I have ran into 2 of these this year, porches covered by rugs that can’t be picked up (glued down). These normally hold mildew/algea/moss. I normally hit them with the HW mix, but the rinsing takes forever.
I normally do the carpet, then wash the house, because if I wash the house first I wind up washing that area again from all the dirt/pollen/algea/deadbugs/leaves, pine needles, crack heads, and whatever else comes out of that thing. I go jchannel across, then rinse to the outside 3 ways. Steps are the hardest, always want to fray on the end.
Anyone have a better method? The customers never care about the color fastness that I warn them could occur, they just want it cleaner. Most keep their color. I did one today, about 1/4 inch thick, took like 45 minutes to finally rinse out (way longer than I thought). Would heat without soap work better maybe?
Just my experience, I like to hose these kind of things off also as a courtesy if nothing else. If you’re using any pressure at all (like a jrod low rinse tip), you’ll get a never ending supply of suds. After awhile, you’re still seeing suds & you realize the soap has been rinsed away but you’re seeing bubbles. I’d turn off the soap & open the ball valve 100% & let the water saturate it for a minute & call it a day. I’d never offer it as a service.
racer turned me on to the m5ds when I started, so I hit them with a wide fan pattern at about a 45 degree angle and use it like a broom to push it out. I do try to use as little chem as possible, but many of the edges are green. This one cleaned up pretty good. Unfortunately, I have to do another property with one tomorrow, good news is that it is only a 4’ wide stoop with 2 or 3 stairs.
I normally see carpet on bad concrete (spalling/cracking), it is the cheap fix.
Thanks, this is good to know. Haven’t run into a white one yet. I had a purple one last year I thought for sure would turn pink after SH, but they said clean it up anyway.
Lesson learned if the porch is where the dog lays at all the time, getting a ton of rotweiler hair off carpet is next to impossible and charge a lot.
Yep, he’s dead on…had it happened with one of those roll up awnings last year and @Chesebro gave me the solution…got a gallon of it on the shelf just waiting for it to happen again.
Well I attmepted something different today, just to experiment.
May sound silly, but I used a squeegee. One of those quickie mop company double row foam jobs that I got on clearance at HD. Worked pretty good. I pre wet all the carpeting, washed house, put product on carpet, then rinsed. I rinsed a few times, squeegeed it out, rinsed again, squeegeed again. Seemed to speed it up some. That foam squeegee didn’t let me push with it on carpet, had to pull with it.
I hate outdoor carpet. I use to soap them if customers asked me to clean them but now I just rinse them with my jrod. Does same job as soap but it takes forever to rinse soap. I tell my customers to pull up the carpets before I come, if the come up.
Thanks for the suggestion, makes sense for those living in an urban or even a suburban area. I live in the boondocks, so if I rented one it would jack the prices up significantly (rental unit price plus travel time to get and retunr it). I do rent a RO floor sander for decks, but decks can eat that cost and it saves me a lot of labor.
A lot of places have outdoor carpet where I am at. It is what they do. I don’t want it at my house, but it isn’t my house.
I’m getting more requests for it this year, so I thought I’d see if someone had a better idea. You can’t avoid getting SH and soap on the carpet when the walls need cleaned too. I thought of brining my wet/dry shop vac and floor attachment and giving it a try, but I think I will stick with PW and squeegee, less things to go wrong and no need for power.
Here is a pic of some steps/stoop I cleaned last week. I forgot the after pic because I was rushing to beat the rain (had 2 more building to do on property). My process, I blasted these stairs with pressure, got most of the junk off, hit it with HW mix while soaping the house down, let dwell, rinsed, squeegeed, rinse. Came out pretty good, owner was smiling when he looked at them. I write it in my estimate that there is a possibility my chems could change the color of the carpet, but what difference would that make in this situation basically.
A couple of other people chimed in, so I guess outdoor carpet isn’t a regional thing.
If forced to deal with it, I’d maybe HW mix it, then just flood the crap out of it, and leave the sun to dry it…or do it the day of an expected heavy rainstorm
