I have a water tower coming up that’s pretty filthy. I don’t think it should be too difficult but if anyone has any advice or ideas I’m open. I figure I’ll try down streaming first. I might force feed with a 12v to get a stronger mix if need be. I’m just not sure if being up 90 feet will make a difference on draw rate. Alex @Infinity, do you have any theories on that? I even finally purchased an xjet in case I need to haul up mix with me in the boom lift so I have a stronger mix. I have some 20 gallon vertical tanks so should be under the max weight of the lift. I figure if I have a few backup plans I should be good to go. The paint is in good shape so I just don’t see it being difficult for the algae and mildew to be killed and washed off. I’m plan on getting it done in a day or less so I figure if I can get about a 2%-3% mix or so I should easily knock out in less than a day if all goes well. I could be way off though so hoping to see what everyone thinks.
Ide be hitting that with a roof mix. A hopped up house mix could be a long day.
Any tips for getting a 4%-5% mix on it? I don’t think the xjet can get that strong of a draw rate.
We just had our 350k gallon tank washed and painted. You have to be cautious of the wind. The company that washed ours killed the grass to the east of the tank because of high winds. They scorched around an acre of grass.
Thanks for the advice Zachary. Advice like that is exactly why I started this thread. There’s a baseball diamond right to the west of it and the outfield basically backs up to the tower. Woods to the north and northeast. There is a road to the south and then a few houses. I’m trying to play it to where the weather cooperates when I rent the lift. I don’t want to be stuck with the lift and not be able to use it. It’s about $1200 a day for rental so I’d be losing a big chunk of change should I not be able to work on it due to weather. The township is understanding and just said to give them a heads up a day or two before I plan on cleaning it.
That’ll only be about 45psi in head pressure. So shouldn’t effect your draw rate, imo.
But I agree that ds’ing straight mix might not work very quickly on that surface.
Xjet from the lift might not get you full roof-strength mix, but I bet it’d be close enough for that substrate. I’m guessing around 2.5-3% will melt that growth right off the tower. Just my uneducated guess.
At $1200 out of pocket a day I wouldn’t be messing around experimenting. Buy the cheapest used pump you can find and upstream some 50/50, 100 feet of pressure hose, injector line Into a bucket of soap and shoot it. Rinse with your 8gpm. Sometimes you have to be “that guy” and get country with it on certain jobs.
If you have a spare 12v then run 2 in series to get the head needed. Pull from mix tank 50/50 with cling-on or whichever surfactant or choice. Then rinse with 8gpm as stated before. I would definitely catch a day with no wind.
I figured it wouldn’t take long to go from one technique to the other. I’d have the xjet and mix already in the lift should force feeding the injector not work. I’m intrigued by your idea, though… I’ve got an old 5.5 gpm pump I can throw on an engine. I’ve got a few extra 50’ sections of hose I can hook together. Do I just have to place the injector before the pump? Will that pull more mix since I’m upstreaming? I don’t know anything about upstreaming.
I have a couple 7 gpm Delavan 12v and also a 5.5 gpm. It’ll need a lot of head for 90 feet and not sure two in series would do it. I once looked into using a pump to pump water from a lake that’s 65 below yard level. I was going to need a 5 hp 220 volt pump. Although, that was for like 8 gpm and 40 psi. I could get away with less for the tower but I still don’t know if it would do it.
How about force feeding the pump? Have you ever messed around with that? I might try and experiment with force feeding this week. I wouldn’t mind having a permanent way to get a stronger mix on my Hydromax anyways.
Can’t wait to see the after pics and your description of tackling it. $1200 a day for a lift ? Is that an articulating 4x4 boom lift? That price seems kinda high, but it has been awhile since I rented one. I think I paid $2500 for 5 days, and they dropped it off at the location and picked it up.
DId you test your mix on the base of it to see how it would react?
You mean force feeding the injector? I’ve never tried it myself, but from what I’ve read on the subject, some people are able to achieve similar ratios as their xjet.
I’m betting the pumps don’t last very long being used in this way, but for a one day job like this, it might make sense to grab a $50 pump at tractor supply and do some experimenting. You probably don’t need anything bigger than 1.5 gpm or so.
Make sure to put hose clamps on anything after the 12v pump 
About how high would it be to just shoot the bottom edge of the growth, pictured below? I think you’re going to want to do a test spot if possible before renting the lift and getting all set up for the proper strength mix. Even if that means pulling the 24’ noodle out of the back of your garage, pre-loading your pressure line with some hot mix, and then shooting it up there.
It’s a 90’ foot lift that has to be delivered by semi and lowboy. I can get it for a week for $2500. The daily price is always high. If I run into problems and, it ends up taking a few days, I’ll just rent it for a week.
The bottom doesn’t have the mildew and algae so I can’t test it. It’s just where the tanks slopes.
So I just had to clean this Spanish tile roof over a guest house and it had a very sensitive perimeter around it. I mixed up a 5% strength mix with a lot of Slomo in my battery back pack sprayer (I took the back pack straps off and use their 15’ hose that attaches to it) and applied the mix with an extendable 11 foot wand (an optional accessory from the company My4Sons who sells the sprayers) I attached this one particular sprayhead to it it came with and it produces a very fine mist and it had perfect even coverage with basically no runoff. It worked amazingly well. Maybe apply your mix with that and then let it dry then rinse with hot water with a 1200 psi tip. Sure it takes a little bit but I covered 400 ft.² in about 20 minutes
Ok, that makes more sense. I guess my silly question is how high is the tank? 90’ to the top, or 90’ to the algea line? THese tanks come in lots of sizes from monster over 150 to smaller versions.
Even at 90’, I bet that bucket sway 2-3 feet back andd forth. Your in for some fun. I am excited for you to see you tackle this.
Is someone going to repaint this or are you just cleaning it?
The water tower is 100’ feet tall so probably like 60’-70’ or so, That’s if holding my tape measure to the screen of my laptop worked…lol. I got 4" tall and about 2.5" to the tip of your arrow so I’m guessing 60’ right where the mildew starts.
Funny you should mentioned the 24’ noodle. I’ve never owned one and never planned on getting one. I did a few a few weeks ago and after finishing they invited me inside for some tea and cookies. They also gave me some vegetable from their garden. Once finished he walked me out to the garage and talked me into taking his 24’ extendable wand. I think the tea and cookies were a way to butter me up so I’d take it…lol. I threw it in the shed and figured I’d never use it. I guess now might be a good time to pull it out. I might be able to get a hold of a bucket truck but I’d be worried about getting sh on it. I guess if I kept rinsing it I’d be okay. Even without the bucket truck I’ll see what I can do to test it.
A guy could easily put together a portable 12v cart. I think you already have something like that don’t you?
I’d just go buy a cheap dolly at HF, weld on a base for a marine battery, mount the pump to the dolly with big zip ties and have about 10 foot of hose with a pvc ball valve like you use on a SW system. Get some 15 gallon carboys from your SH supplier and ratchet strap them to the dolly. Throw it in the lift and get to work.
Don’t be too concerned with the height. Lifts are stable as can be at full extension given you’re on level ground.
It just needs cleaned. The paint is in good shape. It’s 100’ to the very top.
I’ve worked out boom lifts quite a few times as a Boilermaker welding in power plants. The highest was 200’ up. It was -9 and snowing too on that one too. That wasn’t fun…lol.
