Customer called about a house wash gone wrong. Hired nephew to do the job and he only used dawn dish soap to clean…it ended up looking like the picture attached with spotiness here and there as well as it seems darker on the bottoms of the vinyl panels. Just a rinsing problem? Or do I need to apply something other than normal SH house wash solution when I go to fix this? Thanks everyone!
Some would say walk away and don’t let someone else’s mistake become your headache. Others might say set expectations, take lots of pics, and do a test spot. The pic is kinda hard to see. I’m going let some of the pros chime in but i think you should be fine. I’d wash the whole thing like a normal wash to even it out but thats just me. Ive only done a few houses so take that into consideration as well.
If you’ve only seen the one photo you’re going to need to do a house inspection. Is there oxidation? Is there fallout? What is the owner looking to fix?
When you say he only used Dawn to clean it how did he go about cleaning it? Did he scrub it by hand, use pressure, etc? It’s hard to see anything from the picture but when you say “spotiness” it makes me wonder if he removed oxidation in certain areas but not others.
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Hey that was a picture I took. Very minimal oxidation. I’m not sure what fallout is. The owner is simply looking to make it a uniform clean on the vinyl siding.
From what I gathered, I don’t think he used high pressure. According to her, I think he was moving rather slow in regards to applying the Dawn dish soap and then rinsing it off… So I’m wondering if he accidentally allowed the soap to dry on the siding. Inspected the oxidation and it didn’t seem like much. She claims He use the lowest setting which didn’t tell me much but that’s all I know based on inspection and her story.
I’m in the same boat as you brother! I’m a window cleaner getting into pressure washing and I’ve only been doing it for about a month now… But started by doing endless hours of research LOL.
So the question is what is spotty? Is it organic? Is it oxidation? Is it road grime? If I had to guess I’d say a house wash with SH but it may need a oxidation restoration with Gutter Gernade or other chemical. It may require scrubbing. If so you need to not under charge.
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Tell him or her to let it rain on it a few times. It may end up not looking that bad. Give them a quote for a house wash next year. They will like you more and you don’t have to deal with their screwup.
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Did one like that last year, person recently cleaned it with dawn. Look exactly like that, I just did regular HW and it turned out great. There was though a lot more rinsing I had to do because of the Dawn residue, was t horrible though. So…
