I’m trying to optimize my concrete cleaning process. Right now what I do is pre treat just enough so that it barely starts to dry up where I started and then I surface clean, rinse, post treat, and move on to another section. I’d like to be able pre treat the entire area before surface cleaning so I’m not stopping and starting so much but if it dries before I hit it with the surface cleaner is it doing any good?
Side note, my pre and post treat is just 10% + elemonator downstreamed. Is that even enough to do anything to concrete or am I just wasting chem? Seems to brighten it up and make surface cleaning faster but I could just be imagining things.
I currently use my x-jet to pre-treat. I start with a 1% (house wash) mix to pre…I soak it down. Surface clean…rinse…allow it to dry some (I start packing everything up to give it a little more time). Then I post treat with a 2 gal pump sprayer (not very efficient, but it works for now) with a strong mix, usually about 4% with some surfactant.
I don’t think you are using the right chemical first off. I just checked the SDS and I don’t see any solvents…but lots of stuff that makes foam. Might want to ask what others are using on concrete.
Secondly, the whole reason to rinse while wet is because if the chemical manages to emulsify the dirt and grime on the concrete, once it dries the emulsification is gone and the dirt is just deposited back onto the ground.
For me it depends on how large the area is and how hot it is outside if I pre-treat the entire area in one go.
Pre-wetting by its self is already going to help with cleaning faster, pre-treating by DS’ing only helps a little more. I mainly pre-treat for the “show” unless im doing an oil spot or something. If you pre-treat with an Xjet or 12V the treatment will be more effective, but now your using a lot more chem, so you have to decide if its really worth it, and for me most of the time its not. I just pre and post by DS’ing.
Just wait to post treat until you’ve done the whole job. You need to direct apply, like Dan said 3.5-4% with some surfactant. 12V works great for this. I usually just pretreat with my hw mix unless a lot of oil stains and then I’ll use my commercial mix. Usually pretreat about 20 - minutes worth of work ahead of myself. Much more than that you’re going to rinse away a lot of it when you’re rinsing the previous sections.
I guess I’ll look into a 12v system. I can’t see myself lugging around an xjet bucket for 15,000 sq. ft. + parking lot jobs. My only concern with a 12v system is the amount of chem I would use. I downstreamed 25 gallons of HW mix for a 20,000 sq ft. job I did last weekend. Wouldn’t I run out of chem even if I had a 125 gallon 12v tank?
That’s a lot. I typically don’t use bleach , or at least not very much on commercial jobs. Usually you’re cleaning dirt not organic stains. But that’s a ton for 20k ft. Just hit your really bad spots directly. But if you’re post treating, which there again only if there are organic stains, you can use a fair amount of mix. I figure my hard cost on post treating is about 1.5 cents per sq ft.
Hmm. I’m still trying to figure out the best method so I’ll tone back the bleach. Basically I was pretreating to make the surface cleaning go quicker and post treating to eliminate striping. I’ll be upgrading to a higher gpm and hot water soon so that should probably reduce my reliance on treating to get the job done quickly.
