I have a customer and she asked me if my company can remove oil stains from driveway. I said yes and she was OK with the price. Now I don’t have sh$t ready and would like an advice.
Should I buy $200-300 range power washer with good GPM and PSI or it needs to be specialized couple thousand $$$ one machine mounted on the truck or van?
I don’t know how to add pics of the driveway.
Your help is appreciated!
Hold on, hold on, let me get this straight - You told a customer you can do something that you can’t do, now she wants you to do it and you are asking people to tell you how to do it?
Sub it out to someone who does pressure washing.
Garry, the thing is I do want to do it. I do want to buy an equipment and start doing it.
I know it might take me 5-6 hours instead of typical 30 mins for experienced guy to remove those stains but tut that’s totally cool.
I see it as a perfect opportunity to learn something by doing it
I’ll help you with setup, chem and method. You won’t be able to get it all. There will always be some shadowing.
I’m a sales rep for PWRA and we sell equipment.
Jordie
862 312 2633
When do you need it by and what is your general budget?
This kit will get you started. You’ll need chem too.
https://windowcleaner.com/pressure-washing-starter-kit?pt=9G
It was posted almost 7 months ago - so I’d hope he got back to the customer and sorted it.
Electric pressure cleaners are very low GPM and high PSI - exactly the opposite of what you need.
For anyone else who might have this issue and don’t have the right equipment for the job, pass it to a reputable pressure washing company.
This job needs a chemical pre-treatment and ideally a lower pressure (2000-2500psi) high volume (4GPM minimum) preferably hot surface cleaner wash.
Cold will do, but more chemical would be needed and both methods would need a post treatment.
Heat is always best with penetrative stains, then chemicals - but not pressure.
Most things you can do on your own - but the learning curve should never be done on a customers property.
Sure, you can clean your own stains - people use petrol, degreaser, a poultice (absorption) lots of things - but powerful pressure will damage the surface of the concrete pictured.
Other surfaces are more tolerant to pressure - stone, brick, pavers etc.
No worries.
Also, if you do have a stain - every surface is different, so not one method will suit all.
The surface pictured has a raked “cream” (the cream being the top layer to make it look nice, also the most fragile) which will easily be removed with wrong pressure causing irreversible damage.
It doesn’t look too old either - any fresh (1 year) concrete shouldn’t be pressure cleaned in general.
Low pressure/heat is always a safe option over chemicals/pressure.
If the stains have been there for a long time, you won’t ever shift them - at best they will fade.
As I said, each situation is different, with a different process to get the best results 
