This is the back sidewalk of a restaurant. What do you think I should quote it at?
They want fence cleaned too. Around the dumpster pad but dumpster will not be removed.
I have only done a few grease removal jobs. I’m thinking about hitting it with EBC 2:1 and 1/2 cup sodium hydroxide in a 2 gallon pump up. 20 min dwell and Surface clean with cold water.
I don’t do a lot of restaurant work but, I use Hot Stain Remover from Ea Co Chem (be careful with it around skin and polished steel surfaces) and wouldn’t touch that without hot water.
This job took about 2 hours from set up to pull away.
Is that last pic the after pic?
If it is, that not done to me. I would keep working on it. It would drive me crazy!
Was kind of my thinking, blistering hot day, stain had been there for awhile. The manager comes out and says “wow, looks great”. Figured it was ok to stop, think you could work on that for a lonnnng time.
Yes you definitely could! But if customer is good with it than I can live with it.
Get ready to be crazy then. Going to be tougher with cold water. Just fyi, potassium hydroxide works better on food grease than sodium hydroxide. Sodium for the fence will be fine. On the concrete, hit it with 3or 4 -1 with the EBC. You’re going to need to hand scrub, especially the worse spots some before you surface clean. Then I’d come back over with the potassium hydroxide and hit it again since you’re using cold water or you can reverse order. That would be about an hour job for me including fence and chasing dirty water away from curb, but that’s with the right equipment and I do a lot of it. Don’t expect miracles
Post some after pics. Good luck.
Thanks! I also have Gold Assassin and f9 Double Eagle. Would you go at it differently with either of those?
Racer, So I know I have the right one it’s Enviro Bio Cleaner, sold at Sherwin Williams correct? You like it better than Hot Stain Remover?
Other than post treating with SH or sealing concrete do you use any chemicals to make concrete pop visually? Ever use a light muriatic solution?
Can I avoid potassium hydroxide if I just go with Gold Assassin or Double Eagle?
@Machit and @DSJ1 - read your SDS. Read the warning labels or Danger section of the SDS. Know what you’re dealing with. The Hot Stain remover is specially made to attack food grease. Have never tried it, but may on a couple of places, though relatively expensive. And extremely toxic. And no, I’ve never used muriatic acid to make pop. I have used some milder but muriatic works by basically etching the concrete. Just like I don’t use Craig’s acid to make it pop. It’s mainly hydrochloric acid. Toxic as crap. Gold Assassin is cleaner with a fair amount of sodium hydroxide mixed in, which is also toxic. Double Eagle I’ve never tried because it’s nearly twice the price of EBC.
My concrete cleaning is a little different than most. A lot of my work is in high traffic areas downtown, with often times lots of pedestrians around and a major river nearby. Plus I tend to be somewhat enviromentally conscious. And I do a lot of strip centers and grocery stores which are more foot traffic intensive. But I can’t take a chance of splashing something that will eat someone’s skin away on them while I’m down streaming or they come walking by with their dog and walk through my soaped area. Plus I’m around mostly metal and aluminum door and window frames. You see these idiots on FB saying I use so and so all the time with no clue what the ramifications could be. So it’s rare, unless I’m at some restaurant that has it’s on retention area that I use anything super strong. I have a local supplier that I can get a decent Sodium Hydroxide mix from for about $8/gal. I do use the EBC Restorer some for that extra punch occasionally because it uses salts mainly instead of acid.
Also you need to be careful with what you’re using if you’re working next to asphalt.
Thanks for the advice Racer. Very much appreciated! I chose Gold Assassin because I know a lot of ppl use it for dumpster pads. Double Eagle being a Front 9 product I know must be pretty good. I’m familiar with the SDS but never hurts to go back and compare the products. That’s what I need to do actually. I’ll probably go with your method of EBC. Thanks again!
Here we go…
Not satisfied here but customer was happy. The majority of the grease cleaned up pretty good I think.
I told the customer that he should probably consider a monthly maintenance plan for this restaurant. He agreed and is going to think about it. I explained to him that it may take 1-2 more treatments to get the concrete back. From there it’s basic maintenance.
My process with cold water (kind of 
).
I hooked to the restaurant kitchens slop sink and turned on the hot water. Let it fill up my buffer tank. Keep in mind that the hot water coming from the sink is no where near the temp I could get with a hot water unit. Also consider the fact it’s going to cool off in the tank before I actually get to spraying it.
Property owner reached out to me an hour after I was done and asked if I could take a look at a couple of his car wash locations (11 automatic bays). If anything I figure I got another lead and learned a lot in the process.
Forgot to add - I noticed my thermal relief valve was spewing a bit of water when I let off on the trigger? Never noticed this before. Was it because of the hot water? It was 85 degrees today on top of me pulling hot water from that sink.
Ok now rip me to shreds gentlemen! 
Fence looks good. Seriously, not too bad at all. Couple of things, after you applied and scrubbed, let it dwell some and then DS a mix over it again, that’s where the warm water from restaurant will help, right before you start cleaning. 2) You left your dirty water right off curb. Can see the line in pic 2. Got to chase that stuff further away, typically at least out to end of space.
Did going back over spots with the F9 help much?
How long were you there?
What did you learn and what would you do different next time?
Thanks for the feedback!
Yes your right. I should have pushed that dirty water out of there. Will do next time. Good point on down streaming after the scrub. I didn’t even think of that! I feel like the F9 did help a little bit, but really no different than the gold assassin.
I was there almost 5 hours. I definitely learned that a hot water unit is in my near future and that I should’ve only been there a couple hours!
Y, after you scrub it in, don’t want it to dry. Just embeds in there more. So spray, and realistically could have probably gone at least 2or 3 - 1 with either, let it sit while you finish scrubbing ( don’t need to scrub hard, it’s really just working the mix into the concrete a little, so light scrub - should have not spent more than about 5 min on scrubbing for all of that.) If it starts to dry while scrubbing, just hit it with a little more of your concentrated mix, and then ds your mix after it sits for a few more min. Then that will keep it wet enough until you get to it with SC.
With heat, that would have been about 1 - 1:15 max, not counting fence.
But as I said, pretty darn good for your first time doing it. As you probably saw, the specialty soaps can be expensive and that’s just a small area. Figure out how much you spent on chems on that job. Most the time, even if real bad will only go 3 or 4 -1. But you need to put on pretty liberally because you are going to work it in. If not it’ll dry almost before you finish scrubbing if hot.
Thanks for the info! It definitely dried up pretty good while I was scrubbing. I didn’t realize the scrub was just to work the chem in. I figured I was trying to break some of it loose. That’s huge info!
I spent about $70 on chem. 2 gallons of Gold A. & and 1/2 gallon of Double Eagle.
So if I’m understanding correctly…
Also, I forgot to ask you, what hot water unit would you recommend? I’m looking for an 8 GPM all in one unit.
Move #6 up to #4. Once you get all your scrubbing done, then DS over everything. The water helps float the dirt up as well as keeping wet as well as freshening up mix. You’ll notice the grease starting to break down as you go around down streaming.
Awesome thanks Racer!
