Hello all. I tried to clean this today with some acid cleaners for efflorescence and had marginal success. Customer has hard well water. I think it mineral stains and efflorescence.
I tried calcite presoak and nmd cleaner with no success. Effortless had the most success. Sure clean 600 left about 50 percent remaining. I didn’t try onerestore, wish I had.
In addition to the brick stains the homeowner also has a flagstone pool deck with a light amount of mineral deposits. Would one restore damage flagstone?
Anyone have any success restoring this type of damage.
Looks like there is some organic growth in spots. Remove that first.
For chemicals I have 2 that I prefer, F9 Efflo and Prosoco Custom Masonry Cleaner. Will sometimes use Prosoco Vanatrol on sensitive brick, but that is rare.
I will test spot in two areas with both chems, one usually works significantly better than the other. I have yet to figure out the variables to that.
If chems do not work I wet media blast with Kieserite.
Test spots are very important in my mind when it comes to this. Really can’t tell at all how it will react or how much effort it is going to take.
Try doing a test spot with some CLR, brush It after a couple min. i cleaned somethlng like That Off My friends house Years ago using It. But It was only a 10 Foot Area
@John_Martinez
I use a stiff nylon brush. I would not use metal.
I would say typical applications for me is 6-8 times. Could be less, maybe more. One thing to watch out for is the more times you apply, the more it will brighten the grout lines. One house in particular I had to go back a few times and do the whole side so the grout looked more even.
I can’t comment on a lot of Eacochem products as I have not used them. I do not think One restore will get it. If you have some on hand you could do a test spot.
My first step when I come across something I’m not sure how to clean is to use EacoChem’s “Call from the Wall” service. It’s quick, easy, and they never steer me wrong. Just take a picture or two of the surface and email it to info@eacochem along with your contact info. Within an hour (usually 10-15 minutes) you’ll get a call from Mike, who is THE MAN. He’ll steer you in the right direction as far as which of their products to use, and he’ll explain in detail how to use the products and what to expect. He is not “salesy”, and he’s always been honest with me…He does seem to have a good grasp on the “undersell and over deliver” concept.
I called them on another project and they were super helpful. I like they have branded it with Call from the Wall, that’s catchy.
I’ll touch base with them this week and let you guys know their solution.
Looking into the wet media blasting. It seems like the best option for this project. I will proabably use the sand instead of salt or glass beads. I think that much salt may affect the plant beds. This would be the first of these projects for me.
Should I expect the media blasting to remove 95 percent of the calcium build up?
I’m going to keep reasearching and then build the quote for this project. I can’t spend too much time working on this. Margin will have to be generous to divert too much time from spring setup.
[quote=“SurfaceTherapy, post:8, topic:17605”]
I use a stiff nylon brush. I would not use metal
[/quote]. Acid and metal don’t play well together. I wasn’t getting much friction with the nylon though.
Here is a quick example of one where I tested multiple times and 3 different chems did practically nothing. (First photo)
Second photo is after a quick pass with media blaster. Could have been better with another pass but it was just a test and I had no more media with me. It was an unscheduled demo from another customers neighbor. Anyways no after photos because I have not got the job…yet.
@DoubleH I just have an attachment. I believe the one I have is Mi-T-M. It is very inefficient, puts out way too much media. Been researching other options
Thank you sir. Look like chemicals aren’t cutting it on this type of problem.
You mind sharing your basic rate for this type of restoration? You can pm me if you prefer not to broadcast it.
I informed the client of the options I learned of and he choose to live with it for now. Or he’s looking for someone else. The size of that job put it outside my wheelhouse.
Just an fyi, if it truly is hard water stains you need an acid to get rid of them. Phosphoric is my preferred choice, but citric also works without damaging other things since they are in the “not so bad” acid category.
