I have a customer who I did a house wash, vinyl, 1%, for October 7th who messaged a month later and said the grass looks burnt. The day I washed it had rained that morning/overnight and it was like a swamp in their backyard.
We’ve been trying to trouble shoot it and it turns out they use hummerts dynagreen which we think may have had a reaction with the SH.
Any clues? Any other experience? My mind is boggled on this since I’ve used 3% on dryvit homes and no issues. This is only the 2nd time I would’ve burned anything and the first was bushes with 3%.
3% is enough to scorch grass…way more delicate then most plants.
But with the conditions you stated there shouldn’t have been much of an issue. Do you have any pictures? Is it ALOT or a customer blowing things out of proportion?
I haven’t been able to go yet. I’m out of town until next week. There was snow on the ground when I was in town.
I’m going to take a look, but a month later I’m not sold it was me. I’m calling the manufacturer of hummerts tomorrow. I washed 3 houses in this neighborhood that week. It was raining all week.
But that doesn’t mean anything since I’m usually in this neighborhood a lot and the customer’s perception is that I burnt the grass. I’m gonna get it figured out so I can stay in the neighborhood. Lol
Yes, you cleaned the gutters on my townhome community 2 months ago. I just looked out the window and after the storm last night I see a handful of leaves in my gutters. When are you coming to take care of that?
I had one lady (past customer) that thought the $79 service call to clean her gutters meant all year. Cleaned them in the spring and she called again in the fall. When I told her it was going to be another $79 service call and I’d do it when I was near she was like… um… I already paid that.
Small house. Did it anyway. But yeah… I can barely fill my gas tank for $79.
I cant imagine its much and i imagine you have in contract its a possibility… if you were DS from a bucket placed in middle of the yard then yeah your an idiot, but you pull from tank so cant be concentrated enuf to kill unless MAYBE a hose was leaking in grass and even then the spot would be unnoticeable
Their backyard has a valley running through it that all the water drains to. They said that’s where it’s concentrated, but that’s 25 feet from the house.
The only other thought is that all the sh drained and settled there. I think it’s possible that area drowned between the rain and washing the house.
Im no expert, in anything really… but thats a long way for super diluted SH to travel across a lawn and kill off plants.
Homeowner sounds like a good ball and looking for someone to blame… but i do understand doing what it takes to keep ppl happy if its a neighborhood that puts food on the table and new toys in the garage/safe.
I can’t see you rinsing with so much water that it flooded the yard with enough water to carry the SH across the lawn to burn it all.
I did some quick calculations to look at how much water it would take to cover a 20x30 rectangle with 3". That sounds like a lot but I was guessing on how much continued flowing water it would take to flow away from the house and saturate the whole area 20’ away. Even if it was half of this, woukdnt the SH be incredibly diluted if you added a couple of gallons to 500+ gallons?
I can see too much fertilizer being applied and burning a lawn.
It sucks when a customer blames you for something you may not have done and you have to appease them to avoid a bad rep. Maybe you should just offer to reseed the lawn and you can spread a $50 bag of grass seed so it will come back with new grass after the winter.
@Power.Wash.It and @Innocentbystander when I call the manufacturer I’m going to see if I can get that in writing. Explain what happened and if the concentration of fertilizer was too high during a super wet week and washing then that’s all they get from me. A reseed.
Playing devils advocate here. But do you think if you prove that it wasn’t you they will be ok and happy with that? Even though we all know it was right?
Just wondering if making a call and stating that “it’s never happened before and it was likely not us. But I feel obligated to correct the situation. If you would like we can hire to have the grass seeded in the spring of it does not come back”
That way they don’t spread it around the neighborhood. I had a lady claim I killed her bush this year. I know I didn’t do it because I remembered it browning when I was there in the summer. She had “trimmed” more than half of the back of it off and stunt it. I explained to her that it was likely not my fault but I would gladly plant a new bush in the spring. I went and cut it out of the ground a week later so she didn’t have to stare at a burnt bush.
I suggest a $50 bag of grass seed now and 30 minutes of time, if that, to hand spread it and immediately let the customer feel though they were taken care of now, instead of early next year…
I wouldn’t want to wait until spring to seed so the customer won’t have to keep the seeds moist and get better results as it grows roots over the winter. I would take as much of it out of their hands as possible with the least amount of reasonable effort to satisfy them ASAP and get them to feel warm and fuzzy again.
I’m actually about to overseed my own lawn now. We got our first 1/4" of snow today so when the rain tomorrow melts it, I’ll throw seed right before the next snow.
