Pressure Washing

Tom Rohland

PressurePro,


I'm still having a problem determining:

#1 If the method you're describing should be advertised as hand scrubbing or pole scrubbing. It is misleading.

I can certainly apply more elbow grease if I have the brush in hand; as opposed to having the brush on the end of a 6' pole, never mind on the end of a 20' pole. Don't you agree?

Is this the technique you use for 'prepping gutters to paint' on a two story Colonial? Or is it just the house wash.

It doesn't seem that you can do any more than just lightly swipe the brush across the gutter.

Where is the leverage coming from?

Must be a house bath.

#2 Do you offer paint prep service?

Tom Rohland, Jr.
Ranger Painting & Pressure Cleaning, Inc.
Lake Mary, Florida

PressurePros

Tom, I already addressed this in post #32 and subsequent posts thereafter to support.

__________________
Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

Nathan

You know, we actually do have a pressure washing forum under Specialty Trades. I'd move it but this has already gotten a lot of good posts so I'll leave it so people don't loose their place.

Anyways, next time remember that we have a whole topic for this topic her: Pressure Washing

Thanks

__________________
Nathan

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

fez-head

Hey Tom,

I dont think Ken is trying to bust your balls. If you use the right chems (we use f-13 gutter gernade from Bob at Pressure Tek) you should not have to apply much pressure at all to clean the exterior gutters extremly well.

I have found out the hard way that on oxidized gutters that are as little as 5 years old you can easily rub the finish right off with to much pressure. Let your chems do the work for you.....they are much cheaper than labor.

We also advertise this as hand scrubbing - verses sprying on with a sureflo on and rinsing off (which is the method most chosen by our clients due to the great results and much lower cost)

We house wash for cosmetic reasons only. Prep work is a PITA and I want know part of it. Ladders, chemicals and high pressure water are not a very good combination unless it is your only option.

PressurePros

Let's start here. Your equipment sounds up to par (how many gpm does it flow?) The house sounds like it was a real bear.

My better housewash rig is setup as follows on a 14' box truck:

24 horsepower 3500 psi/5.5 gpm hot water unit (gas motor, diesel fired) I have 250' of blue non marking hose hose on my reel w/stainless QC's at every intersection and a heavy duty ball valve at the gun (to be able to change guns without shutting off machine). We use the double braided blue non marking 3/8 hose. The rig has 3 50' sections and 3 100' sections of regular 3/8 h/p hose as a back up or for when we are doing commercial flatwork. We have 100' of contractor grade 1" garden hose on a reel for supply with another 2 50' backups. We carry a 100 gallon reserve on the truck and can tote 500 gallons on a separate trailer. Chemical injection is done via a General stainless downstreamer that is undersized for the machine (creates a better venturi for increased draw) We also have extension wands, brushes, ladders and anything else you could possibly need during a cleaning including 12 volt driven chemical pumps and a host of specialty cleaners.

When I say our mix is proprietary I am referring to the housewash mix. It is custom blended by a local chemical house and has taken a lot of refinement to get where its at. There are good blends I can guide you towards though that are effective and are available via shipping. Nothing you can get at a box store or in a paint store comes remotely close. Jomax is a joke. You're better off using Dawn dish liquid.

Application: Downstreaming is the way to go. You need a zero orifice nozzle that will trigger the suction in your downstreamer. Depending on the flow rate of your machine a #25-#30 works fine. You also have to start with a higher concentration of sodium hypochlorite. You'll have to research where to get that. Using a 6 foot wand with this nozzle a guy 5'6" will get 50' of working height with no wind. Wind might knock off another ten feet but you can still hit a 2 story house with an exposed basement.

Have you ever seen the commercial for 409 where they spray a refrigerator and the dirt liquifies and runs down the refrigerator before they even begin to wipe? Same principal here if you are using the right blend. I cannot give that to you here.

Procedure
Guys pull up with a work order. They know where to park, what they will have to move and where the hose bib is. Crew leader sets up the detergents, the helper runs the hoses and moves flags, furniture and potted plants. If customer opted to have screen brightened, these are all removed and pretreated as well. Homeowner has to be present for this upgrade.

All vegetation as well as windows are prewet thoroughly. Soap is applied from bottom up. Sprayer moves to second side while helper brushes gutters and then brushes glass with a different brush(again if customer upgraded plans). By the time the second is sprayed with detergent, the first side is ready for rinsing. First all windows are rinsed then the ground vegetation is rinsed. The house is then rinsed from top to bottom. Sray is directed as perpendicular to siding as is possible as to not drive water under siding. The same care is given while soaping. Repeat for other two sides.

There are a bunch of things that might change certain orders like gutter cleanout or roof cleaning but this is the gist of the wash. The house pictured in post#38 took under two hours and homeowner was charged $395.

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Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

AAPaint

Not jomax, that's for sure! I use a couple extra ingredients that I keep to myself. Bleach is a must though or the mold and algae aren't going anywhere. We hand scrub any mold we find, but we use a scrubber on a 6' pole only....and yes, we have no-see-ums, they are a sonofabitch! My biggest enemy during summer is your everyday gnat. They fly right in your eye, up your nose, in your ear, land on your face. It's like "hey, don't mind me in the corner of your eye!!" What do those things think?

As far as powerwashing.....Dirt dobbers are the worst bugs to worry about. They build nests all over houses made of mud and their saliva. It eats into the paint and leaves permanent stains.

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

Squrtgun

Ken,
I want to help you out with this,but honestly I'm burned out right now.Since last monday we have knocked out 6 roofs,5 house washes(2 of those were over 6000 sq ft),2 McDonalds a Ruby Tuesday and done windows for another 4 Mickey D's.

To the rest of you,
The methods that Ken employs are considerd industry standards for pressure washing contractor.The vast majority of us do not do paint prep and the softwash tecniques do work exactly as Ken describes them.

PressurePros

Thanks Scott, I'm good. I envy you staying that busy this time of year. Next year I am reintroducing commercial full bore.

__________________
Ken Fenner
Pressure Washing PA
Roof Cleaning Services PA

axnjoe

I understand that alot of people just power wash as a cleaning service but this is posted in the painting section cuz us painters dont always have to just strip old paint before painting.

axnjoe

Ken
It soulds like our set ups are very similar. exept for our material pumps.
I have more supply hose than pressure hose.
I do not have the ball valve at the gun. Never needed it yet.
We never injected chems. I know there is one on there but can remember which type.
What is house hold bleach, 5 or 6%hypochloride?
If I were to use that in our application, it would be mixed at 1prt bleach to 3prts water.
The bleach we use is much stronger, eg. mix 1 : 15 to =the above strength.
We have other common household cleaners on truck in small qtys.
Our procedures are a bit more precautious. And we are usually integrating paint prep procedures as well as many more amenities.
I think that your cleaning solutoin greatly out perform ours.
How is it on delicate plants?
What effects are there when left to dry on glass?
At what cost per sqft?
What kind of qty are you talk'n for the small house in the pic?I would guess that size house to be 1400 -1700 sqft.