Just finished my first job yesterday and almost everything went off without a hitch. 1800 Sqft vinyl house and driveway/sidewalks. Took me about 3 hours by myself and made $387.00. The realtor that I did it for was very happy, so I’ll take it. However, the one snag that I feel like I hit was with the surfactant. I felt like I used A LOT of Elemonator… 2 gallons to be exact. It didn’t seem like I could rinse enough. It just kept sudsing up and left all of the windows hazy (I cleaned them by hand). I have a manifold from SouthEast Softwash. The settings were 5=H2O, 2=SH, 1=Surfactant. Can someone give me a sense of how much soap would be normal and any ideas on what might be going on?
Thanks in advance
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I’m not sure about your settings since I don’t have a manifold, but that’s waaay too much soap. I typically use about 2-3 cups of Elemonator per house.
You used 2 gallons of soap on a house wash? Are you sure or are you guessing. Maybe have the knob on the proportioner just cracked open. 2 gallons of soap is a problem. Maybe even check you weren’t soaping the whole time lol.
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You should only be using 2-5 ounces per 5 gallons. You using a 12v? What kind of siding was it?
Did you use just elemantor to wash the house?
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I use about 8 ounces per 65 gallons of downstream mix. So, about half an ounce for an 1800 sq ft house
I dont use elemantor. Did you do some testing before you went to a customers house. You gotta learn how your equipment works before getting paid to use it. Do some draw test. Someone else’s formula is a good start but not the end every machine and set up is different. Post some pictures of your set up maybe its something obvious
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Did you dilute your soap with water or draw it straight into the proportioner? I believe you are suppose to dilute your soap at 64oz to 5 gal of water before drawing into the proportioner. I’m sure someone who is using the same setup as yours will chime in soon. That is way to much soap to use on a house wash. I use 3oz per 5 gal of SH in my downstream mix.
You didn’t charge enough.
Max1: Using 7.5GPM Flowjet with J-Nozzle. Vinyl
FF4H: It sure seemed like it! I did do a bit of testing, I just didn’t take as much notice as I should have since it was on my house. I did so many “small” tests.
InnBySt: Thanks for that info.
C-C: I didn’t dilute the soap. My understanding is that that’s the point of the proportioner, so you don’t have to dilute anything, the manifold does the diluting. Thanks for the info on how much you use.
I went and did a roof this morning that I had on the books. I started with it off and just barely cracked it open, waited a few minutes, opened it up a bit more and so on. I stopped when I was just getting suds and that was at about .25 on a dial that goes to 5. That seemed to help, but I think I ended up still using about 20oz for about 20 squares of roof. I think that I’m going to replace the soap valve on the manifold and just DS in the meantime.
Thanks for all the help here.
Or you could just downstream a house and use just a few ounces of surfactant. Still don’t get why people use a 12v or soft wash system for vinyl houses🤷♂️
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What he said^^. Why use 2 hoses when you can use one? Downstreaming is the easiest and most efficient way to wash a vinyl house. You can purchase a downstream injector for $20-$30 and make your job that much easier and quicker. In a 5 gallon bucket or dedicated tank, use anywhere from a 60/40 SH - water mix to strait SH depending on how dirty it is with .5 to 1 ounce of elemonator per gallon.
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…lol
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I’m only posting this because I was tempted to do the same thing when starting out a year ago.
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If you use to much Elemonator you’ll never get it all off the windows. You’ll see white residue on the windows. The soapy water continues to run off the flashing down the windows after rinsing and just a a little bit of dried soap will be apparent when looking inside out through the windows.
I use just soap for dusty construction cleanups to lift off the caked on dust that firms up after it’s rained. It’s works great. Let it dwell few minutes to soften up and the general dust just rinses right off, becomes mud on the ground almost after it’s rinsed.
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@MuscleMyHustle I’m with you if it isnt green I either go with citrus or just brown stuff no need for SH.
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Absolutely. What is this brown stuff you are referring to.
It’s a high alkaline soap my chemical supplier sells it. They say it’s a secret recipe which I’m sure is BS. All bbn I know is it works really well
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I also use it in my house wash mix. Simply because it will cause a chemical reaction that will neutralize any sh in 4 hours. Also heats up my mix which is good for spiders and bees nest and road fall out
