Cleaned this house a little over a week ago. The porches have a galvalume ceiling and came pretty clean. The customer called me last night and said there was something all over it now. I went out and looked at it and found the stuff in the pics. I tried rubbing it and nothing comes off. Any ideas of what happened and how to fix it? Pics attached of the day I cleaned it and today.
Bleach can turn galvalume black like that. I’ve never worked with it, but reading other guys’ posts about it, there doesn’t seem to be a good solution. Bummer!
From the picture it look like galvanized metal, and it looks like it corroded. How hot was your mix? Did you throughly rinse after applying your house wash mix?
I’m still new so I’ve never seen this, so I’ll step back as those with more experience give more detailed answers.
Edit-just read up on it, so its similar to galvanized but different. Seems like it will be affected the same though.
From the research I’ve done it looks like the solution is replace the panels. Wonderful…
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You really have to rinse the heck out of soffit or porch ceilings. There are so many nooks and crannies for the mix to hide out in. We also tend to not rinse as good because it’s over our head and dripping on us. I think it’s done for but the first thing I would try is applying some more house wash mix, let dwell, and rinse again. I would also call the manufacturer, get in touch with their product support team, and email the pictures. See what they say to do. Most like it will be replacement or painting.
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If you have to replace or paint, maybe they will take paint if you offer to use or pay someone to use high quality paint. Rustoleum has some great metal paints, and a good metal primer in a can. Best of luck, this kind of thing is gut wrenching, especially if funds are tight.
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I don’t think you’re looking at a huge cost. Most will be labor but it shouldn’t even take all that long. It’s only like $40 or so for a 16’ x 3’ piece. Looks like maybe 3 sheets and either your time to install them or cost to hire someone. That’s not too bad.
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Thanks y’all, I’ve just been sick over this.
You never said how hot your mix was. I wash that stuff all the time and just treat it like vinyl. But as Brain said, need to rinse it good. That looks like crap though. I’d see if I could find the manufacturer and call them. Heck, it’s shot already, carry a bunch of different chem’s over there with a brush and experiment. May learn something for all of us. Good luck.
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Don’t be too hard on yourself. That’s a mistake anyone could’ve made. If you’re using a 4 gpm keep in mind that it’s able to draw a stronger mix than a 5.5 gpm or 8 gpm. Did you dilute your SH with water before down streaming? You might be able to go like 3-4 gallons of water to 1 gallon of 12.5% SH. When I used a 5.5 I would mix 3 gallons of water to 2 gallons of SH.
I think it’s just a case of not rinsing well, you can clearly see where the droplets sat to eat it away.
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I’ve never seen SH do any damage to galvalume short of dulling the finish a little. It’s the hardware on roofs that will be damaged from SH .
There is a guy around here that’s puts 50/50 on galvalume and leaves it . He knows better and still does it . Even after insurance claims .
It definitely looses a little gloss and definitely rust the hardware. I’ve even seen a streaky look to areas that the SH puddles a little bit . But nothing like what’s in the picture.
@Racer I run the same metering valve as the one in the pic and had the dial set at around 2.5 or 3. I know I should know the ratios but I don’t, I won’t BS you. The guy I bought my trailer from told me where he ran it for house washes and I just went with it. I haven’t had any issues until this. I have a 5.5GPM 12v system spraying chemicals and rinsed low pressure with my M5 rinse nozzle.
Do you rinse with the 12v system too?
@Racer I use my 4/4000 with that M5 nozzle.
@Racer I took your advice and headed over with EBC, Purple Power, F9, Gutter Grenade, and One Restore (That’s all I had on my trailer at the time). The first two didn’t do anything at all. F9 started to make the stains fade upon immediate contact and then within about 2 seconds made them even darker. At that point I just got out the white flag and told the customer it definitely wasn’t coming off. I told them I would paint the porch ceilings or replace the metal, whatever made them happy with the end result. They were very happy with me owning it and trying to fix it. I expect to hear from them today on what they want to do.
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Sorry none of them worked. Still strange. Good on you for owning up and taking the responsibility for it. Hopefully karma repays you in kind.
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I think the black is the corroded aluminum. Would any aluminum brightner be ok to use. Idk.
@Redjess I just ordered some Aluma Bright, like @Racer said I really can’t make it any worse. Thank you for the suggestion, I’ll update as soon as it gets here and I go try it out.
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I fixed an issue like that for a mechanic shop once. They used white wall tire cleaner on the walls and created a bunch of black splotches and drips like that. I used One Restore and a microfiber cloth. Might give that a try.
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