Are you saying SH cleans?
A question off the degreaser topic, Oxalic acid used to remove rust staining, it only changes the ionic structure & will not actually clean the stain & alkaline application after the oxalic the rust reappears. Would HEDP be better at complete removal ? No return of stain after alkaline application ?
I think most people on here add a detergent when they clean roofs as well…
I dropped out of Chem I, so feel free to set me straight. I have always imagined that when I add my Elemonator, it lowers the surface tension. The water is less inclined to stick to itself and bead up and roll off. So it is easier for it to stick to shingles or siding or whatever. And by the same token, it will ball up around the dirt and carry it away. That’s how I explain it to customers.
I had to look up what the Elemonator was.
So are you using the 5-8 ounces per 5 gallon pail and then putting it through a pressure washer with more water?
That is how most people normally do it for a house washing. When running through a chemical injector that’s called down streaming. You normally try and get a 1% sh solution hitting the house.
When washing roofs you’re not able to down stream because you normally need about a 3% mixture hitting the roof. You’re not about to get that high of a percentage down streaming. Most use a 12v pump and pump a mixture directly out of a tank. No extra water added. The amount of Elemonator will depend on the job such as pitch of the roof.
For siding, yeah. That’s pretty much what I do. I don’t do many roofs. There are some other products like cling-on and roof snot. But it’s not just bleach.
So 5-8 ounces in a 5 gallon pail of 1% SH…pumping right out of a container. Thank you for the “down streaming” lesson and wow, that word choice makes no sense whatsoever, but hey we park on DRIVEway and drive on a PARKway, so I understand.
Here is my glitch. Lets say the person adds 8 ounces to a 5 gallon pail. 8 ounces of product into 632 ounces of SH mixture, that makes the cleaner 1.25% of the total solution. The strongest cleaning product I have ever seen is 15% active, the rest is water. Within that 15% active you also have things to help with hard water, things to adjust the pH, solvents, surfactants…etc. But let’s pretend it’s all actual raw materials that clean, 15% of 1.266 means less than 0.19% cleaner is actually going on the house.
It’s not doing much at that level guys. if you are down streaming you have next to nothing in the way of cleaner.
I’m saying it has to do more then just lighten organic material if it can take off the skin on my hand right?
SH makes things lighter through oxidation. I always thought of oxidation as burning. Burn a black piece of paper…it turns white/gray.
For roof specifically, we use a dedicated chemical pump. Say we are using 10% strength SH.
100 gallons of mix would be 30gal 10% SH 70 gal water and whatever amount of surfactant/cling additive yp u want to use. That would make a roughly 3% SH solution hitting the roof.
When using a pressure washer to apply chemicals, the term downstreaming describes the chemical injection after the pump. Upstream is chemical injection before the pump.
I had to look up the HEDP. I’ve never used it but it sounds more like a chelator (something that grabs up hard metals) than a cleaner.
For rust stains it really depends what the surface is that has the rust. If it’s concrete I would suggest Hydrochloric, oxalic, and some surfactant. I’ve also used oxalic, phosphoric and some surfactant.
I know what works on rust, I just wanted to know what you knew about HEDP. We use it for iron removal.
I’ve never been in a lab that used it. Not for ice machine cleaners, de-rustors, de-scaling…nothing. Never used it.
By that same logic, my socks are not getting clean either.
Not really the same is it? A small amount of soap contained in water that clothes are submerged in while moving for an extended period of time…vs…a brief pass by a house with a pressure washer wand?
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I think we are getting a bit too literal with the word “clean.” The SH is used to kill the algae and bacteria that grows on the home. That lightening you see is the algae dying off. Not the same way our clothes brighten in the laundry. For the services we are trying to provide our customers, I’d say we are cleaning the homes.
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The topic got started on which chemicals are best…SH alone doesn’t clean, that was my point.
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How do you define clean?
On a house…removal of dirt (both organic and inorganic) and chalking.
