Happy 4th everyone!
A regular customer of ours has a bunch of paver work for us in the backyard of her $1.5 million home (yes, we like her, lol). She pointed out these black spots that she wants removed and I’m not sure what they are. They sorta look like grease but they aren’t. Any idea what they are and/or best way to remove them?
I have had what looks like the same thing. In my area it is Crepe Myrtle seeds that have fallen and stained the pavers. I have also seen pecans fall and stain a concrete surface. Any tree or shrub that drops either flowers or seeds will ‘stain’ concrete; ie pavers. It just takes a lot of pressure to get into the pavers and clean out the stain and maybe adding a good dose of SH to the mix as well. If you can’t get it out then maybe you can bleach it away! It is not easy and takes a great deal of patience when cleaning.
My Crepe Myrtle seeds don’t stain my drive…but the leaves and pine needles certainly do, if they are driven on while wet.
When I scrubbed it with a brush it was rubber like. Kinda like silicone caulking. The only thing I could think of was that they put in the polymeric sand before the patio was completely dry and stepped on the patio with a wet boot. Anyway, the stuff came up with the sealer stripper no problem. We let it dry completely overnight, installed the new locking sand, sealed it the next day. The customer left a review on Google saying we completely revitalized his patio. We just did what the first company was supposed to do.
50/50 SH to water in a pump sprayer will neutralize the tannin stains from leaves, acorns, etc and they’ll disappear almost immediately.
Hey man what did you use to strip the seal. I’m about to go take a look at some papers that need stripping, cleaning, and resealing.
…pavers, not papers… Doh
Whatever menards had. Don’t remember what it’s called unfortunately.
K. Thanks for getting back to me. I went and checked out the job this morning. Approximately 3100 sq. Ft of pavers. They need to be stripped, cleaned, including efflorecence, then resealed. I was originally going to price it at $3100 or a $1/ per sq. Ft. I’m going to use the seal n’ lock line of products. Total product cost came to $1200-1600 bringing me around $1500 total profit. Not counting labor. Since this is something ive never done before I’m going to do the job myself. Ill bring my main guy and cut him around $250 for the day. Still leaving me a nice profit for the day. Better than most days actually. THEN…I did something i rarely do. I called some companies in the area that specialize in paver cleaning and sealing. I pretended I was the home owner. A VERY well established company told me that if someone was offering to do that for $3500( I upped the price on the phone) that I should run. “Obviously the guy has no clue what he’s doing.” I’ve never done this kind of job before so I guess he’s kind of right…kinda. Ive cleaned tons of pavers and removed efflorecence. As far as I’m concerned the cleaning is the hard part. Anyways…he told me they charge between $3-5 a sq. Ft. I’m thinking…seriously…if thats the case then thats all I’m going to do for now on. I bid it at $9300. Hoping I get the job. I’m planning on taking a week off at the end of the month to backpack yosemite so a job like this will definitely make sure I still hit my monthly quota. No response from the homeowner yet. He probably thinks I’m crazy, id think the same thing. Only time will tell.
This is good info.
I wanna backpack Yosemite…
I’d highly reccomend it. By far one of the best places you could visit in California. It blows Yellowstone out of the Water. I’m aware yellowstome isnt in Cali but those are the two most well known spots on This side of the country. That being g said if you’re ever in Nor. Cal check out prairie creek, its surrounded by old growth red woods. Biggest trees youve ever seen or could ever see. Truly amazing. Plus big foot lives there…if you beleieve the local native americans anyways.
I spent some time up in Bridgeport for training but they didn’t give us much free time to see too far outside the area. I’m not sure how that area compares to Yosimite but I think it’s right by it. Iy’s beautiful up there. We were there for Mountain Warfare Training School so we spent a lot of time rock climbing and just “surviving” up in the mountains. A real nice change from our main base in 29Palms. It’s amazing how different the two ends of the state are. It’s like comparing the deserts of Arizona to Maine.
Bridgeport is awesome! Grew up in SoCal and spent my summers fishing the Sierras from Kern to Bishop to Bridgport. Virginia Lakes and Walker River hold many great memories for me. Lol, we were at a fishing store and ran into some marines that were instructors at that camp. Altitude training I think? They mapped for us a way to find fish in a technically closed area that nobody ever would care about us fishing. These native trout were huge, the water was cold and clear and Ill never forget it!
Also, the Golden Trout Wilderness is one of my favorite places on earth. Its located in both Inyo and Sequoia Natl Forest.
I lived in Brookings Or. for 4 years too and its amazing. I like Tennessee, the people can be great, but its ugly and muggy. I miss the mountains of the west.
29 palms is a crap hole… right behind Irwin a little north
I grew up and IL and have always been here except while in the service. Be happy you live in muggy Tennessee with some hills and nice scenery. My sister ended up moving to San Diego after I had been out there for a few years. She loved it out there. San Diego has some really great areas. She loved the beach atmosphere.
Yes it is. After I finished the School of Infantry the instructors were calling names and where their first duty station would be. The only time I wasn’t in some kind of desert was when I was in Okinawa for 6 months. Even though it was hot and muggy and, we did a lot of training, it was like a vacation compared to the other places. I just knew I’d get stuck out there. The only good thing was we were like 3 hours from Vegas, a couple hours from San Diego, LA, and not too far from Havasu or Palm Springs. Although, most weekends we’d just load up a cooler, get our trucks, dirt bikes, quads, guns, and just head out in the middle of the desert. Off base of course. You could get so far out there you didn’t have to worry about anything. There were some great trails. We would also bring a bunch of boxes of clay pigeons and targets. That was more fun than going to Vegas and loosing your butt. I did like the craps and blackjack tables though.
But yeah, 29Palms was still a crap hope. We did some training up at Irwin and you’re right about that base too.
The area i grew up was mission viejo. 25 minutes from camp pendleton. I worked on the long range sport boats in dana point and san diego off Sea World Drive. Spent many week long vacations in Havasu. Too funny, small internet/world.
