Possible issues after house wash

So I washed a house yesterday for my first paying customer. I’ve washed several friends and family houses prior to this with out issue. I posted a picture of the house earlier this week in a different post, it was a light blue vinyl siding house that only wanted the front washed. I don’t use high pressure, I also did the swipe test on several different area’s and it passed. I down streamed roughly .75% with .5oz of elemonator per gallon. I sprayed the house, let it dwell and rinsed and rinsed again with the soap nozzle 2540.

When I got there for the estimate I explained my process and explained about oxidation just to be safe, but I swiped the siding in several different spots with a wet finger and a dry finger and I didn’t really get anything.

Once I was done and put everything away I was looking at the house and it seemed very blotchy but it was still wet and drying so I waited a few minutes talked to the customer packed up and rechecked some spots and while it was still blotchy it seemed less. So I assumed it was just wet and needed time to dry it was a cooler day and early in the morning. However several hours later I drove by to take a look at it and in a few spots it still seemed blotchy better but you could tell from the street that there was a white haze in certain areas.

The customer saw what saw and was happy with the job she just wanted the green removed from her house. Here are my two questions 1) should I contact her for a follow up and see how everything turned out and looks now that it’s a few days later and open up that can of worms?

  1. what could’ve gone wrong I didn’t use high pressure there were big bushes in front of that area so I was far away from the house didn’t use too much soap I rinsed very well and there wasn’t that I could tell much if any oxidation on the surface. I wanted to look today but it’s raining. I can post pictures of the house if you need I don’t have any of after it was cleaned.

It was probably still wet. This time of year when it’s cool and damp it may take a long to to dry. Or water is still draining out the little weep holes on the vinyl. Drive back in a week and see what’s up. Probably fine, vinyl can looks weird and blotchy if it’s not totally dry

House washes at least around here, carry a ton of liability. I do them a lot. But I take pictures of everything before touching a home, all electrical gets taped! no exceptions! Key holes get taped also, and anything that can be a potential problem.
We do our best with outdoor security cameras but we have a waiver of liability for those.

We charge premium for HW, and if they don’t like the price we gladly walk away.

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After it rains on it a few times, you should be fine. Light blue and tan are my least favorite colors to do. Sometimes it helps after house almost dry to just shot a fine light mist almost or light shower on it, that will help with the leakers.

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White is the only color that has caused me issues.

Will the leakers cause the siding to be blotch and have hazy white areas? It looks like oxidation but again I didn’t see any before the job started

If doing a house with decent green mildew build-up on it the bleach with kill the mildew, but you need a little more pressure to remove the remaining build-up. Careful with the pressure though as you obviously don’t want too much to create a disturbance in any oxidation, but you need more then just a light misting to rinse it off. When I know I’m faced with this, I go over the siding a few times nice and slow and I can watch the build-up come off. Wish I had a photo to show you what I’m talking about, but I don’t unfortunately.

My rule of thumb for vinyl siding is to never use pressure. I only rinse it with soap tips & if that doesn’t work I need to give it more soap, more dwell time or warm up the mix.

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I found this to be true with my 4 gpm but not with my 8 and really not even with my 5. That was one of the things that stuck out to me most when I went to the 8 from the 4. The 8 puts out enough pressure with the soap tips to take care of it whereas at times the 4 didn’t.

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I figured it was likely due to that. Only happens once in a while fortunately for me

You don’t need more than 100 psi to clean even the nastiest of houses if you have the right mix and know the right process

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Did it ever dry during the dwell? We’ve had a couple do the “blotchy” thing (especially when it’s cooler & dwell times are up). I suspect that’s what we let heppen there.

No it never had time to dry. I only washed the front of the house. So I soaped it up and then I turned the machine off and set an alarm for 6 minutes and then started rinsing. I never used pressure every thing was with the soap tip the soaping and rinsing.

So it was raining yesterday and I drove by and it still looked blotchy but again it was raining. I drove by today it was warmer and sunny and it looked fine so hopefully it was just wet.

Now this scares me, I really want to try and grow this business but most of the houses in my area are vinyl siding and while there are some white and light tan blue, green, gray, tan or brown in light and dark are very extremely common more so then the white and lighter colors. But every time I wash a house I don’t want to loose sleep wondering if I’m going to get a call back or an insurance claim yet I don’t want to turn down half of the work I get.

It was just your first paying customer. Don’t throw in the towel yet! Keep practicing and perfecting your technique.

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Thank you I appreciate that. I definitely get into my own head WAY more than I should. It’s just hard not to sometimes when you hear people who have a lot more knowledge and experience than you say don’t do something and then when I look around and that’s all I see around it’s hard to know what direction to go in.

There are so many different, easy business that take minimal investment to earn big dividends. I chose pressure washing because of the market in my area and spent less than $50k getting started. Most franchise fees are 10 ten times that. If there wasn’t a market for washing, I would have done something else. Point is, if there is nothing easy to make money washing in your area, pick a different business.

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You’re way over thinking this. There are literally thousands of pressure washers washing vinyl on any given day. Seems like about 100 in my town. Every house you do it will get easier and you’ll learn from it. You can wash any color. A few you just need to be little more careful with. With a 4 gpm it’s even easier to not screw up. I never had a leaker with my 4, because you’re not putting the volume of water on the house, unless you’re using too much pressure, to get underneath siding or doing some of the things that cause them. Buy you a M5DS nozzle for yourself and it makes it easy. Don’t stream anymore liquid than necessary.

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