Opinions. Noticed some flat surface lines. Particulary a few weeks after the job is completed and the concrete is wet from rain. I’m pre and post treating 3% with a pump up sprayer and of course this type of sprayer lays it down kind of thin. Till I can go 12volt would you think maybe going 50 / 50 (5%) might be a better way? Older concrete, 25025 tips with 4GPM.
Probably need to go slower when cleaning. Do you have pictures?
You shouldn’t need that strong for concrete, so going up to 5% isn’t going to help. It’s probably your surface cleaner or your speed. What size surface cleaner? Pump sprayer has to take forever to treat a whole driveway!
How long is your pw hose? Wondering if you have enough pressure or, as others have said, are going too fast.
It appears to be etching. The 25025 tips still have me around 3330 psi. Think im gonna go to 25050. By the chart that puts me at 2500 psi and by my experience with the gage that appears accurate, whatever the chart says my SC ends up of couple hundred psi above.
3330 psi is too much. Drop it to maybe 2500ish. That’s what I have mine at
What is your GPM and nozzle size?
If you have a 4 gpm machine and 25025s, you’re at 2500 psi.
I dont think so. Here me out. Just discussing, not challenging. When I had 25020, it was 4000 psi. The same as using a single 40 tip. By the tip chart the 25025 @ 4gpm should have put me at 3000 psi. I put the 25 tips in and by the gage Im at about 3300 psi, and getting etching still. I cite the gage as accurate because the 4400 psi machine reads 4400 psi when not triggered. If i put a single 40 tip on the wand and trigger it then reads what it should, 4000 psi. Bought surface cleaner number 2 today as a backup. Came with 25020 nozels. Machine idles at 4400 psi, hit trigger with the 20 nozels and it drops to 4000 where it should be.
Show me what chart says two 2.5 nozzles with 4 gpm (2 gpm per nozzle) gives you 3000.
If you type “nozzle chart” in the search bar, it’s literally the first match. But it also lists 2.0 to be 3500 or 5000 all at the same gpm, which should be a staunch reminder that all of these numbers are not to be taken too seriously & we are all on our own at the end of the day.
Agreed. Im gonna throw some 25050 tips in and see what I get. Seeking around 2500 psi.
Just looking at the ‘trusty chart’, that’d put you below 1,000 psi.
Not sure what to do here. 25025 is what everyone says gives me 2500 psi. But again, the gauge reads 3300 and this size tips are etching. The 25020 nozzels read 4000, just what it should be. I’m more lost now than when I knew absolutely nothing. Maybe try 25030?
I just run the surface cleaner over it until it’s clean. But don’t take my word for it, I’m a rookie too. If I need to make 2, 3, 4 passes to eliminate stripes, oh well. I can do that. As far as etching, no 2 driveways are going to be the same. I use 2502 nozzles on a 4 gpm / 4k rig & haven’t carved a driveway all year. If you’ve done enough research, then you’ve probably stumbled across @racer 's driveway cleaning video like I did. If not, keep digging. The things you will learn on accident looking for it will prove to be golden down the road. There is a lot to this stuff.
1 Like
Im wondering if the driveway was just so dirty that i couldn’t originally notice the etching and it was there prior. So youre hitting concrete with 2502 which would be 4000 psi, and no issues???
How many driveways have you cleaned?
Many back in the day. Had a trailer pull big unit. No issues. Im just now getting back into it testing all the new gear out at my home. Just went out and looked at those etched lines and they all look so close together that they look like they were done with a wand not a 20" surface cleaner. My wife has been here 15 years and never cleaned it so im thinking maybe it was already there under the black. I do know that there is a section of driveway and sidewalk that was not the original and none of what i did there is etched at all.
Not looking at the chart, but I was going to ask why you would jump all the way from 25025 to 2505 (what you called 25050). 25025 is a 25-degree fan with a 2.5 orifice (so it goes between the 2502 and the 2503). Going to a 2505 is a huge leap.
Again, I’m no expert on tech stuff, but I’ve had to buy some nozzles for our SCs this year and looked into it a bit, and this is my understanding. @Racer will definitely have forgotten more about this than I will ever learn…
It should be easy to tell if it’s perfectly circular (like an SC) as opposed to a wand. If it’s a turbo, then they’d be tiny little swirls.
