Artillery Fungus, Gone..

[Guest rfitz]

Well after a few short months of experimenting, I have came up with

a formula, for elimanting artillery fungus, you know the little black spots that

love bottom of gutters, facia, siding etc.. and that alone has really set me apart, most Power washers in my area tell the customers, there is nothing that can get rid of that, and they are wrong, and that has got me a ton of exterior house washing jobs, after perfecting the formula, I will make it availabe to contractors..

[ron p 500]

i want some

[Paul B. 523]

Rob,

I hate to say this but I'm skeptical at best.

I have tried many chemicals and have found some that I have been able to remove it with. The hardest part is NOT removing it, but not crossing that thin line of damaging or removing the coating.

A no touch method for removal of a year old artillery fungus without possibility of damaging the coating or substrate would be interesting to see.

What specific advertising did you use to get that ton of house washing work?

[Guest rfitz]

Hey Paul,

It started out as a fluke, I did a house in a subdivision, and the neighbors

saw it, and had their houses washed in the past, but no one ever removed it and after that, I now put a sign in the yard of the house we are washing, but then we put flyers on all the houses in that subdivision, stating what we can get clean, and approx what we charge, I also put in my flyer, FREE patio or driveway wash with every housewash, it only takes me an extra 1/2 hour to clean them since I have a surface cleaner, but it gets me alot of extra work I wouldnt have got, I will also start putting in my flyer FREE gutter wash with housewashing, but here is the trick, I will only wash the front of the house gutter, and charge them $50.00 if they want the back gutter done, well obviously if they see how clean the front is, they will have the back done..

Also, I wont give out my complete trick on artillery fungus, but next time try this, with your X-jet, apply full strength pool chlorine at 15% to the gutters and facia, usually where I live that is where it is the worst, I then continue to wash the house as normal, after I am done washing the house, I come back

and with a 0040 tip I hard rinse the fungus and it is gone, a light spray will not remove it , sometimes but not always, I havent had a house yet, that is hasnt came off, but it needs at least 20 min dwell time,

Try that test and let me know your results please..

Good Luck

[Paul B. 523]

Trying the shutgun fungus removal method even as we speak.

I hope you are placing a maximum on the size of the FREE driveway, patio, walkway wash. Majority of our driveways are over 1000 sq ft (a lot of them are in the 2000 to 3000 sq ft range). Even the walkways and porches on a lot of our houses are large. Including it in the price does not seem to motivate people in our area as much as when they see it in contrast to a clean area.

We tend to work things the opposite way in using the concrete work as an add-on (or up-sell). It ends up about $46 per 1000 sq. ft. (or about $1 per minute). Fairly easy to sell once we clean a small area for free as we wash the house. We clean a small part of the walkway, driveway, patio and then ask if they would like that done. Works well a majority of the time. The other incentive is when we show a cost savings of doing it while we're there vs. if we have to come back another time. Our minimum is $135 no matter how small the job if we start out from even the next street.

I would think if you did the house front gutter, it would be hard to sell the rest of it for $50 (especially if it's in the back of the house). See how your approach works. If it doesn't work real well, you may want to not include it in the work (make sure it's spelled out on the contract as "NOT included"), and as you wash the house, clean a very small section then show it to the customer and see if they are willing to add that on. Another approach would be to demo a small section when you are providing the estimate, providing a price with and without the gutter wash. Once a small part of the gutter is clean, it's hard for most customers to leave something partially cleaned. The gutters are always included in our costs and estimates, but most folks don't even realize how dirty a white gutter is until they see the contrast.

[John T 744]

Every House wash I do the gutters and shutters are included in the price. IT says so on the estimate sheet/contract that I use. Every thing extra they pay. We give nothing away free. Don't need to. I use to but now I am so much better at selling a job and I get top $$$$ and they get excellent results.

Everything is done correctly with ABSOLUTELY no short cuts. My REPUTATION is numro uno to me and I Build my business on that!!!!

[Guest rfitz]

When I say FREE, I just have it built into the price, there is no such thing as a free lunch, would you rather have 10 housewashes a week or 20 ?

you have to be able to set you apart from the other ads, and FREE is always

a way to get the 1st call, it is marketing 101...

[John T 744]

Can't argue that.Its like you say "marketing 101".

As always its what works best for you so if it works stick with it. As for me I don't use it because I don't need to but it doesn't mean I will never use it.

[Paul B. 523]

Rob,

I tested your approach to Artillery Fungus removal and here are my results:

- It's hard to keep straight chlorine on any surface for 20 minutes without reapplication or a surfactant additive. (This is especially true in the summer heat and direct sunshine.) So I added a squirt of dish detergent.

- I soaked gutter and vinyl siding with 12-1/4% Sodium Hypochlorite and soap mix (no water) for 30 minutes. Area was in shade, temperature about 83F with humidity about 85%. Applied bleach soap mix every 3-5 minutes with a hand sprayer even if it was not starting to dry .

- After 30 minutes, I rinsed with pressure washer (about 2000 psi).

- A lot but not all of the fungus washed off the gutter area and downspout. I suspect the newer ones came off and the old stuff remained on there. (Just a guess, I could be wrong.)

- The only impact to the fungus on the vinyl was that it easily removed the top layer of it. This is helpful, but it did nothing to remove the stain underneath the build-up. Most of this was older fungus about 1 year or older. The remaining stain could not be removed even with fingernail scratching. I soaked vinyl surface again for 30 minutes and rinsed without being able to remove any residue.

I have to assume that because of the porous surface of the vinyl, the fungus adherance is much stronger.

I was able to remove the residue with MEK, however, this also dulled the vinyl surface. (I knew this would happen as I had done this before but I needed to see how easily it would remove the stain).

Let's see what results other folks obtain using your methods.

[Guest rfitz]

Paul for some reason, I see the artillery fungus more on the newer homes,

so it hasnt been there very long, and from I have read on fungus, mold, mildew etc.. it starts growing there alot longer before you actually see it,

A house that is completely covered in in it siding, facia, gutters etc..

I wash the house as normal, all surfaces with my normal downstream mix,

3 gallons chlorine, 3 gallons Emuls. plus. then I hit the gutters, facia, with straight chlorine thru my x jet, (with a pump up if real bad) wait 20-25 min and rinse off, for me it comes right off, if not I repeat process on stubborn areas, but usually that will do it, also I have tested sodium hydroxide and that too will kill it, but it removes paint also, so I dilute my chlorine with sodium hydroxide, and that always works, test with that as a booster, and see if that works better..

[Paul B. 523]

I did test an area mixing Sodium Hypochlorite with Sodium Hydroxide without any improvement in results. I did not increase the Sodium Hydroxide content because of concerns with removing the paint from the gutter area. I will try to boost the Sodium Hydroxide content and test on vinyl siding only.

Artillery Fungus is not a major concern in our day to day cleaning as we have only seen it on about 3 homes so far this year.

What's interesting is that I have it on a small part of 2 sides of my shop and there is no mulch within 40 feet of either of the areas. I do have mulch in other areas but no fungus near by.

[Mike Williamson 198]

Does anyone have any good pics of artillery fungus? I've never seen it here.

Thanks!

[Paul B. 523]

I don't have macro on my digital, but I'll see if I can capture one on Tuesday. (Hope I can remember.)

[ron p 500]

pin head sized blak dot's that leave a brown residue when picked off.

You mostly see this where the sun shines on soft wood mulch.

True bark mulch's have less. Marble chip's have none.

Shotgun fungus is the mulch industrie's biggest stumbleing block.

If their were a cure they would have it.

The mold spore shoot's out with 200,000 horse power and can shoot up to 250 ft.

Ive seen it on the 3erd story gutter's and window's.

Your homeowner's insurance will not cover damage by this mold.

Removal of the mulch is reccomended as the ONLY cure.

The faster you get it off the better off you are.

I use a 40 deg tip and 200 deg water.

I repaint painted surface's.

Black mulch is the worst. It absorb's the heat and hold's it.

Im doing a job where this is a major problem as we speak.

The mulch was installed less then 45 day's ago.

Landscaper wont remove or replace without chargeing.

[Paul B. 523]

Most mulch is aged and the fine mulch is double chipped with some againg between the 2 steps. (Info I gathered talking with 2 large landscapers in my area that make their own mulch.)

The fungus is already in the mulch before you buy it (in majority of the cases.)

I put down one batch in an area that is always in the shade, and within 2 weeks I had those nasty spots on the wall. Out of the same batch, I put down some in an area that's always sunny and that area does not have any fungus spots.

I have spots in areas 90 degrees (around the corner from the mulch) and areas that are not in line of sight of any mulch at all.

I assume that these pores are carried by the wind when they get airborne and arrive at their random destination on a windy day. Without the wind, it's most likely a straight shot.

Ron,

That 200,000 HP sounds a bit high (could get hurt if you got bombarded by a few). The numbers I read were in the 1/10,000 HP range. Regardless, these spores are pretty nasty. I wonder if a regular application of Preen say (March, May and July) would eliminate the problem?

I'm not sure how much it helps, but here is a photo of an area covered with the fungus.

[ron p 500]

it's 1 10,000th's of one horse power.

Dont know where the heck i got that other number in my head.

[dk34 14]

Another pic, and an article:

http://aginfo.psu.edu/news/july97/fungus.html

[Guest rfitz]

This is not the type of artillery fungus I was referring to, here in st. louis,

we have a different type I guess, I will take photos and post what it looks like here..

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

There is an article about artillery fungus in the Library. The link also takes you to photos I think. Some people mistake artillery fungus for mildew. Both have a shotgun pattern, but only one is easily removed. There are probably other fungi that grow on siding too.

Beth

[Aplus 525]

Spider droppings are similar looking too. But they are often confined to a small area.

Spider droppings can also be difficult to remove.

[Mike Williamson 198]

I have never seen anything here that looks like that, nor have I ever heard of it being a problem around here.

anyone else here in FL seen/heard of this being a problem?

[Don Phelps 85]

Yep! I see it often on vinyl siding and it IS very difficult to remove.

Don