plainpainter

It's nice having several trades - at least I can go indoors and do some interior painting. Oh wait - nobody is booked for interior painting, damn! Last summer was a washout if I remember correctly in the first half - hope this isn't a bad omen. -Dan

Diedrich technologies makes a stripper for removing 'latex' house paint. It's based upon Potassium hydroxide. But you have leave it overnight. So what do most people here think of Porch & Floor paints for decks, especially latex based ones? -Dan

So I am trying like heck to strip my deck - and I am just dumbfounded as to why it won't come off - at which point I make my solution like 12 oz. of sodium hydroxide, 6 oz. of tsp/sodium metasilicate, 1.5 oz. of tergitol, and a bunch of antifreeze, propylene glycol, all per gallon. And throw that on - I scratch the old coating, and it scratches off - but my pressure washer with it's 40 degree tip isn't taking it off with 2750 psi held a foot away - and if I hold it closer, it gouges the wood. So I say screw this - and hold it close, reminding myself I wanted to sand down the old part of the deck anyways. Well the next day - I go back to making my normal solution of 6 oz. lye 3 oz tsp/sodium metasilicate 1.5 oz. tergitol propylene glycol And I spray all the balusters - then I get a phone call, and forget about what I sprayed on. It is wet up here in New England, so it didn't dry out. So half an hour later I come back to pressure wash it off. Then my hose on the pressure side of the pressure washer springs a leak, damn! Well I have to rinse, so with the decreased pressure I start rinsing - I can put my fingers just 4" in front of the spray - that's how much the pressure drops! So I have to hold the gun right up to the wood. And the stuff came off like butter! without any damage to the wood! Eureka! And I didn't even scrub it! lol. So I will be buying one of those tips that will radically reduce pressure, but give more GPM's along with a new hose. So dwell, and rinse real close with reduced pressure, I am now a believer. -Dan

Why do you want me to call Jarrod? -Dan

Philip - I guess there are two types of pressure washing. I think for the most part alot of guys here offer a service to clean a house. Where as most of my clients I pressure wash for is part of complete service for painting their house as well. In that regards, not only do I want to clean their house - but want to use TSP like compounds to give the paint surface a 'profile' that the new paint will adhere better to. I think most guys' house-washes won't abrade or dull a painted surface - as it shouldn't since you want to leave a client with a bright and clean house. Is it possible to have a liquid detergent mix that can dull a surface for prep for painting like my TSP does? -Dan

Ken - I looked on the pressuretek website. I will be calling them soon, but I was just curious as to how those nozzles work? They don't look like the quick disconnect kind - what other hardware must one get to get the system working. And also - alot of my painting buddies don't use the downstreaming port on their machines. They worry about seals and stuff going - that's why it's just common practice to use the garden pump sprayers. What are people's thoughts about running chems through the downstreaming port? I definitely won't use it for sodium hydroxide, but what about running bleach and stuff - is there a periodic replacement of parts to be considered? I know this won't be running through the pump - but it's still running through hoses and the gun and stuff. -Dan

Just curious - I see some impressive numbers on this website when it comes to pressure washers and their G.P.M's. I read about somewhere the average municipal water supply is only about 5 G.P.M. in residential areas. So I tested my hose - and it turned out to be about 4 G.P.M. So is it practical to have pressure washers much beyond 3.5 G.P.M. for residential use? Are the larger numbers I see being posted - for commercial work with higher output source of water? -Dan

So what do you guys think, is a 300 gallon tank a good thing for me to have? By the way, I love Newburyport - that town is a painter's dream! Lots of nice old homes that are meticulously kept up. -Dan

Dan - actually, when I filled those two 5 gallon buckets - that included the one gallon of solution I emptied. So in those two 5 gallon buckets, 9 gallons is water and 1 gallon is solution - that is where I come up with the 9:1 ratio. Ken - I have a 2.7 GPM 2900PSI 7.0 HP craftsman. The downstreamer injector works of a venturi effect - if I have high flow, then I will have good suction with the venturi. But to have high flow, my nozzle tip has to be wide open - which my soaper tip is, thus it doesn't shoot very far. If I put my other tips on - it will restrict flow and not pick up any solution. So I am really confused about guys who are reaching 2 stories with a downstreamer. How do you get your nozzle to shoot far, yet at the same time have high flow in order to suck up chems? Inquiring minds want to know, lol. -Dan

Thanks for the answers. So I'll have to look into a tank if I want to get more serious with this stuff. For now I am running a Craftsman 7.0 horsepower that is delivering 2.7 GPM @ 2900 PSI. Even now I notice sometimes the line goes 'dead' in that there isn't enough water for like a moment for the pump to pressureize - I imagine it has something to do with air in the lines or something. -Dan

Ok - on my craftsman pressure washer, I have a port for downstreaming. In an effort to get away from using garden sprayers and deck brushes - I am experimenting with the downstreamer to apply chemicals with. I put the tube into a gallon of water - and then put the gun into a 5 gallon bucket. I filled two buckets before emptying the bottle. So my ratio is 9:1. What strength of chemicals do you use? If I fill a 5 gallon full of bleach - I will only get 1 part of bleach to 9 parts of water onto the house - I guess I am fine with that. How about detergent? If I use put a cup of TSP into a 5-gallon bucket in the past when I scrubbed on chemicals - should I just still put one cup in? Or should compute for every gallon of chemicals - 10 gallons of solution makes it way onto the house, so I should put in 2 cups of TSP for every gallon of my mix? My soaping tip only shoots several feet, so I'll still be climbing the ladder to apply chems with, but I guess that's better than a garden sprayer on my back. I'll have to experiement with tips in the future. -Dan

I like the itemization of costs that Rod gave. I'll have to write them down and show my customers, as I run into lots of people with 'easy' buttons lately. I had one customer go on vacation, and told her to turn on her spigot last spring. She called me to say she did, I show up after she has left - and the spigot isn't turned on. The next two homes I go to pressure wash didn't even have spigots! Homeowners love to chisel you down, and then you run into all these unexpected costs and loss of time - it's tough sometimes. -Dan

Zinnser Jomax is based upon acetic acid with bleach along with a little bit of surfactant. And they have had tremendous success with that product. I am not sure about the mix, since I am a TSP/bleach man - which is alkaline as opposed to acidic. My shower stall for instance has been blooming lately with with what looks like red algae and mildew - and has been giving me tremendous foot itch. I have tried everything to clean it - even bleach, nothing has worked, sometimes it looks clean for a few days and bingo it's back. A week ago, I mixed some liquid laundry detergent into a quart spray bottle, with 1/4cup of bleach and a 1/4cup of white vinegar. And it was like setting off the nuclear bomb. It smells just like hospital bathrooms, and has gotten rid of the mildew and red algae or whatever growth, and is the cleanest I have ever seen any shower stall in my life! Now I think this is the best anti-bacterial solution I have come across - as for cleaning homes and decks - who knows? Certainly TSP/bleach has an extremely stong peptizing ability for mildew, but Zinnser Jomax with it's acidic solution has a stong following. Personally, I just mix a gallon of bleach with a cup of TSP/sodium-metasilicate into a 5 gallon bucket, along with 1/2 cup of Tergitol, fill the rest with water - and this solution cleans the heck out of greyed decks - and is a very strong stain stripper. Works great for those really old stains. Of course not anywhere as good as lye strippers like HD80.

I just stained a deck today using Muralo's Lumber Jacket Transparent Decking stain - it is tung oil based with trans-oxide pigments. I also use California's Storm Stain products which are linseed oil based. Muralo is a company in New Jersey, and they make the very best house paint. And the same is true with california - and they're in the same town I live in. -Dan p.s. Muralo's solid oil siding stain puts cabots to shame.

If manufacturers are reducing the spirits in the can so it can pass VOC laws, is that a bad thing - wouldn't we basically get more product for about the same money, as they would be hesitant to raise the price on a can. I can always add my own spirits in. -Dan

vinegar contains ascetic acid, which is the main ingredient of Jomax, or as their advertisement says - bleach activator! Here are a couple of more links http://www.apsnet.org/pd/PDFS/1997/0509-05R.PDF#search='ph%20range%20for%20bleach' http://www.agnr.umd.edu/MCE/Publications/PDFs/FS715.pdf#search='Bleach%20and%20TSP%20not%20effective%20at%20killing%20spores' http://department.caes.uga.edu/poultry/tips/09%201999%20P%20tip%20S%20M%20R.pdf#search='ph%20range%20for%20bleach' The last link talks about how uneffective bleach is when used in conjunction with TSP - as found out in sanitizing a chicken plant. I don't know why my TSP/bleach has worked out fairly well. Or if I am fooled into thinking it's working. -Dan

Try adding one cup of bleach to one gallon of water, and then add one cup of white distilled vinegar, put a little bit of a surfactant - maybe a few squirts of palmolive or something - and tell me how that works. Here is a link I found the other day talking about the effectiveness in bleach in acidic solutions. It's changing the ways I am thinking about my chems. It could also bring more people back to using bleach since you can use a lot less and get better results. http://foodsafetyinfo.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1598 -Dan

Don - I use a gallon of hot water with 1/4 of TSP and 1 quart of bleach, apply, scrub, and then rinse like 20 minutes later. Although I have been reading that sodium hypochlorite bleach isn't really all that effective as a sanitizer in basic solutions. And in fact have read that much lower concentrations of bleach can be used as long as you make the solution acidic with white vinegar or something. so I will be reviewing my chemicals, and experimenting Dan - I think all the professional pressure washers and deck stainers would go bankrupt up here in the Northeast. I am a painter by trade - and have been picking up more pressure washing work, just to make that trickle I call a salary a little more of a current. And I have been astonished how cheap my clients are. I did a coffee table 2 summers ago, with 4 coats of Spar/yacht varnish which was imported from the Netherlands and cost me $135/gallon. The very best stuff money could buy, or a rip-off - not too sure. But I skipped putting on a coat last summer - but stored the coffee table in the shed out of the snow. And it still has failure! So how do you even begin to educate customers that highly thinned alkyk/linseed oil transparent deck stain can't last 5 years in New England weather, when they don't realize that 4 coats of marine varnish needs sanding and a new coat every single year! I personally feel most of these 'nouveau' rich people - really can't afford to maintain their own properties. Sure they have BMW's, 4400 sq. ft. McMansions, summer homes, etc. But when it comes down to having a professional come down, who needs lots of money just to clear his overhead, and they balk at the price. I just lose my mind -Dan

I can see your point Neil - it's getting tough doing everything by myself, and in the event I have one of my guys {who is use to exterior painting} help me out on a deck. Perhaps a tip that is max 1000 psi at 3" will save my butt in the event I hand over the wand to my help. I do have happy customers - and some pains in the a$$ ones as well. LOL - I have this one customer with two homes on Martha's Vineyard, a home on the Maine Coast, a home on Hawaii - as well as his primary residence on the wealthy north shore of Boston, MA. And I asked $900 to apply cleaning chemicals to his deck, scrub, pressure wash, and then seal his deck. It is 10 feet by 50 feet long, wraps around an outside corner of a house about 80 feet of balustrades - two stairways each 10 steps. And he had an absolute cow at the price. And was angry that the deck needed to be resealed after two years - even though it has full southern exposure, no shade whatsoever, and is up against a white house. Made me sick to my stomach. I did the deck 2 years ago for $750 - and didn't think that was enough especially since it swallowed like 7 gallons on the first pass. -Dan

Philip - I am confused. I have seen alot of decks - and I have been involved with lots of deck cleanings with other companies. Why do I have to strive for 800psi at the tip? This is what is confusing to me - yes I have a 3000psi pressure washer. But I don't use the 10 degree tip and place it at 3 inches away from the wood - I am not clueless. I use a wider spray 40 degrees I believe and hold it like a foot away. I don't see any damage done to my decks when I wash this way. If in fact I am damaging - please enlighten me. Like I said before I had a friend pressure wash my decks in the past and he would gouge out the spring grain - all I am doing is lifting off the damaged fibers. Let's see - in general I aim at the cracks between the boards and swing my wand in a pendulum motion - so as to not deliver any 'starting' marks. Then I move sideways - continually swaying the wand, so as to have an evenly cleaned board. And then move to the next crack - with my wand about a foot away at the closest approach in the swinging action. And the boards look nice and clean with no gouging of the wood - how is this an unprofessional job? Thanks for the tip Ken. -Dan

I am a house painter - and I helped a mentor last summer with a house, and he included stripping the deck - which had latex paint on all the deck boards. It was an absolute nightmare! We used gallons and gallons of paint stripper, methylene chloride - and we still had to use grinding wheels for days and days and days. If he had asked for 4 grand for the deck, he would still have lost his shirt, he didn't even ask for half of that! My advice - go to this website diedrichtechnologies.com and look into their 606 product. -Dan

I wish there was a section on this site that had pictures and video of the different mechanical systems people use to apply chemicals with. Everytime I see people talk about Shurflo systems, all I think of is these pumps with no idea as to how to put together a 'system' to make use of these pumps. Maybe a section with photos and a description of where people bought their parts and how they put it together. As to downstreaming - all I can think of is that port on my pressure washer, where I think I could do some serious internal damage if I put caustic strippers through it - I'd rather just save my pressure washer for just water. That's why I just have a 5 gallon bucket, put my chemicals in it - and then I - swab the decks - with my deck scrubber. -Dan

LOL - Mike, I meant UV damaged or whatever it is fiber. Basically, I only like to remove just enough wood to reveal that beautiful color fresh looking wood. I had a friend pressure wash my deck years ago - and he gouged out all the spring grain - and the deck looked horrible. Ken - we finally agree on something, yay! I think fuzzies are just part and parcel with cleaning wood. As I have just said - I saw my friend pulverize the dickens out of my deck - and definitely don't ever want to do that to anyone's deck. But in order to reveal fresh wood - a certain amount of wood the so-called 'damaged' fibers have to be removed to reveal the healthier albeit dead wood. And those are what I believe are the fuzzies. Perhaps a light sanding after the deck has dried? -Dan

Sure I'll call a few people, as to the pressure - that's the pressure at the tip, what it is 10 inches away is a different story. As to the sodium percarbonate and fuzzies - that experiment I did where I scrubbed my cedar fence and then used my thumb over a hose to rinse, that gave the fuzzies. Fuzzies are just the dead wood fibers that haven't completely let go. What I use to gauge as to when too much pressure is being applied, is how much wood is being 'scalloped' from the spring grain as opposed to the summer grain. As long as I am not gouging out the spring grain - and the wood is pretty flat, then I am good. -Dan

I have a B.S in physics and Mathematics - I'll have to bring that up more often in conversation - hee hee. gotta love the clients with all the add-ons that become offended when you tell them it's extra money. I have an Aunt who is worth over a Billion dollars - and she hired a professional to run operations at her brewery. Then he left several months later, and we asked her why - she then went onto say "Well it's not because of the money - we were paying him $25/hr!" LOL, Rich people are the stingeous bastards on the planet. -Dan