How do you spray your chlorine?

[Exterior Attack PW 14]

How do you guys spray your chlorine for concrete work? Do you downstream or use your low pressure setup (delavan, surflo, flojet) etc. I use downstreaming right now but I am thinking about switching to low pressure so I can mix up the chlorine a little stronger maybe 1:1 or 2:1. If any of you guys use a low pressure setup to spray your flatwork what are you using? What chemical concoctions, ratios etc. Here in florida driveways and sidewalks especially get pretty nasty. I just want to cut down on my time getting the chems to work a little faster.

[krisztian1981 14]

If its really nasty i use flowjet and than high pressure. One time I used 100% chlorine, and even after that sitting for a bit, the only thing cleaned it nice was steam.

argh didn't make a what i wanted on that job, but you live and you learn.

When its not that nasty than the 20% chlorine injector and than high pressure

[All Surface 24]

I normally ds my mix on concrete unless it is really bad. If it's really bad then I will run a strong mix through my SF pump. Sometimes a nice light coating after cleaning and rinsing will kill any left over spores and brighte it right up nice.

[Tracy Handl 108]

You probably do, but I wanted to make sure. Are you using bleach alone, or is there soap added to you solution? Bleach by itself is NOT a cleaner. It's an action chem ( the release of the oxegen is what really does the work) but there needs to be a surfactant to help the water work better. The "soap" will allow the water to lift the stain out by creating affinity with the stain material and the water molecules. As was stated by the speaker at the Myrtle Beach roundtable, more (stronger) bleach doesn't

necessarily make things better. Because the oxegen release happens faster when it's stronger, in some situations, more damage may occure, but not neccessarily more cleaning. Using bleach is fine, but used much above 3% should be cause for great concern for the substrate. Just food for thought.

[douseahouse 21]

i was starting to clean a very nasty driveway when my #1 surface cleaner blew a gasket. i hooked up my spare and got a decent cleaning but left alot of stripes on the concrete. after rinsing off the dirt i m5'ed 12.5% straight with no proportioner which gave me around 4% cleaning power. the stripes disappeared in a short time and the driveway looked great. it cost me a little more to do it this way by having to use more chemicals but the final results were well worth it as the customer was impressed.

rando

[CCPC 26]

i was starting to clean a very nasty driveway when my #1 surface cleaner blew a gasket. i hooked up my spare and got a decent cleaning but left alot of stripes on the concrete. after rinsing off the dirt i m5'ed 12.5% straight with no proportioner which gave me around 4% cleaning power. the stripes disappeared in a short time and the driveway looked great. it cost me a little more to do it this way by having to use more chemicals but the final results were well worth it as the customer was impressed.

rando

This is the procedure that I use on the average algae, mold, mildew driveways that I see around here except I use a high flow pump up sprayer to apply my chem treatment.

1 clean with surface cleaner

2 rinse concrete

3 while concrete is still wet, spray a thin layer of full strength chlorine

4 watch left over grime disappear

5 rinse chlorine if you so choose, but I usually let it dry on the concrete

6 collect check

7 go to next job

I'm a firm believer, when cleaning large build ups of mold, etc that it better to clean the concrete with your surface cleaner first, and then treat with chems. otherwise many times your chemical only cleans/treats the top layer of scum and never reaches the bottom layer. Also you will use far less chems doing it this way.

[GymRat 14]

Downstream Chlorine on minimal dirty crete, and M-5 Chlorine on real dirty concrete.

[Exterior Attack PW 14]

You probably do, but I wanted to make sure. Are you using bleach alone, or is there soap added to you solution? Bleach by itself is NOT a cleaner. It's an action chem ( the release of the oxegen is what really does the work) but there needs to be a surfactant to help the water work better. The "soap" will allow the water to lift the stain out by creating affinity with the stain material and the water molecules. As was stated by the speaker at the Myrtle Beach roundtable, more (stronger) bleach doesn't

necessarily make things better. Because the oxegen release happens faster when it's stronger, in some situations, more damage may occure, but not neccessarily more cleaning. Using bleach is fine, but used much above 3% should be cause for great concern for the substrate. Just food for thought.

So how would you mix it then? I would like to spray it out of my chemical tank because its easier for me to do. I have a 35 gallon tank so what would he ratios be? And what surfactant would you recommend?

[Doug Dahlke 114]

I did a pretty nasty drive a couple of months ago. I tried the walks first and realized that going over this once was not going to work. When I got to the drive I did what was said above, cleaned with just water and the surface cleaner first, rinsed and then went back with chems and did it again. The drive came out great and the real estate agent that recommended me for the job couldn't beleive it came out that good. May have to start doing that as a normal procedure on the bad ones.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

How do you guys spray your chlorine for concrete work? Do you downstream or use your low pressure setup (delavan, surflo, flojet) etc. I use downstreaming right now but I am thinking about switching to low pressure so I can mix up the chlorine a little stronger maybe 1:1 or 2:1. If any of you guys use a low pressure setup to spray your flatwork what are you using? What chemical concoctions, ratios etc. Here in florida driveways and sidewalks especially get pretty nasty. I just want to cut down on my time getting the chems to work a little faster.

In addition to what others have already added, I wanted to ask if you are using hot water as well?

This is one sure way to get chems to work faster and better using less in the process.

Rod!~

[Doug Dahlke 114]

To answer the original question I x-jet my chems on.

[MudDuck 20]

I'm a firm believer, when cleaning large build ups of mold, etc that it better to clean the concrete with your surface cleaner first, and then treat with chems. otherwise many times your chemical only cleans/treats the top layer of scum and never reaches the bottom layer. Also you will use far less chems doing it this way.

Good point but if you need to get any cleaning penetration you should always use some kind of soap. Soap simply put is a "wetting agent" which allows water to penetrate 300% more than water alone. Thats why every fire truck has a big bottle of dish soap on it. For trash bin and bed matrice fires so the water can penetrate deeper / faster. It being a surfactant is only a by product of its original purpose which is to allow water to penetrate. We usually only talk about it being a surfactant because it allows the chem to hold in place so the chem can work longer but equally it allows them to go deeper too.

Hot water is 37% more abrasive than cold water. Thats why when your clothes washing machine blows a hose its almost always the hot water side. This abrasiveness is the only reason why it cleans better than cold water. Put hot water with soap and you get 300% more water penetration with 37% more abrasiveness. Chems just kill the bugs and brighten but you have to get the water down to the bottom for them to work most effectivly.

[Doug Dahlke 114]

Did another really nasty drive today. Pre wet and cleaned with just hot water. Rinsed well and then applied chems and let dwell about 15 minutes. Went over it again with hot water. The drive was exceptionally clean. When I went over it the second time I ran the surface cleaner sort of like a figure 8 perpendicular to the first pass. When it dried there were no lines in it either.

[Doug Dahlke 114]

Here are some before and after pics of the drive I was talking about in the previous post.

[FCPWLLC 233]

I agree with Tracy on this. You can use less Bleach if using a good soap. I use a mix of Sodium Hydroxide and butyl with the usual surfacants.

[Doug Dahlke 114]

On the drive I posted the pictures on I used Power House which is a butyl cleaner that has sodium hydroxide in it with bleach at 3% - 4%.

[Tracy Handl 108]

Great looking work there Doug! Hope you got before and after pictues! They should really have high contrast.