It was my understanding the method was bottom up, hard to know who really knows what they’re talking about with all the forums, Facebook sites and YouTube vids. Everybody’s an expert!
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Just out of curiosity, how soft is the water in your area? Hard water can contribute to such problems.
I like top down on vinyl because you’re using less soap and you can cover more area faster like a windy road pattern and you’re not going to streak vinyl unless you let it dry.
I had some green garage doors streak like mad when washing a painted house from the top down. Had to hire a painter. So now I avoid anything like that by soaping from the bottom up in even paths. Haven’t had a problem in three years since doing it that way. So if it’s not broken I don’t fix it.
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I soap left to right and right to left but I wash trucks and trailers. Just thought I throw that out there lol
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I like you diagram can I use it in a training manual?
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I especially like drawing things to help people comprehend them. I keep crayons and paper plates in the truck just for this reason. I’m glad to see someone else utilizing this process hats off to you @Steve
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I HATE washing people’s garage doors. They never really come 100% clean and most of them are junk with junk paint that does exactly like what you experienced. I soap and rinse almost immediately on garages.
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Thank you all so much for the help
If I’m washing painted hardi-board or a painted front door I pre-wet and soap bottom to top. Vinyl I don’t pre-wet anything and I soap top to bottom. Gutters, soffit, and fascia need the longest dwell time so it saves me time. I’ve never had a streaking issue on vinyl after its rinsed. Same concept with soaping roofs top to bottom…you don’t see streaks and runs when it’s done and dry.
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The manufacturer (Certainteed in particular), says to wash vinyl siding from the bottom up to avoid streaking.
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From bottom to top
We also apply bottom to top. Rinse top to bottom. When we do roofs we always spray the first 5 ft around the whole house from gutters up and 5ft from the edge in. Then we fill in the rest of the roof. This allows the ground guy to wash the house at the same time as we are filling in the rest of the roof.
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I usually soap bottom to top, now i had sections above the rest (gables further on the roof) that i did first but i guess drops came down on garage door and dried before the rest was washed. I only saw the streaks afterwards so i’m guessing that’s what happened.
Client showed me the leftover can of paint they used on the door, here’s a pic of streaks and paint. Can the streaks be removed or should i repaint the garage door?
If you’re planning to paint it, I would do a wash on it first to see how it turns out, go from there. Looks like it just dried on the door……I usually wet the door prior to cleaning above and rinse right after if I have a door that might be problematic….don’t run into that often though.
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Yeah, the area i was washing was further (deeper) on the roof and did not expect soap to run there, the wind was unpredictable though.
I see….I would think that paint could easily hold up to wash mix. Paint looks in good shape overall. Have you washed the door?
Yes my employee did wash the whole side, i’ll go back and try to rewash it and see if it works before repainting it.
Maybe soft brush the streaks……was it painted recently?
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2 years ago
Ok…well. Yeah I’d wash again, see what it looks like. Worse case…paint. Sorry about that….
