Help. customer not happy

Residential
1

Washed a house, fine they are happy they also wanted the driveway washed.
not very dirty but some light dirt/red clay on it. one year old concrete so I explained to them about etching and a surface cleaner, said I would test it in a small area.

It was cleaning it fine but I saw some gray in the water from the SC so i stopped immediately and showed them the water and explained that while it was cleaning fine that there is some light amount of cream coming off into the water so they would need to agree to this to continue or i could use a wand but it would not get the same results and would show some streaking because of the nature or moving the wand around.
I recommended to wait another year and use the SC.

They wanted the wand so i did and even took 50$ off.
Now they say it is streaked showing areas not cleaned and cleaned, i explained that we talked about this and they knew but still want me to come and use the wand again.
I know i will neve get this as good as a SC and feel they will still be unhappy.

How to handle this or am I just going to have to deal with a bad review?
In hindsight, yes I should have just passed on the driveway.

2

fyi this is a small driveway and I’m thinking Id rather just refund them the rest of the DW which is only 50$ since I would be out there way longer with a wand and im sure they will still not be happy?
Is this reasonable?

3

What you should have done is cut down the pressure on your SC and carried on. I clean new concrete all the time, but you need to be under 2000psi

2 Likes
4

tried reducing pressure and it was still happening as I have done just that in the past.
Last year I had one that was also a year old and after i tested it it cleaned up fine without any cream coming off .
Giving them the refund as that is the easiest/ cheaper option. In the future I’m not even attempting to clean an entire driveway with just a wand if the SC cant be used, ill just pass.

5

How did you reduce it? And from what to what?

6

I would refund the money and leave it or go back and post treat with a strong mix and see how it looks.

7

You may want to practice on your drive with your wand skills. Occasionally we all have to use for some reason or another.

8

do you have a bunch of nozzles you can swap out? I just ordered a few sets of nozzles that I can step up orifice size all the way to 10 lol

Those things were like $8/each at pressuretek so it kinda cost me a pretty penny but I got SC nozzles for days now…

I figure that’s better than messing with unloader?

9

I’ve got two surface cleaners set up. One runs around 2700 psi and the other closer to 1800 psi. If I know I’m only doing new concrete/pavers that day, I’ll take the lower psi surface cleaner. Though not my preferred method and I don’t do it often… If I’m in a pinch or have multiple surface cleaning jobs lined up for a day, I’ll take the 2700 PSI setup and just close down with the ball valve lower the pressure if need be.

10

is 3200 PSI too high for regular run of the mill concrete driveway?

11

For residential work, yeah it’s definitely overkill. You really don’t need anything over 2500 psi, especially if you’re using chems.

12

I never swap nozzles, just adjust my throttle a little. I can tell about where my pressure is by how it feels and floats, another plus for floaters. I think Russ sells some kind of adjuster for pressure you put on your nozzle. @dcbrock may know about

13

Racer, don’t you lose GPM by throttling down? It the efficiency loss while washing worth not having to mess with de-installing/re-installing nozzles?

14

I’ve seen this surface cleaner regulator around and have thought about picking it up… is this what you are talking about @Racer

15

You don’t have to adjust it much. Maybe lose a gal of flow at most, if that. so from say 8 to 7.5. With my 24" floater, if I get down near 7gpm, almost have to push it.

1 Like
16

yeah that makes sense, and with a 5GPM belt drive you might lose too much for it to be a practical option? I’ll experiment I guess like everything else in this game. Thanks for another tool in the toolbox!

I’m waiting until 2026 I think to upgrade to 8GPM and electric reel. I gotta put my dues in first and I’m pushing aside 10% of every washing job into an equipment fund. Its actually adding up pretty quick!

17

refunded them. their concrete was so soft that cutting pressure on to the point my SC was dragging on the floor still made me see cream.

18

I’ve done this and read its not the proper way but seemed to work when I needed it to and really I should get some extra tips.
For this customer I turned down my machine to the point it was dragging and it still happened so that’s when I stopped. I use a 3k psi 7gpm machine with 200’ of hose.

I may have been overly cautious but this is the last customer anyone would want to have had etching done.