Getting ready to clean a metal gas station canopy and from what I’ve read sodium hydroxide may be the ticket. Can I find this locally? Any suggestions on where to find it? Also considering trying my f13. Thanks folks
Look for Red Devil drain cleaner in the hardware store. Check the ingredients, though. If they don’t have Red Devil, there may be another brand with Lye/caustic soda/sodium hydroxide as the first ingredient.
Thanks bub. I found it on Amazon for a great price.
Link?
@Infinity what’s your mix ratio with the red devil?
I was using it to cut exhaust soot from the siding of a building that was right on a main street. I added about 2oz of NaOH per gallon into my downstream housewash mix. Worked very nicely. I could have probably gone a little stronger to speed up the process, but I wanted to play it safe. I had to use just a tiny bit more pressure than usual when rinsing it off, in order to get all the soot. The building went from a dull grey-yellow to its original bright yellow 
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I have been reading through all of the soot threads as I have a potential large job I’m going to bid on. It’s a toasting room where they use burners in the floor to toast wine barrels. The room is in total 95’ long by 16’ wide with 30’ high walls. The (interior) walls and floor are covered in thick soot. I got a sample of this soot remover stuff from powerwash.com I will try and some ebc. I was wondering if anyone knows about how much time is needed to remove the soot over regular washing? Also, since the walls are so high, and it’s inside, I will be wearing a mask and don’t want to use a ladder with pressure, hoping to softwash it with the right chems. Pics attached. Thanks in advance.
If I was you i would check with whatever local agency oversees this operation they may limit you on what chemicals you can even use inside of that building let’s face it its California I’m surprised you guys can even buy dawn dish soap
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Got another live one here from back in Nam
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All that electrical on the walls? Yikes.
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Absolutely if its anFDA inspected building (and most food and drink producers are) then you are seriously going to be limited. Also need to check what kind of coating (paint) and substrate those walls are
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You dont know how many ti.es I’ve almost commented on a 4 year old thread when doing my homework here lol.
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Even I would walk away on this one.
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@Seandz I clean buildings for a very large oyster production facility. Cleaning this building is the easy part. The prep work will take you 10 times longer than actually cleaning it. Dont forget to add that kinda stuff in.
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Exactly, prepping for it is the hard part.
Sheesh, speaking of stinky work. That’s kind of cool. Show us some pics. Are you mainly doing the floors or what?
I gotcha man. Inwas looking at some stuff from 2013 the other day and wondering if it was still relevant? Turns out that some things dont change.
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@Racer so I cant post any of the inside (part of contract) but to put it in perspective that whole building is a cooler/freezer and they have 12 of them
I can only use a 1% chem solution. And NO hot water. It was a challenge that’s for sure. We did the roofs outside walls and inside floors on the in service coolers
The out of service coolers we wash down everything.
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That room job reminds me of that one guy that was hired to degrease the inside of a building, he made a long post titled lessons learned or something like that.
He ended up going through a lot more degreaser than he calculated, and scrubbing vacuuming the floor. Didn’t rinse though, i would have rinsed
Might be this post:
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Nice project. I’m sure it had it’s challenges.
Thanks the input guys! I did not receive notifications or emails about responses so just seeing all but the first comment now. They make the barrels that wine is stored in but I don’t think they produce any actual wine (or food). But I should see if those rules still apply. We did an 8’ by 20’ storage container that had been next to a home that burned down and used a fair amount of heavy degreaser. Took almost 2 hours and didn’t have anything to worry about regarding electrical or sensitive areas. I gave a high bid so don’t expect to get it. Most commercial jobs I’m finding expect low prices, residential pays more, and right away!
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