Painted Roof Tiles Mix (Softwash)

Hey lady’s and gentlemen, I have been getting a lot of customers with painted roofs (barrel, S and flat tile) and I am doing both soft wash and power washing but more on the soft washing for roofs. I have been running into issues where my chemical mix doesn’t absorb as well vs non painted (sticks) but it still cleans but takes more passes and waiting. I use a 30% chlorine and a 10% soap and rest water, type of soap i am using is called green wash from softwash system. I normally get fresh chlorine every other day. I feel like i don’t need to crank up the soap because it does clean really well after I am done.

I am getting a lot of run off is there a soap or a added component I can add to my mix to help me get less run off (stick).

Thanks!

I know you said you domt think you need more soap but if you want more cling than more soap is what you need. Buy a surfactant specifically designed for roofs or jist use more of what youre currently using.

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Ok thanks but I saw in one of you conversation that you soft wash as well what kind of mixer do you apply to your process?

I love Green Wash, but you only need to add 1oz per gal. If you want something stickier, I use Snotmenade from Russ at Southside. good bit cheaper too. You’re in Florida. Power wash Products up in Clearwater has a product called Slo MO that’s gotten rave reviews from a lot of guys in Fl. It’s thick.

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Painted tile roofs are really common all over Florida. The chemical can’t absorb in to the tile like most roofs . Best bet is multiple light coats with minimal soap . Painted tile will be very slick with normal soap ratios so be careful

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Yes you are right green wash is a a wonderful product to use! but as you mention the other products do you add anything to your mix to enhance your soap to make it stick? Or do you think i should mix a little bit of the slo mo wash green wash from two different connectors?

I domt think theres really any reason to mix two different surfactants. They serve the same purpose after all.

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Don’t need both

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@Racer I saw that you use 8-10 oz of greenwash in your ds mix and 1oz here but I had an epiphany the other day. I only ds before and the rep at softwash systems told me to only use 1oz per gal in my mix and so that’s what I did for ds all season. Then I recently got a real 12v setup and been mixing for roof using 1oz per gal. Hit me that it is 1oz of green wash per gallon of liquid period on 12v but if I put only 1oz per gal in my ds mix and it’s 10 to 1 I’m only using 1oz of green wash per 10 gallons of liquid. Is that right? I think I’ve been way low on surfactant this whole time! Is my thinking correct? If so can’t wait to see what 10oz of greenwash does per gallon of hw mix…

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Exactly right. You may be able to get by with a little less, say 7-8oz for your hw mix since the 1oz per gal direct on a roof is a little more soapy than you might want on a hw mix, but just experiment and see.

The Greenwash gets pretty expensive when you start downstreaming it. If you’re making up 10 gal of hw mix then you’re talking $23 worth of soap. Reason I just use it on my higher end homes. With the Elemonator I’d only use about 20oz total for same suds and it runs about $.19 per oz versus about .22/per oz on the greenwash so that’s only about $4.00 for soap but then I do have to use a slightly stronger SH mix with the Elemonator so that offsets some of the soap savings.

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Wow so maybe that’s why I use so much sh when ds. I found I always had to mix a straight sh with greenwash and terra wash mix and would spray the crap out of houses to get them clean! If I had been using the correct amount then it probably would have worked way better and faster huh? And probably could have mixed water with the sh and not made 5 gal buckets of pure sh to ds but went at least half and half water and sh?

So to confirm, you use 7-8 oz of greenwash per gallon of mix but only need 2oz per gallon of elemonator in your mix? Basically elemonator is 4-5x more concentrated?

Are you doing more than 50/50 for these??? or is it just the soap that needs to be right?

It’s just the soap that you need to be cautious with . Or you’ll slip and slide all over the place . Painted tile can be really sketchy to walk on sometimes

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I did one today. I used 40 gallons of SH on a 2000 sq. ft. roof. It took hours. And I have to go back as I ran out of SH.

Those don’t look like painted tile . Those look like ceramic tiles . They are very thin and very fragile. I won’t walk those roofs . They either pay for a lift or let someone else brake them . They are very uncommon in my area and I usually just avoid them . On the plus side the rarely need much chem to come clean. If your applying chem more than twice I would check how strong your chem is .

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You said it took hours ? Roof cleaning is a very fast service. It usually takes us longer to get set up than the actual roof cleaning takes . What are you doing that takes hours?? A 2000 sqft house should take less than 30 minutes. Maybe 45 minutes if there’s a ton of landscaping to cover first

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I set up and water the landscape. Then I hop onto the roof and hit it w/mix. Then I get down from the ladder and wet landscape more. I do sections at a time constantly getting down from the ladder. Ever since I got the proportioner, it seems like my mix isn’t doing a great job. These are tile roofs so I have to hit from every angle.

Get yourself a few 30x40 tarps and cut them to into 5x40 lengths and some 10x10 tarps . And a dozen or so squeeze clips. Wrap all the necessary landscaping in tarps . 3 sides only and bag all the gutters. Then clean the roof . Really is a two person job but if you cover all the plants chemical can’t get on them .
No reason to keep going up and down a ladder USUALLY.
Others will disagree with this but the best method for equipment is always the KISS theory especially with chlorine. We went many years without things like proportioners and booster pumps and dozen of other gimmicks . Without any problem and still do without any problems.
Mix it spray it . Nothing to go wrong

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Proportioner should make it simple…have you tested it to make sure the dials are correct? Also, we’ve had them crack a female fillting that you can’t really see until you pull it apart, but it sucks air like a champ (cutting down the SH intake, since it was the SH fitting).

We had a tech a couple years ago who was a huge environmentalist. He got us into doing roofs without bagging the downspouts and just maximizing water use and being more efficient with our chem. Once that was the focus, we almost completely quit having burnt plant issues. The biggest problem is that guys tend to overload the roof with chem. A lot of people treat it like welding and follow the “work in a puddle” mentality…in most cases that’s waaaay too much chem. A little higher concentration with a little lighter spray tends to do the same job.

It definitely is a 2-man job at any rate. Plus if you’re on the roof I’d rather always have a 2nd guy onsite. Clients get nervous if someone is on their roof by themselves, they feel like they have to babysit in case something goes wrong…like they wouldn’t hear the crashing of a ladder (or worse).

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