Last year was our first year of real business hitting it hard so we are still learning a lot! i owe almsot everything ive learned to this forum! Our first year in business we solely had cold water washers to do home siding and it wasnt a huge issue by any means but was quite time consuming (alot of our time was spent moving ladders around such) but now that we are up and running i recently picked up some hot water tank add-on units for our washers!
We want to use these heaters to our advantage and after really looking into what they can do, i cant wait to get to work this season! Ive been watching videos online for weeks and noticed that 95% of the time we wont even need to leave the ground which is fantastic! I am looking to see what type of spray wands and nozzles you guys recommend to use with the heated wash systems?
I am not following why you think hot water will allow you to stay off ladders washing siding. Hot water is needed to break down grease. If you are washing siding you don’t need it. Figure out what you are doing wrong now. If you switch to hot water be prepared for diesel costs, burnt lines in the grass, dead plants and warped vinyl.
The main reason i purchased it was for greasy dumpster pads/side walks. i dont believe we are really doing anything wrong as far as cleaning siding, never had any issues before! However it seems like from what ive seen watching others online, the mold and dirt runs right off with any type of heat on siding. Our washer is adjustable any where fro 70 to 250 degrees. Im not sure what type of heat they were using and would love to hear what you guys have to say
as of now we have been pressure washing it. Just picked up these heaters and was looking for more insight on everything before we jumped into it and actually used the new equipment for siding!
Im not sure of what you are asking with this post. The title ask for all soft washing experts, but you are pressure washing siding. Are you trying to learn how to soft wash?
“Soft washing” is different than pressure washing.
The term Soft washing means either using a dedicated pump such as 12 volt, air, or gas pumps aka roof pumps, or by using a pressure washer but lower the pressure down to where you can put your hand in front of the stream. What you are currently doing is pressure washing siding, and that has WAY more risk then soft washing. Using high pressure not only takes longer to wash a house but, you could be potentially be forcing water behind siding (which could cause mold between the walls), peeling paint, stir up oxidation, break window seals, etch siding, and more. Also water by its self does not clean very well, all your doing is taking the top layer of visible mold off the siding. By adding hot water if you go too high in temp now you add the possibility of warping the siding.
“soft washing” is a safer more effective method
Most have been soft washing with pressure washers way before vendors saw a niche to sell different pumps. Soft washing with a pressure washer puts out the same pressure, usually with more volume with a machine that is more efficient, capable of many other uses and doesn’t require charging batteries or buying air compressors. One vendor went so far as to try to trademark the name lol. If the OP will get the correct tips for his machine he can clean siding without buying more pumps or using ladders. $3 for the correct tip will save a lot of headaches.
I’m no expert by far but I’ve done my research and the set up I use on soft washing a house works perfectly. When I soft wash vinyl siding I use my 4,000 psi 4gpm cold water machine. I have the 4 j rod soft was nozzles and I downstream from a bucket of SH. The nozzles allow me to wash a 2 story house from the ground with low psi high volume, no risk of damaging windows, paint etc.
Upstate are you using SH currently? If you are you should have no problem having standard house funk just run down the wall. Heat isn’t some kind of miracle worker on residential work. I do a lot of high end homes and had a client last year tell me my cleaning looks 100x better than the person who cleaned it the year before with heat. Where heat ready shines is on oily stains and popping gum. Also as talked about above you are running the risk of burning plants and burning the grass wherever the hose is at rest.
to be honest with you we havent used SH. Thats one thing i really wanted to focus on also was finding a stronger BUT STILL SAFE cleaner. Up until now we have only used stuff that we know is extremely eco friendly and wont have the property (Simple green or something along this lines for siding and various other things for concrete) If theres another mixture you guys could recommend i appreciate it. My biggest fear is damaging somebodys property!
If you are having trouble finding a dealer for sh just go to Walmart and get the pool essentials liquid chlorine. It’s 10.5% and will be more than enough for downstreaming for vinyl siding. I can buy 5 gallons of that for $15 and it will be enough to do 3 vinyl siding houses. So in other words I’ve spent $15-20 on chemical and made $600+. If you aren’t using any SH you are working yourself way too hard.
If you’re downstreaming already, just change your nozzles to lower pressure, add some bleach to your mix and you’re ready to go. I’ve never gotten on a ladder to wash a house. As far as heat on residential house, you don’t want more than probably 110-120 tops. Be careful you can crack glass in winter hitting with too much heat. As stated previously, heat by most of us mainly used for oil, grease removal.
No I put it straight in a bucket and it gets diluted down drastically by the water when downstreaming. I am not really sure what the ratio would be. I have an adjustable injector I just barely Crack it open for vinyl siding and the 5 gallons of SH goes a long way.
There’s your problem bud. You can burn something quicker with heat as you can with SH. I DS all my SH… I run it from full strength down to 75/25 with a 20% injector. Just pre wet the plants and rinse them afterwards and you’ll never have a problem
Yep I usually will go over the whole house downstreaming the bleach with surfactant. It will break everything loose, then I go back and switch out my bucket of bleach for a bucket of water. I use my soap tip to rinse the house and at the same time I’m cleaning the SH out of my system. If you don’t do this you will be constantly replacing your downstream injector or having to put a new ball and spring in it.
