First housewash scheduled for Thursday morning. Did a garage floor and a front and back porch on a condo last week, which was my first job. 4gpm belt drive machineā¦ plan to dowmstream w/ SH and some laundry soap for a fresh smell. 1500sqft house with hardie shingle exterior. Its yellow and it does have a soft texture that i think is the beginning of oxidation but none came off onto my hand or fingersā¦ she has dark algea growing on one side of the house and thats the real reason she wants it washed. So my thought is to communicate w/ her about the oxidation but assure her the mold/algae/organics will all be gone. What strength of solution would you run? Starting w/ 10% SH.
Iām a vet as wellā¦to be honest man I think with your experience level youāre playing with fire on this one. Hardie is nothing to be played with, if itās anything but a light grey or āneutralā color it can spot and streak very easily.
Aside from using laundry detergent, youāll need to rinse the HECK out of that after letting the housewash mix do its thing and absolutely do NOT let it dry before rinsing.
Itās pretty obvious by the pic itās sun damaged, donāt let the homeowner blame you for that.
Yes downstreamingā¦ w/ the GP injector that came w/ the machine. I was thinking about filling the bucket 50/50 w/ 10% SH and waterā¦ isnt it supposed to be about 10 to 1? so 5% in the bucket would be .05% out of the wand? Am I right on that math? approximately?
I donāt know if it matters but the house was wet when I took that pictureā¦ It had just rained, and those darker areas felt wet. I hate to turn down the workā¦ Iām 45 and pretty meticulous and carefulā¦ and can follow direction wellā¦ Maybe start at .025%? only one wall w/ organicsā¦ but, definitely value your opinionā¦ if you think I should bow out, maybe I willā¦ definitely donāt want drama and a big claim.
Honestly the other guys can comment better than I can, but a lot of guys do cut their bleach using a 4gpm as it draws a lot harder than bigger machines. You are just using 10% though and depending on the age it may be less potent. Might just want to cut 25 water/ 75 SH and just be absolutely sure to keep misting that siding and rinse thoroughly. Generally speaking you want about .8% to 1% SH concentration for housewashes.
Again, the pro washers on here can comment further.
See if they know what kind of paint is on house. Either way, find an inconspicuous spot and spray a little straight SH on it and let sit for about 10min to make sure paint doesnāt change colors. Sherwin - williams has a line of paint that used organics for coloring and so SH will cause color to change. Do you have a pic of the part with mildew on it?
50-50 with your 4 gpm should be about right. If mildew disappears in about 5min your mix is probably fine. If 1min, too strong, if 10min too weak unless really bad.
Thanks Racer! I will ask her about the paintā¦ maybe they have some left from when it was last painted. Having the actual can would be ideal. Absolutely going to do a test spot. Hereās a couple more pictures. You can see the one wall with the mildew on it.
Thanks guys! Definitely will test all the colorsā¦ certainly the dark green now that I think about itā¦ w/ the spray bottle Racer suggested. I did get the SH from the pool area in home depot, but it says 10% on the label. I think I found a source for 12.5 from a pool store about a half hour away. Right now just want to complete this job, do it well, and collect the moneyā¦ then wash, rinse, and repeatā¦ start improving a process. What do you guys think about blue plastic 55gal drums/barrels as buffer tanksā¦ plenty large enough for my little 4gpm right? I was thinking of getting two, one for a buffer, and one for a batch mix 12v set up. Have to head that way in a few hours. Havenāt slept very wellā¦lol buuuut weāll get it knocked out! Thanks again for the help everyone, Iāll post the after pics this afternoon/eveningā¦ praying all goes well
Wellā¦ i was there for 5 hours but I got it doneā¦ had a 30min lightning delayā¦ i donāt mind a light rain but when it starts crackin and poppin I run for coverā¦lol Was able to use the machine for one side of the house, before I realized she had really poor water volume/pressure from her well so I finished it w/ a pump sprayer and her hoseā¦ and that suckedā¦lol plus I bid it via google and couldnāt see all the detailā¦ she had have a soffet as such, the ends of her trusses were exposed and painted which created these individual cells w/ 5 sides that you had to hitā¦ all the way around tbe houseā¦ and all the wood work on the porchā¦ shouldāve be a 500 dollar job, and I bid 299š¤¦āāļø of course if I couldve downstreamed it, it wouldve taken hapf the timeā¦ so maybe i was right on w/ the right equipmentā¦ what i shouldve done is check the water as soon as i arrived and immediately explained I wouldnt be able to use the machine and would have to do it by hand and it would take considerably longer and ergo would coast more forā¦ but only because of the lack of water volume/pressure for her wellā¦ idkā¦ how would you have handled it? What would be the lesson(s) I should take from this?
Thanks so much to everyone for the help! Customer loved it and gave me a 25 dollar tip
Oh and there was mold on more than one side of the houseā¦ i was just going off what she said on tbe phoneā¦ it was all around under the eavesā¦ and on 3 wallsā¦lol
To be honest that is probably a one hour job for me. Once you get the proper equipment (downstreaming, buffer tank etc) youāll just fly through jobs.
I would have rolled up, done a walk-around for a battle plan, unrolled hoses and once the buffer is at about 50 gallons go to town.
You canāt charge her because you didnāt have adequate equipment. A small buffer tank and you would have been fine. Turned out looking good, chalk it up to experience building.
absolutelyā¦ the whole thing was a HUGE learning lessonā¦ both jobs have beenā¦ Iām in an s10, so space is at a premiumā¦ but tomorrow Iām getting a blue plastic 55gal barrel for a buffer tank.
Customer loved it and gave me a 25 dollar tip
