Building Wash - Shouldn't be this difficult

Kris Caswell

Kris Caswell

New member
Performed a stucco building wash yesterday (see below) I'm pretty happy with the results but not happy with the time and effort it took to clean. I keep reading online on how soft washing and chemicals are supposed to melt dirt and mildew away and how fast and easy it's supposed to be but when I go and try to do this type of cleaning i'm experiencing that in the end I'm having to get up on a ladder with my green tip and blast away this dirt and grime.

Please help! I can't continue to do building washes if it's taking this amount of effort to clean.

Here's the steps I did to perform this job.

1. mix chemicals. 5 gal bucket. 1 gal 10% SH, 1 packet of powered chlorine, 8oz green wash, 8oz of ebc, and 4oz of dawn soap
2. pre wet vegetation
3. apply chemicals with xjet
4. dwell for 5mins
5. pressure wash with xjet

We repeated this process 3 times. Still had some heavy staining at the top of the building. that's when we decided to just pull the ladder and green tip out.

Please if you have any suggestions (i'm sure i'm doing something wrong) let me know.

Building wash.jpg
 
Forget the powdered chlorine, use liquid chlorine only. My basic housewash mix 2 gallons of sh, 3 gallons of water, plus surfactant. I started using green wash, but now using roof snot. Green wash worked great, I ran out so I tried roof snot. It is working. Sometimes I will reverse the proportions.

Forget dawn dish soap, you already have green wash in there as a surfactant.

Xjetting really is not really softwashing, but should work. If something is dirty like that, try boosting the strength of your mix (getting rid of powdered chlorine should help)

Also try longer dwell time.

Good luck
 
A couple of quick things... Dwell on mildew ingrained as deep as it appears in your picture should be 10+ mins (depending on weather conditions and surface temps).

With your mix you should have plenty of 'cling'... I would use more chlorine in your bucket, mix coming out of your x-jet is not strong enough.

A chemical pump (12v or otherwise) would allow you to spray a stronger mix and make easy work of jobs like this.
 
Yea sounds like mix is probably too weak.
Those are some heavy "stains" and it's on stucco, so it would take me at least 2 or 3 coats to get it out.
 
Kris Caswell said:
Keenan,

sorry didn't mean to imply that xjeting was soft washing. I talked to a couple other people too recently and they were pointing out the sh ratio as well. are you saying that my experience would of been totally different with the sh concentration up?
Click to expand...

Something like that I would probably use the xjet to apply soap as it will allow for a higher concentration of soap to get on the surface. I think your results would be different with more SH, but I do not promise it.

From weakest to strongest If you use the same mix for all three methods of application.....

Downstreaming
X jetting
Dedicated pump
 
I've washed both and they seemed about the same as far as cleaning process goes.
 
Mix is to weak. You need about 3 gallons SH 1 gallon water....couple squirts of surfactant. Like Steve said let dwell longer.
 
Doug Rucker said:
Mix is to weak. You need about 3 gallons SH 1 gallon water....couple squirts of surfactant. Like Steve said let dwell longer.
Click to expand...

+1 on this mix!
 
Hey Kris, glad too see your up and operating. Was nice too meet you a couple months back!
Your a few hours north of me but in the Fresno area most homes are stucco. And most commercial buildings are drivit. Hard for me too tell from my phone, what you were dealing with there. Any close up pics?
I would make sure on the x-jet that your remove the proportioner tip. Those little plastic deals that probley came in a bag with the X-jet. That would insure your mix is as strong as possible while using the x-jet.

Was that the north side of the building in the pics? Worst side?

And like every one said the Higher% sh will help. Find a wholesale pool supply store in your area. And they will sell it the cheapest. Not a store like Leslie's. Wholesale will only sell too contractors.

Looks good though. They should be pleased.


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i had the same issue with ocala block. I ended up disolving my other ingredients in about a half gallon of water then filling the rest with chlorine after that job. but I'm ds ing. my previous mix was great for vinyl But that extra texture gave me trouble.

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Chris,

awww.. ok finally i understand what those tips were for. I didn't understand them at first. Ended up double checking and looks like i didn't have a proportioner insert in. Thank god it would of probably took twice as long. BTW i still have your door hangers up in my office. I'm using them as inspiration to eventually get into staining and sealing
 
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