I’m having issues with a client’s home. Basically it looks like something came out of the weep holes under the siding and dried, but I’ve gone back and rewashed twice and it’s not going away. The first time I just rinsed. The second time I reapplied soap, and then rinsed. After washing, it looks fine, and looks fine most of the way through the drying process, but once it’s completed drying the stains aren’t going away. Pictures attached.
The only thing I can think of doing more is scrubbing, but there’s a bit of oxidation and i don’t want to risk disturbing it. Any related threads I’ve found don’t really give solutions, or the solution is “wash it again”, so any ideas would be helpful!
The 3rd and 4th picture is what I normally see from weepholes or siding overlaps. The rest looks like the oxidation was removed. I’m not there and the online pictures can be deceiving.
A quick way to tell is to rub your finger over the area that looks different and if no oxidation (or very minimal amounts of oxidation) is present then you know what happened.
The only other thing I can think of is that you hammered water underneath or behind the siding and who knows what came out and leaked down the wall. It could be lots of things, I had one customer tell me they sprayed “cleaning stuff” on their siding and that was the discoloration I saw (before cleaning). If it is an older home (think 70-80’s) sometimes the people used a variety of water barriers, one of which was like a roof felt. Any water gets on that and the siding goes brownish. Almost pooped myself the first time I saw it.
Thanks for the reply! for the 3rd and 4th pictures, do you have any suggestions on what i could do to fix the situation, given that I’m worried about scrubbing due to oxidation?
To be honest, what I do before I roll up the hoses at the end of the job is take a walk around the home. If I see any I hit it with a real light mist (think standing back away from it and hitting it with a 45 nozzle spray lightly). that will normally clear it up. If you went back and washed it again already and it is still there, then I don’t know what to tell you. It is possible that there is something coming out from behind the siding from whatever the builders had there. Unlikely, but possible. Mainly try to work with the siding overlap when possible or hit dead on, otherwise your are more likely to push water under the siding.
I would just deoxidize the whole side, better that than a customer running your name into the ground. Whatever is on there will come off with the acid.
Edit: maybe you sprayed into the overlap and pushed water all through that siding, I have no idea, not there. If you ever do that because of wind direction, it takes a long time for that weeping to stop.
How did you rinse the siding light mist or normal pressure and what tip did you use? A very light mist is the way to finish any wash you are doing.Just enough to rinse off any chem or soaps off the siding and stand back away from the side of the house 8 to 10 feet away.
Let it rain on it several times and then go back. Looks like you over rinsed or used too much pressure and blew water up under siding. Those just aren’t weep holes, they’re not that close together. And as stated, always do a gentle rinse with fan tip, like a gentle rain on siding, will normally eliminate the majority of those problems. Often though, a couple of good rains will do it for you.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I definitely get what you’re saying about walking around the home Dirtyboy - I do that as well, but this stuff was weird, it only started showing up when the house was bone dry (even when I came back, so was definitely looking for it), so I couldn’t see it before I left. On the return trip the only reason I caught that the rewash didn’t fix it was because I hung around for half an hour after I finished for the house to completely dry.
As for rinsing, I use my 25 degree soap tip standing about 10 ft back for rinsing (after pulling the DS line). This is definitely an odd one for me at least. This is only the second time I’ve been called back in the year on the job, and the only time I wasn’t able to clear things up when I came back out.
Luckily the homeowners are being great about it. When I explained the process to treat the oxidation they said they were good with waiting for a good rain to see if that clears things up. If not, I’ll bite the bullet and do an oxidation treatment, to hopefully clear everything up.
