1st Commercial - Old Church

I got a call today from a friend who recommended me to the paster of a church. I’ve been doing residential house washing for a bit now and was just starting to do my research on breaking into commercial. I have a few questions for all you knowledgable folks out there :slight_smile:

  1. Does anyone know what kind of stone this is? Also, whats the best way to wash all the black junk off. I’m assuming its organic growth. I was thinking X-jet at 3% at first, then climb from there. I would be renting a lift since the tallest part is about 45 feet in the air.

  2. The gutters are super rusty and probably half of it is missing paint. I removed rust from gutters before but all of my reading says to use F9 Barc. Apply with a pump sprayer, scrub a bit with a brush, and rinse thoroughly.

I really want to venture out into other income avenues with pressure washing, but want to learn all I can before I royally screw something up. Here are some pictures of the church. I also uploaded a video of me walking around the church.

The black growth should come off with a 4-6% application. I use a 12v. I wouldn’t bother with the gutters personally

Those gutters are pretty bad. I figured they were beyond any sort of saving.

In my reading here on this forum, people were saying stone takes several applications because of the pores in the stone. Should I expect 3-4 applications of SH? I use Elemonator for my HW mix, could I use the same or should I use something with more cling to allow the SH to soak in more?


This took one application of 6% in the rain. The white trim took 3 and a little bit of pressure.

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This is before I finished the trim *


This only took one pass if I think like 4%

Great! Those look good! Thank you for the knowledge and reassurance.

1 more question. How long do you think this job would take? I know everyone works at different speeds and there are variables on how quickly it takes for the mold to be removed. Since this would definitely be my largest job yet, I am thinking 4 days if I move slow or there are other factors that slow me down. I learned in the Army to “Move with a purpose” and I have yet to shake that :slight_smile:

No idea how big it is or scope of work.

Ha, that info would be helpful. It’s 7,000 sq ft and just be cleaning the exterior. I took a video of me walking around it and uploaded it to youtube. The link is in my initial post.

4 days is an awful long time. I’m not sure what kind of equipment you have but I would think it’s doable in a single day.

Ok, I honestly had no clue. It’s a completely different animal then I’m used to. I didnt want to say it would only take 1 day and it a totally takes 3 days. I have 4gpm 4000 psi unit.

Just a thought, but after you walk it once, walk it like three more times. I haven’t washed a church but did ones windows, and in the walkthrough they pointed out a ton of stuff of significance to them that I wouldn’t have thought about.
Don’t want to etch some small bronze figure of Saint someone that’s keeping the demons away.

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Ha! Would that statue keep away personal demons?!?! After I did a walk around videoing the church, I walked around it 2 more time to take a bunch of pictures and see if I missed something. I was just reading a thread about SH corroding bronze. I didnt notice if any of the door handles were bronze but I’ll just plan on covering them. It’s just over an hour away from me so i dont really want to make a special trip just to walk around it again but I work in that area occasionally so I’m sure I’ll get to it again. Before I actually start the work, I’ll be walking around it with the pastor. Our schedule didnt line up to meet him the first time I checked it out.

Yeah watch that bronze. I ruined a door handle last week with HW mix. The finish melted right off and ran down the door.

If you’re by yourself, using an x-jet, a lift, and using a 4gpm machine then it very well could take 4 days. My process would be treating everything with a 12v system while 1 or 2 guys are rinsing. I don’t think I would need a lift.