What's the coldest temperature you have cleaned in?

Residential
1

Did a little research before posting this, and I saw some folks reported washing in sub-50’s. I got a call last week from a local house-flipper asking if I could clean his house, deck, and metal roof this weekend. The weather forecast was partly cloudy and a high of 45, so I told him I would give it a try, but I am not guaranteeing the chemicals would work. Saturday afternoon the temperature peaked at 43, this was by far the coldest I have cleaned in, so I bundled up with my neoprene waders and Stormr surf fishing top. To my surprise my SH did not seem to be too effected. I had to hit a few spots twice and noticed I needed to spray a little closer when rinsing. About an hour before I left for the job I set two 5-gallon containers next to my garage propane heater to warm them up a little since they have been sitting for a few months.

So my question is…

What is the coldest you guys have cleaned in (or continue to operate in), and what observations did you make as far as effectiveness of chemicals, dwell times, equipment function, etc.?

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2

15 is the coldest we washed in. But that was curbs and sidewalks so no chems. 25 is about the coldest we’ve washed in and had the bleach still work. Rinsing takes longer because you have to beat thru a thin layer of ice to rinse

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3

Wow, were the curbs cleaned with hot water? How did you keep your buffer tanks from freezing??

That had to have been an icy mess by the time you were done.

4

We used cold water hot water freezes faster than cold between buffer tanks filling and bypassing nothing froze but we didn’t stop flowing water the whole day

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5

This sounds crazy but it’s true. I love this hack when icing down the cooler: If you put one bottle of water from your fridge in your cooler & 2 lukewarm bottles, you’ll have one cold water & 2 slushy ones in a little while.

2 Likes
6

I prefer to go with chilled so it melts the ice slower…

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7

Washed at 34F a couple of times. Cold water…lots of mildew build up so plenty of dwell time.