I may be off base, but I think the 20" size only means you need to move slower due to a larger area being covered…the tips are what matter, as they need to be sized to your machine. I think guys with striping on a regular basis either have the wrong tips, or move too fast for their setup. The very occasional crazy dirty project notwithstanding anyway…
One pass with a 20 inch surface cleaner 4 gpm is not really going to cut it. My machines are 8gpm and I use 16 and 19 inch eagle wash cleaners. You will have to creep with the set up you have.
It’ll clean it fine, just like IBS said though you need to walk slowly with it. It’ll be fine for smaller drives. First real big one you do with it, you’ll be on phone next day ordering the 8gpm, lol. Or you can walk slightly faster and make 2 passes, and obviously depends to some extent how dirty it really is. I probably make 2 passes on 65% of the residential I do but I only pre-teat with hw mix and rarely have to post treat with any stronger than hw mix.
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Yup. Striping on a regular basis is moving to fast and wrong patterns. Then there is etching from to small a tip. Few people use tips to big. Many 2 tip surface cleaners come with 2502 tips and that gives the concrete 4000 psi. 25025 is recommended with 4 gpm to get 2500 psi but for some odd reason testing mine with two different pressure gages I had to go to 25030 tips in both SC to get 2500 psi. It goes against everything on the tip charts and calculators, and even the guy at the shop that builds rigs said going from 25020 to 25025 would not be a drastic enough cut to go from 4000 to 2500. Doug Rucker also said in some cases you may have to go to 25030. Im thinking of tripple checking with a 3rd gage. Rucker was not relating it so much to the pressure output as he was to keeping the non caster units from raising up to much and having a better handle on them. He was refering to how some guys have to put a brick on them to keep them down. As far as I know the pressure cleaning stors dont sell bricks. Lol.
Thanks for throwing that out there. Im sure you are above 4gpm yet in 65% of the cases you still make two passes. Justifis what I do with my 4gpm. I want it clean with no call backs. And the perpendicular technique makes it not so much of a hastle. Maybe ill try your idea of a colder mix. At 4gpm im pretty sold on 3% being the sweet spot. I wish I owned a dirty driveway to experiment on as my 3% covers me and im a bit shakey about trying new ideas on customers driveways. Havent had a call back yet and i fear it like doom. Lol.
Don’t fear a call back. Open your eyes. It’s either dirty or not. You do what it takes to get it clean. SH can do a lot of things, but it doesn’t make dirt vanish.
Besides, call backs give you an opportunity to show outstanding customer service as long as it’s legit.
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Yes but if its its not technically done correct cant it often look good the day of the cleang but not stand up to the test of time???
My take is 3500 is to high, and the sweet spot is 2500. At 2500 you can go home and sleep at night not wondering if you etched a customers driveway. I have seen almost 4000 psi not etch a driveway but you dont want to gamble on that everytime, its a loosing bet. All concrete is different and better to play it safe. Ive seen homeowner internet sites where they say AT LEAST 3000 psi to clean concrete. I dont think the pro guys doing it everyday would agree.
I would think with a 4/4 with 25020 that etching would be the culprit rather than non etching dirt striping. Thats 4000 psi hitting it.
You aren’t getting 4k at the surface cleaner with your machine
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if you have oak trees in the area and your flatwork jobs have them nearby, its a whole different animal. you will not get them clean with pre or simple post treat. You will need a pump up to hit certain spots. I can probably say with certainty that these particular issues is usually for past due or way past due maybe 1st time cleanings. Those acorns will leave these dark sometimes black marks as well.
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Crepe Myrtles too. We have a ton of them around here
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