Retractable awning

Customer today asked if I can do something about a 6” line of green algae on his retractable fabric awning. I suggested I could do a test spot for color fastness in a corner with 1% bleach and go from there, just checking if I’m on the right track.

I asked who makes it and he wasn’t sure as it was already on the house when he moved in.

Here’s a very similar picture.

It’s no different than an awning you’d see on a commercial building. You could probably hit it with straight sh and it wouldn’t hurt it. Not that I’m saying to do that. Just letting you know you’re on the right track with a test spot and will clean right up with sh. You’ll probably have to clean the whole thing. Brushing can help if it needs it. I’m sure you’ve seen squid’s video on awning cleaning. Just follow his advice.

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@dcbrock I was scared when I got my first awning to do, now I love doing them easy money. I do exactly what you’re talking about I test a corner where you can’t see it on the underside.
As I found most awnings are made with UV stable Fabrics which aren’t affected by SH…
DONT USE ANY PRESSURE!! If the fabric is old itll rip right through.
I wet the awnings down thoroughly.
I always start with a super-low sh mix and just get higher as needed…
Let dwell,repeat the sh mix after 2 or 3 applications of mix if there is any stubborn spots I’ve got a super soft scrub brush that I scrub it down with and then rinse, rinse, rinse,
If it’s still dirty repeat with some more sh mix and follow with the scrub brush and rinse again, eventually it’ll look like new.

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I will soap it with house wash and hit it with a brush for small spots. I don’t do entire awnings.

Thanks guys, it came out great. Tested a corner first then used my pump up with ~3%, scrubbed it with a brush and rinsed. They were really happy.

I also did their old Trex deck and it was a LOT of work but came out nice. 2%, dwell and 800psi rinse.

Now the lower deck was a bear. Anyone know what these black spots are, this is after a 3% and surface clean.

I ended up nuking the whole patio with 6% and 15 minutes dwell, seemed to fade them some. Only my white tip could get them off.

A couple more pics. The awning one was a ‘during’ pic as it’s still wet.

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They’re probably just tannin stains. When you’re spraying 50/50 on stuff are you using any surfactant?

Yeah some snotmenade. I’d venture to guess it hadn’t been cleaned in 20 years.

That looks about right. I usually have to soak those spots down a few times with a pump sprayer before they want to come up. And even then they’re pretty stubborn.