I’ve been washing for about a year. Mostly just vinyl homes. Some hardy if I test the paint.
I’ve noticed I’m ALWAYS using SH. About 1%. And it dawned on me some of these homes don’t even have mold/organics. Maybe just some pollen, I’m in SC.
Do yall also just always use SH? I haven’t had any problems or killed anything but I was thinking I could probably be using just some detergent or even just water sometimes to rinse of dust/pollon.
You can certain just offer a pollen rinse if that’s what you determine your customers are wanting. It’s fast and easy, and I’ve done it before for some of my clients here in the Lexington area. These clients are usually someone that I may have washed a few weeks-months prior and simply just want the yellow gone. Just be sure you set expectations correctly and let them know that you are not targeting anything other than dust/pollen etc.
I would never skip it personally, if anything just dilute down and not use a lot. Even if it looks clean, there will be organic stuff there. Not to mention, I find that SH really does a good job breaking down bird poop, spider webs and bugs. I’ve had plenty of houses that when I start, I wonder why I’m even there, but then the HW mix hits it and you see the color change from traces of something organic on the siding breaking down. For those ‘clean’ houses, I use my 40:1 injector, so about 0.3%. Bleach is cheap, just use it.
We have a high-end manufactured community of $500k+ houses and every last one of them has Hardie Board. They are crammed together very close which creates a funnel effect, so most just have dirt buildup. I typically just use soap and rinse on those unless I happen to see organics.
Thanks guys. Y’all pretty much said about what I was thinking, good points on the spider webs and the packed together hardie board homes. Hardie worries me even after multiple test spots
Even if you can’t see it, it’s there. I’ve done more than enough hardie board and seen how it changes when SH hits it, even when it looks perfectly clean. Just go light, but still use some. Even a 0.3% mix makes a big difference in the cleanliness.
I’ve done dark and light blues, red, green, all of them. Light HW mix has never been an issue with any color for me. Just rinse more than usual, then hit it again when you think you’ve rinsed enough.
I got a real scare a couple years ago with HW mix on light blue Hardie. It had vertical drip marks after rinsing and I was mortified. I rinsed a couple more times and they eventually blended in but man…
