Sound like you’ve got it down. Leave the injector right before your hose reel. It should pull with 200’ of hose just fine so no reason to put it at the 100’ section. I would test it today just so you don’t get there and have to screw around with it. It shouldn’t be an issue though especially since you’ve used an injector before. As far as the plants just a quick spray to wet the leaves is fine. You just don’t want house wash mix hitting dry leaves. If it does just rinse it off right away. Plants somewhat get rinsed when you’re rinsing the house so shouldn’t have to spend much time on them afterwards. I usually just do another quick spray at the end to rinse any mix off of the leaves. House wash mix isn’t very strong so it’s not that big of a concern. It’s all about the rinsing it off the leaves. Roof washing is where you have to be careful.
Not too excited. The growth is dead, pictures later as I cannot upload them from my phone still. But they live next to a plant that covers their house in some ash and it’s dirty as hell. Gonna have to research what will clean the dirt off without pressure later
Not exactly happy with the results. Mainly because I didn’t know how to clean the concrete ash and dirt from their home. The algae came off nicely though. I will say that if I walked up to this house with just mold and no dirt on it and it wasn’t family I would walk away. Siding is old (no oxidation though for as far high as I could reach).
I was going to, but there was no way I was reaching that peak…
As I typed that I know I could have just used my J-Rod to do it. I’m such a freaking idiot! Thanks Sean for pointing that out and making me feel like an idiot. Will go back out there soon to see how well we can make it look.
So I have a buddy of mine that installs hardiplank and other types of siding. He knows that I am a rubber scrubber and that yesterday was my first attempt to wash a house.
He hits me up this morning to give him a price on cleaning a vinyl siding house. 1 story ranch, 1040 interior square footage. I am going over there shortly to measure it to get actual square footage of the outside and how it looks like in terms of obstacles to wash around. I see $.13 is pretty common for vinyl, is that usually the going rate. Yes I know different markets and all, and I have zero clue on this market. I will mostly be sub-contracted with this company throwing me a lot of work in between rubber scrubbing
Don’t worry with pricing per sq’ for house washes. A 3000’ sq’ house can be easier to wash than a 1500 sq’ home. All depends on obstacles, landscaping, porches, etc. Just figure your estimated time and how much you want to make per hour then adjust accordingly as you get more familiar with house washes.
Problem is I look at that house and be like, damn that can be done in an hour or 10 hours because I have zero clue. Figure if I only do k e side at a time I am waiting an hour on dwell alone if j let it dwell for 15 minutes. Figure it wouldn’t take much more than 5-10 minutes tops to apply and figure 10-15 minutes to rinse. So per side I would be looking at 30-45 minutes per side? So for a whole house I will be looking at 2-2.5 hours, not counting set up
Shouldn’t need to dwell for 15 minutes, your soap will be dry by then if there’s any sun or wind. 10 minutes maybe. And during those 10 you can be soaping another side, or rinsing, or watering plants.
It’s like anything, once you get the hang of it you’re speed and efficiency will increase tremendously.
You want your house wash mix strong enough to where the algae and mildew will turn brown in about 5-10 minutes. If you have to down stream straight SH to make that happen that’s okay too. I doubt you will with your machine though so stick to a 2 gallons of water with 3 gallons of SH. You can adjust if you feel it’s taking too long to kill the algae.
As far as that house it’s small enough to where you could soap at least 3 sides at once. Go around and wet landscaping, any wood, doors, etc. Then soap 2 to 3 sides. Once algae turns brown start rinsing. If I feel like I’m spending too much time rinsing and, I’m worried about the mix drying on the other sides, I might jump around the corner and give it a quick mist just to keep it wet and then go back to rinsing. I’d also give the plants a quick mist if need be. That house is small enough you could probably soap the whole thing at once unless it’s hot outside and the mix will dry fast. Maybe do two sides since it’s only your second house.
I know you’re new to houses but that house would take you less than an hour once you get the hang of things. Since it’s only your second house maybe figure an hour and a half. If I was washing it I’d probably be at $249. Being in the Midwest we probably have similar markets. Yours might be a little lower though.
So the company that wanted to hire me is getting $450 for the house. My buddy said if I can get under that and still leave the company with some cash after it’s all said and done I’d get the job. I went out there and there wasn’t much mold. With that being said, it was dirty as hell! House sits on a busy street and you can see the soot from all the years of cars driving by. House was built in 1960 and the siding is probably 20-30 years old. I took my hand and ran it across one section and it came out chalky as hell, from my reading here it’s oxidation. I’d have to do some more research on how to properly clean an oxidized house since it’s been over a year since I did any reading on that. But if I remember right you have to clean the growth first, then use a soap/degreaser and brush the whole house and then rinse. That seems like way too much work for a $400 job to me. The other thing I learned from all you SH Squirters is to know when to walk away. I told the company I was going to pass on this job. I passed mainly because I don’t feel like I have the expertise to do it properly and if I am putting my name on something it has to be done right and perfectly.
As far as pricing, you stated you would be at $250 I was thinking the size of the house and the bushes across the whole front and plants in the back and brand new wood deck I was thinking $300-$325 and then try to sell cleaning her wood deck. When they put the deck on in the fall the leaves fell and stained her new deck and she just wanted the leaf stains to go away.
