I am on my second year of cleaning and can’t figure out why my house was mix drys blochy?
We downstream with a 5.5 home pressure pro pressure washer. We downstream out of a 5 gal bucket. Our mix consist of eco wash roof and house wash 8 oz to 4 gal of sh 12.5. I apply the soap well mixed. We well apply the soap from the bottom to the top and then we will rinse thoroughly from top to the bottom. We use the m5 twist nozzle and it is around 400 PSI. after we are done when things are really we are starting to see it dry blotchy. What is the problem and what can we do to stop this? we always test for oxidation and we know that if it is oxidized to use the soaps at very low PSI. What can I do or what can I add to the mix to help this situation?
To much surfactant, switch to eliminator.
After your done with the house, go back through with the widest fan on the m5 and lightly mist those areas that appear to be drying blotchy.
It’s usually residue coming out of the drainage holes on the bottom lip of the siding.
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Your at about 4x the amount of surfactant I use
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Never even heard of that surfactant. If a house wash dries blotchy there’s a 90% chance the surfactant/you didn’t rinse well.
X2 on elemonator.
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Rinse Rinse Rinse and Elemonator.
Also go from the top down while your soaping.
I thought it was bottom up to soap and top down to rinse?
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Nope.
.gnipaos ruoy elihw nwod pot eht morf oG
Top down on vinyl. Bottom up on paint.
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Eco wash is snake oil. Always soap from the top down.
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Even on paint?
I soap from bottom to top.
Rinse the same way, but also top to bottom
Yes, soaping from bottom up waste soap, waste time, thus isn’t efficient. Soaping from the top down allows longer dwell time at the top, where you are going to start rinsing, saves soap by running down on the still dirty siding. Michael K used to tell people to soap from the bottom up and to use a ball valve. put enough stuff on youtube and those that don’t know better will follow it.
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I soap from the bottom up and rinse from the top down. Always have and always will, and I don’t waste soap. I won’t be changing it now especially since I have perfected my method over 15 years and have never had a single issue with splotches, runs, or dried on soap. Oh, and dirty little secret (I rinse vinyl with my “high pressure” JROD tips that shut off the soap flow) 
I know right?
Do whatever works for you. The longer I’m in this industry the more I realize that there are no standard procedures. Why bother asking? Make your own method.
Here’s a diagram for those still seeking answers:
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I know the blotches or drip lines you are talking about. Its not too much surfactant, or the manufacturer of it. If it was the surfactant, a tell tale sign would be streaks on the windows. No blotches on windows, but blotches on siding is contributed to two things…Weather and amount of rinsing.
On a hot day with full sun you will not have the issue.
On a mild day with less sun, the areas on the siding where the water pools and runs most will dry very slowly. This causes a mark, drip line, or blotch like your seeing.
Two options.
- As stated before, mist the areas and its gone.
- Wait for rain and its gone.
- Try not to over rinse.
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It’s funny how so many folks can do the same thing and use such different techniques to achieve the same results. I soap from top to bottom on everything though it’s not uncommon for me to “mist” from bottom up to keep things from drying. I asked about soaping from bottom to top on paint because I had never heard that and generally @squidskc is spot on with his techniques so I wanted to gear what The Innocent One had to say about it. To me, it makes no difference in performance, however, I could see bottom to top using more soap. Maybe I’ll test it on my next house wash and see.
How so? I mean if you are doing a vinyl sided house and let’s say you start at the bottom and soap the first five feet and then your next pass is at 5-10 feet and your third pass is 10-15 feet and so on, where is the extra soap? In my mind if you reverse that, by the time you get to the bottom pass you have so much run-down that you are over soaping or maybe you don’t even need at bottom pass?
I’m no expert but I would think that soaping top down would allow gravity to do its thing and the soap will cascade down the siding. Most times I just barely mist the bottom section because it’s already dripping from the runoff. I’m 6’ tall and usually from the top of my head to the bottom of the siding just gets the slightest misting. Of course, I don’t carry a ladder most days and I don’t have a Jrod so if I’m soaping up high I use my shooter tip and that sucker will put out some soap!
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Makes sense.
a secret … we clean houses.
We always apply chemicals on the glass showers from bottom to up cause it does not cause any streaks.
But like @Steve says … own your own procedure.
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I always soap from bottom up and rinse from the top with no problems. When you start at the bottom you’ll get multiple scrubs with one pass with the detergent as it runs down on the sections below. In turn also keeping your bleach on the algae for longer. Soaping from the top, and you get one layer of detergent coverage.
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