I honestly don’t know what I’m doing wrong with these occasional roof stains. Customer had me doing a front housewash and asked if I could do something with the black stain coming out of the downspout.
Now this is after I ‘cleaned’ it, started with about 3% then closer to 5-6% and some Snotmenade. It lightened it up some but certainly didn’t make it go away. Some of you guys know I keep asking what I’m doing wrong but this is really getting frustrating. If I don’t get things sorted out I will just have to turn down any roof washes.
Sure it’s not just worn away granules revealing the tar base?
If not that, I’d say dump that DIY proportioner and buy one that will actually pull consistently and be sure to install it correctly. I feel like your problem is you think you’re using 3% but in reality you’re using 1% because you have some cobbled together fittings and terrible valves and expect it to be accurate.
Could be wrong though. But I clean roofs and have never had 1/10th of the issues you seem to encounter on a regular basis.
I feel like it’s just a stain as the shingles were still loaded with granules, best I could tell.
I did rebuild my proportioner last winter with ‘official’ valves, block and check valves. The mix was definitely strong but guess I’ll have to do a draw test here soon to figure out exactly the proportion.
Yep, do a draw test and verify that it’s actually pulling what you think it’s pulling. I cannot think of anything else that would give you such troubles. It’s either A) “bad” SH or B) your proportioner isn’t pulling what you think it is. That’s really about all it could be.
Hop up there on your ladder with a pump up of straight SH and spray it pretty good. See what happens. Sometimes you get stubborn stains and have to hit 3-4 times with a regular roof mix.
Plus make sure when you’re doing a roof always start with spraying the bottom 2-3 feet with a solid, light coat first, then spray at the top. It looks like from your pic, that you’re not doing that.
A couple of reasons why. First it puts down a base coat which will keep you from having so much runoff and 2nd when you’re up there and you start at top and work down, by the time you get down it’s all saturated and you think it’s got plenty of mix on it, but in reality it’s got plenty of runoff, so even if you do spray it a little more, it’s too diluted, by all the runoff coming down. See how your bottom shingles where they curl down are actually the worse now. Imagine the line at the top of your base coat as your new gutter and that’s about where you want your runoff to stop. Of course it doesn’t exactly, but that pre-done area will act as some resistance and most the runoff will stop before it gets to the actual gutter. The steeper the roof, the more baseline you want to give yourself. May be 4-5 feet on a steep roof.
Also, when you put your ladder up, make sure you don’t put up under the worse part. Put off to the side a little. Reason why, it’s harder to spray right there at your legs, ladder in the way, etc. If it’s off to the side a little, easier to make sure you can get to the bottom of the shingles and it’s not splashing all over you. Another reason to put an on-off valve on your gun so you can cut it down to just a light trickle when you’re spraying right in front of you or at your feet.
Pump spray that bad boy several times…if that works, something wrong with your proportioner. I get those gutter runoff stains often and I have to treat with several applications like @Racer said. I don’t remember one not coming clean or lightened to the point where it was good enough. That one is obviously pretty noticeable still. Hope you get it figured out though….can be frustrating. Had some fallout last week that I finally got off some vinyl……takes time sometimes.
what are you currently using for fallout removal? I know the info has been beaten to death on this forum, but I kind of switched to using my deoxidation stuff and a brush. Get a lot of fallout from triaxle coal trucks on houses by the roadside. I used to use a degreaser, but I found I was brushing more and reapplying than when I used the acid or dlimonene (however you spell it) stuff.
Straight OneRestore…let sit 5-7 minutes, soft brush and rinse……sometimes it takes several treatments depending how bad it is. I keep going back to the OneRestore though…
Of course I had to get the roof stain hardest to clean lol. Thanks Rick and Donny, I need to pick up a couple Chapin sprayers and keep them in the trailer for stuff like this.
I downstream wire wheel cleaner. Sometimes if bad, will have to hit it 2-3 times with about 2 -3min in between. Then just rinse. Have never had to pull out brush. Brushes and I don’t get along well, lol.
I couldn’t live w/o my pump ups. I keep 4-5 on my truck build and 6 on my trailer.
And then a couple of new ones as spares, because invariably one will go down or seal will start leaking. Kind of like injectors, some last a month and some 6 months
Curious, have you used the racer approved application device ™ to apply anything other than SH? I’ve used it for sodium percarbonate and some citric, but nothing more powerful than that.
I had some last 3 years, but I don’t store anything in them. They get rinsed out immediately after use and I pump clean water through them. The sun actually deteriorated them more than the chems. That shouldn’t be as big of a problem for you as you have an enclosed trailer.
Is that aluminum cleaner? I know some guys that buy that stuff from Napa. I’ve never used it….probably a lot cheaper, I’m 30.00 gallon for OneRestore. Of course the f9 stuff is 50.00 plus per gallon….does the stuff you use, can it be used safely on all different substrates? I’ve never had any issues with OneRestore, I’ve used it on about everything you could wash safely, no issues. Would entertain trying some others that isn’t necessarily marketed for pressure washing……just am a not broke don’t fix type guy. But don’t want to box myself in either……
LOL, I thought so too. But that’s for bigger than say 1/2 - 2/3s of a pump up, So say from 1g - 10g use the Ryobi. More than that probably cranking up the 12v
to apply anything other than SH? I’ve used it for sodium percarbonate and some citric, but nothing more powerful than that.
