Hey yall… been awhile since I got on here. Has anyone ever tried “Agent Halt”? I’m pretty sure that’s the name. Supposably it’s a neutralizer for SH.
Seems to have worked for this guy:
Seems pricy though:
Just 11 months later…you’re a little late to the party.
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Lol I knew that, that guy hasn’t been here since February of last year.
I was just throwing it into the mix, seeing if someone would say something about that product, I hadn’t heard about it before.
Just messing with you a lil bit.
I’ve never used it before but I’m very intrigued. I would of took a water fed pole to those windows.
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Bump…any one know have any experience with this product?
Never really found a need to neutralize bleach. Water will do the same thing
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I’m interested in its ability to leave the glass streak free.
Water will not neutralize, just dilute. In most situations thats okay, but being able to completely neutralize is better.
I use it mainly to rinse my aodd pump after use, but have used it on glass.
I found just rinsing the windows with water to be better and usually leaves them pretty good. Halt was always hit and miss for me with windows. It may not have been diluted properly though as im not one to worry about exact ratios all the time.
I want to test if it will kill grass thought. Need to test it on my roof, as i want to try it as a rinse agent on the roof. That way if it rained right after a roof cleaning it would not matter.
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Okay. I’ve never really found the need to neutralize my self. I do have issues with spotting from hard water though. Now I’m thinking that I could probably just down stream some citric acid to soften the water. Ill have to experiment.
@Clean1 check out this thread on easy spot free water! Post 14 is where the gold can be mined
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Thanks for chiming in. I have an do/ di system. But it doesnt produce enough flow for me to spray in on Windows with a pw. I suppose i could carry a pure water tank on my trailer but its not something that I’m interested in doing honestly. If I could just spray something on the glass along with the tap water that’s already feeding my tank that would be ideal.
Regarding the link you posted I will say that it’s probably not real smart to undermine the admims on this site. They’re running a business based on selling the products you’re trying to create and while it is a public forum its only public to an extant. This whole forum is funded by their sales. I understand what you’re trying to say and do but everything has it’s place and time.
I do appreciate you’re feedback though.
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I don’t know of anything you could put in your tank that will consistently produce better rinsing off glass with hard water (maybe @CaCO3Girl could chime in on the topic). Experimenting with different surfactants may help. I find that Elemonator rinses much more nicely than other “otc” soaps I used in the past.
Your best bet if you already have an RO/DI system & WFP, I believe, is to upsell a “pure water scrub & rinse” along with screen washing. Depending on the job, I’ll get between $3-$8 per window for this service.
I let the customer know that power washing has a tendency to spot up the windows, and the scrub & rinse will leave them 99% clean in most cases. I don’t sell it as “window cleaning” unless I will be cleaning insides as well, and can inspect for drip marks or missed gunk.
If the customer opts for this added service, I request that they remove all the window screens ahead of time and stack them in a central location. I wash them while I’m doing the housewash, and they take maybe 10-15 seconds per screen. The rinse & scrub is maybe 45-60 seconds per pane.
So I feel like the customer and I make out really well on the deal. Say they get a housewash on a small home with 15 windows. Depending on difficulty, I may tack on $50-75 for the scrub and rinse service. That takes me 20-30 minutes extra, so I’m still hitting my goal of $150/hr, and not spending any gas or chemicals to do it; just a negligible amount of DI resin. And the windows come out just as clean or cleaner than they could do themselves, in most cases.
Had they called me just to clean the exteriors of 15 windows without any power washing, I would have informed them of my service minimum of $225. But even if they got around that somehow by getting a neighbor to sign up or something, I would still charge close to $150 to clean them by hand, since it would be a first time clean on nasty windows and screens, and could take 1.5-2 hours.
While your comment is well intentioned, and I think we all should feel impelled to support this site however we can, I just want to point out what one of the founders, @Chris had to say on the topic:
And further comments:
But I think that @Alex made some really great counter arguments of why the average window cleaner or pressure washer shouldn’t try to DIY an RO/DI system. Some have done it successfully, but the time investment often outweighs any savings. The old adage, ‘tripping over dollars to pick up pennies’ comes to mind.
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Thanks for cluing me in Alex.
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With regard to the Agent Halt, I tell people to use baking soda and water or soda ash and water. The SDS for Agent Halt looks a whole lot like the SDS for soda ash, in my brief look.
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There are special surfactants for rinsing free, I’d look into car washes, they often have the surfactants that have the sheeting action you are looking for. You could also play with adding white vinegar. Most window cleaners have either ammonia or vinegar in them, but us science geeks call it glacial acetic acid.
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@Infinity you’re an asset, no, a pillar to this community. Thank you for your detailed, researched and useful posts.
Sorry I figured I could help people save 1500 bucks… How ever u can run a splitter at your reel and reduce down to 1/4 hose the water pressure just from the garden hose thru your di system will be sufficient enough to rinse glass with ease. U can even buy one of them extension poles and a brush at lowes and drill a hole or holes in your brush and feed the 1/4 hose and you have a diy water fed pole. Its fantastic and not only affordable but I saved over a grand 
No need to apologize. People are free to take your advice if they want to. But as a public community, don’t be surprised when people with more experience point out the caveats of your suggested solutions.
From a business perspective, it’s not really ‘saving’ you $1,500 once your homebrew system starts cutting into productivity. Maybe you can assemble it and experiment in your spare time, but the first time it starts giving you trouble on the job, you begin losing money.
And as far as ‘saving’ $1,000 with a DIY wfp, well, I’m not sure how much carpal tunnel surgery costs nowadays, but I bet the surgeon doesn’t even scrub-in for that much… extended use of floppy poles lead to repetitive strain injuries…
Not everyone will be using a pole for hours on end and need a $1000 pole. But to tell people they can “save” $1000 by rigging up a crude imitation is not really fair. It would be more accurate to simply state that not everyone needs to spend big bucks just to get started with wfp window cleaning, and they may be able to get by for a time with cheaper/homebrew stuff.
But for most guys trying to actually make a living at it, it doesn’t usually make good business sense. It’s like recommending that someone ‘save money’ by getting a homedepot special to start out power washing.
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What ratios should these be diluted at. I’m looking to buy agent halt today for an upcoming roof with no gutters and a lot of labscaping. But this post got me curious. I only want it for roof cleaning of which I typically use about 5% sh with cling on. The overspray is usually hit mid air before it even reaches the vegetation but inevitably some gets by, especially without gutters.
I’ve seen on Facebook a couple guys are pre treating landscaping with agent halt using a foam cannon. Apparently with a lot of success.
Without mixing known mix ratios I’d rather buy overpriced products.
What’s your thoughts.
