I did an estimate on a house driveway morning, and they have HEAVY oil and rust stains all over. The entire driveway needs a solid degreaser treatment. My problem is the driveway is really inclined. May seem like a dumb question, but I’m in Texas where everything is FLAT 
how do y’all get your degreaser to stay in place?
Thanks
Add some roof snot. But we have lots of hills around here, just spray a few sections at a time, but unless really really steep, it soaks in pretty quick. But sometimes, I’ll spray it a couple of times, walk down the drive and then walking back up.
Do you have at least two on the job?
One person pours this as another one uses a push broom to agitate and it lathers a bit with not much run off.
I’ve used the x-jet too and it foams this particular degreaser. You lose a bit of the strength due to dilution, but if you’re following it with hot water it doesn’t matter much.
I’m switching from this to the purple Zep after I finish off the last two of these so I’m curious… could you mix a surfactant with the purple zep without a significant increase in strength? @Jordie ever tried anything like that?
I’ve never considered adding Elemonator to my degreaser… I’m gonna give it a shot.
It’s just me, and I used a powder based cleaner from powerwash.com called xtreme and it didn’t seem to do much at all. It eventually came up but alot more elbow grease than normal. I’ve been told not to use “big box” brands? But from what I’ve seen you run a pretty big business? Obviously you’re doing something right haha.
Business is growing fast, but it’s far from big I think. Lol
Zep degreaser is dirt cheap. It works pretty good for what you get it for. We use mostly for restaurants that are never going to come 100% clean no matter how hard we try. There isn’t a fast food restaurant in the universe that would pay you what you needed to use EBC which is better, but pricey.
Keep EBC on hand for soot, smaller oil stain spot treatment, etc.
For 3-4 big oil stains on a driveway you do once a year you want EBC.
For 300-400 oil and grease stains you clean monthly you want Zep because anything is going to be an improvement.
7 gallons of Zep degreaser = $60
5 gallons of EBC = $140ish
At least, it probably slants to the right.
Kinda like the unfortunate layout of this particular townhome community we bid last week…
I personally like the citrus degreaser. I have a small reclaim system but I don’t like to use it. Its not that cool to wash a bunch of toxic degreaser down the storm drain every day or every week. At least the citrus is natural and biodegradable.
Im sure. It is sodium hydroxide as the active ingredient.
I had been using Blue Boost as my surfactant with r202 (sodium carbonate, which is not as caustic as sod/hyd. Just ran out of Blue and am going to try Dawn Original.
As to OP, @squidskc is right though, get a stiff brush and lather it up. It will stay longer on the incline.
Also, these filters are good for blocking runoff. At Lowe’s. Pretty cost effective. They are used as initial ground filtration over storm drains before reclaim.
Why not? Just interested.
Use baking soda…its cheap and will mix well with degreaser and wont ran off.
Brush it…and use MEK dries fast but uts good
How much Zep you have to use? what mix ratio? With EBC for general dirty cleaning I use 5oz/gal downstreamed. It’s $115 for a fiver at your local Sherwin Williams if you negotiate a little. Equals $ .19/oz. or call it $1 per gal of mix. Most restaurants you’re not going to use over a gal of mix or at the most 2. You need to go up on your pricing if you can’t make money using a decent soap. For really bad spots, like right outside the door and at the pickup window mix 50-50 in a pump up and just lightly spray and can brush some if needed. Still won’t use that much.
So they still do sell it? I couldn’t find a SW that carried it in my area (MA).
About 1/2 don’t stock it, but they can order and most will keep in stock if you ask them to.
I just asked my local SW to get it for me and they have now ordered it. It took them a couple of days to figure out how. They priced it to me at 122.xx but I think I can talk that down with the store Mgr. I buy Super Deck from them 25+ gal at a time. They don’t have many others that buy in that quantity so they “like” me.
I found I needed to mix it a little stronger than recommended to get a satisfactory result. Maybe I was mixing wrong or got a weak batch. I’ve only had a fiver.
Either way, I usually use 2 gallons of the zep. 2/3 gallon for drive through pad, 2/3 for outside of doors, and 2/3 x-jetted on the dumpster pad.
Even with EBC, a dumpster pad or drive through isn’t going to come back to 100% new. We’ve got restaurant work for the next couple Sundays so I’ll try the EBC again.
In other news, I finally found a chemical distributor that’ll sell me 55 gallon drums of bleach. While there on Friday, he said they have degreaser made from pine sap that is the best he’s ever seen. Ever heard of anything like that?
When I take this drum back for a refill this next Friday he’s gonna pour me off a gallon to try.
Not that it brings it down to the price of ZEP but my local Sherwin Williams will sell me the EBC in 5 gal for 113.xx. (I negotiated) I haven’t pulled the trigger because they have to order 60 gal to eliminate the shipping cost and I don’t think I’ll use enough to justify it. It would save you 27.00 though.
It is a PITA for them to order because the store orders from EBC in CA and it ships from Wisconsin. None of the SW stores are going to carry it unless you ask them.
Cause its a pain in the a** and who wants to do extra work.
