Landed a nice job for this Friday. Haven’t had algae quite as heavy as what I’m going up against here. It’s so bad the customer even calls it her “Yellow Brick Road”. After reading up and reaching out to a few friends I’m planning on going with a 4-5% pretreatment, surface cleaning, rinse and post treat with HW mix. Any suggestions to make this a bit easier? Someone mentioned doing a surface cleaning first to break up what I can then treating, then surface cleaning again. Having trouble wrapping my head around running the surface cleaner over 3,000 sqft twice. Is there any merit to this? I can see how it may help but seems like a waste of time if I could just spray a good strong mix in the beginning. As always, any help is appreciated as this will be an awesome one to add to the portfolio.
Don’t go in with 5% right off the bat. I know it sounds like it will suck but your best bet is to apply HW mix, surface clean, rinse, apply 4%, pet dwell for 20 minutes, surface clean again in the opposite direction, rinse and then spot treat with a pump up. Once it looks clean just lay down a final coat of HW mix and it should be good to go. Charge accordingly.
ETA: By HW mix I mean downstream straight SH
Thank you. I quoted .25/sqft due to the heavy build up. Should have done more now that I’m thinking back on it. Hoping to complete it in 6 hours so we’ll see.
That’s still not bad money for that job. The before and after photos will be amazing so count that as a bonus. And there’s always the possibility of the homeowner giving you a nice tip.
Are any of those joints sanded?
Yes. I have it in my estimate that it’s recommended to resand after completion.
If you want to up your ticket you could sand it yourself. It’s not hard. It is going to make a mess when cleaning though so that will take more time. Regardless, good luck with it 
I would go at it with 5% and surface clean. I hate going over things twice if the 1st app didn’t kill it. You don’t need to post treat brick unless you don’t get it all off. Water the grass before you start because 5% sitting in the grass to long will burn it. I would even let the customer know the grass could brown along the edge of the walkway.
Luckily I’m doing this right after the tropical storm passes so I’m not terribly worried about the grass. I’m still going to keep it watered well but not near the risk of doing this on a hot summer day. Thank you for your advice.
I use hot water on that stuff and melts off, one time thru.
I did a similar patio last year, hit it with my xjet and surface cleaner, moss and organics were so bad I ended up using a turbo on the whole thing.
Showoff.
, I was on the fence on buying the hot water unit, but so glad I did. It comes in handy, hot water really works well on grime. Don’t use on vinyl, obviously but most everything else. Just speeds up work.
If I was in the area i would pre treat it the day before surface cleaning, let it work it’s magic over night, Most of that will come off with a surface cleaner alone. I find brick pavers to be one of the most satisfying jobs, love doing them, hate re sanding.
I wouldn’t surface clean twice either. Pre-treat with 3%-5% and surface clean. Think of roof cleaning. You can hit moss with 5% and it’ll rinse off with low pressure. The good thing about the brick is you get to hit it with high pressure after you kill the moss.
I used to love sanding after we finished paver jobs. Cruisy finish to the day, only have to push a broom around!
Take a stiff broom and knock off any big clumps of moss, or I’ve used weed eater before, (sometimes quicker and doesn’t rip out the sand) or use your wand. Pre-treat 4%, let dwell about 10-15min, surface clean, rinse, collect check
I had this one guy work for me he absolutely hated being on the broom or doing gutter cleans or basically anything that took a bit of effort, whenever he had any of these jobs for the week he would find an excuse to not be present that part of the day, I swear his grandma must have died 4 times and had about 6 funerals that year.
Ya those types of guys everywhere I think lol. Used to work with some young guys and they always had crook guts after payday, family problems on fridays and a death in the family on monday 
Thank you everyone for all the suggestions. I usually just search and find what I need but these off the wall jobs still get me from time to time. Very much appreciate this community.
