Don’t know, never been in that situation. Driveways should always, without variation, be cleaned left to right. Never top to bottom. Never clean dry concrete. It’s a whole lot cheaper to replace one section of concrete than all of it if you decide to destroy some.
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I think it’s just called fiber reinforced concrete and you could spot little hairs of fiber all over this one. I told him I could spray some EBC on it and rinse with hot water. He declined service and said he’d rent a surface cleaner and have at it. Said it was 1.5 years old
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I have a 3500 psi, 5.5 gpm machine with a Simpson surface cleaner
Was this the first driveway you have ever done? Can you explain in detail excatly what steps you took to get to this point
3500 psi is way too much pressure for that type of concrete. If you did not switch nozzles that would explain why the “cream” is gone.
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Yeah, I’d be out on the 1.5 years old already. Hmm. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen any fibers on the driveways I’ve done. I’ve never had an issue like OP happen (knock on wood) but I also clean driveways like The Innocent One just said. I go perpendicular to line of sight and I always pretreat or wet the driveway first. Do a small section and pay attention to the runoff and check the results before doing the rest. Thanks for filling me in. I learned something today.
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If you can’t fix it you will need to replace it.
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Yep, that concrete is junked. Replace and return the customers money for the trouble.
You used about 1,000 psi too many man. Expensive lesson to learn.
I’m sure you’ve come across it without realizing it. You can’t always notice the little hairs. They use micro or stealth fibers when they aren’t meant to be seen. They just mix in a bunch of synthetic fibers to increase strength and help prevent cracks. I have a buddy who owns a concrete finishing company and he always has the supplier add them when ordering concrete. I believe it’s almost standard practice to add them anymore.
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Yeah I just read the wiki on it and it looks like it’s pretty commonplace nowadays. That’s funny. I’ve never noticed it but I could see where it could cause some problems but also when doing things correctly it shouldn’t be too big of a worry at all
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I’m willing to bet his surface cleaner nozzles are incorrect!!! Hell they might even be those universal nozzle they sale with the generic homedepot style surface cleaners…
Like these here, No orifice size “universal”
what size orifice do you guys recommend?
What did you research recommend?
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Interesting on Simpson’s website I’m finding two 5’s. A 5.5gpm 3500 psi van guard hot water skid and a 5gpm 4000 psi.
My machine is a pressure pro but the surface cleaner is a simpson
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Take off one of the nozzles from the surface cleaner and read the fine print stamped on top.
Are they perfectly parallel with the bar?
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No they are not perpendicular to the bar, they have a slight angle to them.
If it is a whisper wash they need to be inline with the bar.
But if the nozzle is at 90 degrees from the bar, how will it spin?
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The line on the nozzles needs to be lined up with the bar.
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