcials! My point :was to point out a comparison of how your machine is set up with flow,psi, length of hose....Results will vary from machine to machine if they are set up differently. I would expect that is why you got less than advertised results of uptake in your experiemnts. I sincerely apologize if this is spitting hairs for some, but there is a little more to it than grabbing this or that if you really plan to apply chemicals at a particular and specified rate. You were doing a great job of an experiment!!!! Testing your equipment and getting good results and as I expected.

I don't think I could begin to say what if anything you did wrong. There is too much experience on this forum for me to speak. As I re-read your post of what you did and assuming "stripped it properly" I noticed one thing.... You used "left over stain" How old, where was it stored (heat, cold or frozen at one time) Maybe that is the key to the failure??? Just a thought!

Jon, I have only recently researched the SIKKENS line of stains, Are they set up for multiple coats such as base, intermediate and top coat??? May be not all lines of SIKKENS, but wonder if yours was supposed to have something else?

Just curious about the length of hose you are using in your testing. How far from the injector to the outlet? I know the length of hose will change the injectors ability to perform. I think the advertisement for % draw is based on a very short run of hose. When I first set up my machine I could not run much more than 100' of hose and expect the injector to work. When I went to 200' nothing at all. I have to run with 200' + to reach areas so I use the XJ. Not totally happy with it b/c it does not really reach as far as advertised and the back spray is pretty bad. I certianly can not clean a 2500 sf house in under 1 hr and do a good job of it. I also not using 8gpm machine. Just one person, 5 gpm, warm water, chemicals applied thru bucket XJ, scrub gutters. I would like to revisit the possiblity of downstreaming, but I don't see it with the back pressure on thehose length etc. Open for suggestions and comparisons tohelp me see the light!!!!! Thanks

Is this the Spray Mantis type sprayer? I assume or think it is similar to waht is used to shoot ceilings???? Deck looks good. Perhaps the HOA will change their mind after it all drys!

Same here Jim.... Work is work and it a little smile, service and conversation will get more work. I had a guy call me up and asked a question about his squeaky flooring. He had gotten my name from another reference and I came by to look at it. (I have jad a lot of experience in construction) Crawled under his house found the problem and made a simple suggetion that he could do to fix the problem that would not cost him but 15 min. and a few screws. Later that year he called be back to clean and paint his house and rental prop. came in over $7K and I got more work after that. You just never know! Be helpful, friendly, considerate.....things will come your way. Brent

Hey guys, I had visited SE vac before and did really look close at it. I went to the site noted above.... Is that system the pressure washing unit and vac unit combined? I thought it was just the vac unit, but the description seemed to indicate otherwise.....maybe not enough coffee yet??? I guess you guys are vac everything up through the surface cleaner vac? Are you having to put down collection at downstream areas from the the work? Just wondering how well the collection is on the vac. My typical cleaning consists of 1) pre-spot 2)chemical application entire area or section 3) surface clean 4) rinse, edge, corners touch up as needed, 5) clean up, pick up, scoop up. I am putting the finishing touches on a vac/filtration system using vacuboom, and Water Treatment Tech MD48 filtration. Trying to compare and benchmark with other methods. Thank you for your help with questions Brent

Great post and Merry CHristmas!

Craig, CPW, hope you don't mind if I ask a couple of ??? That looks like a great opportunity! I saw on another post where you had done some work and it looked really good. I had a customer ask me a few months ago about this very thing and was not sure, but had heard some info about these coatings. Do you do a lot of this? How would this hold up to repeated pressure washing/monthly? (ie restaurants, high traffic areas??) I know it would vary

Hey Rod... I have a heavy hand as well. It is difficult to back off and I'll have to try it more lighter to eliminate the mid-streaks

Well here I go, This has been a new experience for me in understanding just how little I was providing in a proposal. Who, what, where how and how much with some legal stuff attached.... That's what I get for thinking, again!!!!! I had been looking for a resource such as this forum to bench-mark what I am doing on what others in the business are doing, the examples I see here on the forum have been an eye opener......Thanks very much to all that give/share so much. The more I research and dig the more I find I need to work on.

Thank to everyone for your suggestions. It's time to put some elbow grease and get moving

I would like to respectfully submit an "OUT OF THE BOX" suggestion/alternative/tool that I tried on my deck. My deck is old and in bad condition. A couple of years ago before I did any pressure washing/deck or research on the how to's etc I applied a solid acrylic deck coating. The color was what my girl friend wanted....so I went with. A few weeks ago I had some time to strip and clean. I have been using warm water and sometimes hot on tough sections. Yes I got fur flying, but thought that was the norm as I got it no matter hot, cold or inbetween. I would use no more pressure than I had to, made several applications of stripper to allow it to do the work. I tried something differnt after sanding my A___ off and all the dust. I counter sunk all nails and used a hand planner to take 2/32" off then feathered down with sanding.The deck looked like new.....with all the characteristics of aging on treated wood. Just something I tried on my own deck and will use it again for severly neglected wood.

I ordered a few of their chemicals yesterday, small quantities, for a trial run at the awnings. I previously tried some chemicals with an 8" soft brush as you spoke of. Spray area with XJ allow some dewll time while scrubbing and rinse with low pressure fan. Scrubing small areas up and down and side to side. It took me about 6 hours to get around the restaurant, about 300 lf of about 8' width, black and white vinyl 3M awning material. Only got the surface dirt and grime. I would try additional applications to see if would come off in just layers, but no luck. Who ever is doing the hood cleaning is really making a BIG mess when they spray the upper sections of the hood on the roof. I am not sure if I can get them cleaned. Craig, thanks for the tip on AC 12 product, is that a Delco product? Where do you get it?

I tried using one of the U-shaped add ons with either way noted above and found it resulted in me getting what was in the gutter on my head! That didn't take long to change that tip out! Also, if there was much in the gutter and I did not physically clean it out, even with a low pressure nozzle the gutters would fill up and all that stuff in the gutter would boil up and work between the gutter and facia board, and lower shingles. Made more of a mess than I wanted. I go up and hand clean, then use low pressure to wash out and flush down spouts.

One alternative I forgot to mention. You can get a power converter to fit with your truck battery and it has plugs you can run lights or other things on..I am not too sure of the details. I would think you would have to keep truck running so not to run the battery down, but it is an alternative to generator

The 500 W is what I use. There are inexpensive and take abuse in the back of my truck.

tronman, Thanks... I like your motto! I've been telling my customers something similar. I did a lot of research on where and what for cleaning awnings and found under "Do it Right" Skyclean. It was www.doitrightonline.com. Has anyone tried these for awning cleaning or ompared to others? They seem to have a lot to offer from cleaners, scrubbing, polishing, etc...check it outif you have not been there. I was going to order some to do a test with. The cleaning product of made by Winsol Lab. Thanks and Good Luck Brent

I also had a similar experience with a much larger deck. It was a SIKKENS product and it was thick. My test locations indicated about 15 to 20 dwell using a Wolman's deck stripper. After 4 to 5 coats of increasing the dwell time up to 40 minutes I finally get to wood. The total deck surface was about 1700 sf and the piles of fur, and removed coating had to be shoveled away in a wheel barrow! I like you touch of the Osbourne pads, have not tried that yet, but would like to talk to you about it if you get this. Please give me a call.

I had been having some issues trying to get some awnings cleaned well for a customer. Basically, they were neglected for a long time and parts were cleaned with something too strong and removed the color in a section (NOT ME, thank goodness)> I initially used manufacture recommend cleaner, then gradually stepped up to stronger concentrations and could not get them cleaned. Only removed surface dirt and gridue. I even tried straight 10% sodium Hydrox on a small section. They looked better, but I was not satisfied. I called 3M, that makes the fabric and they said the white is particular difficult. Any suggestions???? I did the initial cleaning way too cheap, b/c I do a lot of other work for them. Thank for any help

Anti freeze is based from a family "ethylene glycol", the exact chemical make up I could look up so I will try to keep it simple. Depending on what other elemetal chemical groups are attached to the base is what make chemistry so cool. This particular cleaning solution contains EtOH + monobutyl ether compounds. I was mistaken to say it was the base. I pulled the MSDS sheet to confirm. The EtOH+monobutyl ether aids in rinsing. As with most other cleaning compounds, Sodium phosphates, triphosphates, hydroxides and other salts act as the surfactants.

I have not tried sunbrite product yet but ordered a 30 gal kit of conrete cleaner, basically KOH which is similar to NaOH. Shipping was a bit steep actually more than product cost...ouch. My normal degreasers are a ethylene glycol base

Matt, I really appreciate the info yesterday about ipower and building your own site. I found that my computer already has a web site building program. I have to look at it a bit closer and see if it significantly different. Thanks again