hello all, I have several questions to ask about roof washing,
when using your chemicals on a roof and letting dwell time take effect,if you decide to rinsing, do we have to contain the water waist coming out of the gutters if so how?
I have a 30 gallon plastic barrel, is that a good size for now.
what would be the ratio of chems for this size barrel, when using SH/SC and H2o?
would a chemical gas water pump work with the chemicals used for this project?
I am almost ready to start this new part of my business.
PLEASE HELP.
Thanks James
1 we don’t rinse but if you do rinse you need to collect all the water runoff from rinsing. We bag the gutters with HD Contractor bags to contain the solution runoff.
2 you can do it with a 30 gal container depending on the roof size you may need to make another batch.
3 Our mix would be 10 gals 12% sh and 20 gals h2o plus a surfactant. We use Talon from Southside Equipment.
4 I have no idea if this will work. What is the gpm? What will you use for a nozzle?
Surfactant is basically a sci term for soap. It is more complex than that. A cool experiment of how surfactant helps your soft wash chems clean is to fill a glass all the way up to the top with water. If you look at the glass sideways you will see that the water actually stands up above the rim of the glass. That is called surface tension.
Because of surface tension water beads up on almost everything you spray it on. Now take a small drop of dish washing soap and add it to the glass. Now the water wont stand up any more, even if you add more water. The surfactant / soap has broken the surface tension.
Some do and some dont. They are too problematic and I wont put them on my equipment. Our equipment is designed to do up to 500 roofs a year. Even the Penteflex wont do 500 roofs but it will do 200 with no problem. Thats a cost of about $1.50 a roof.
I have a fat boy and have never had a problem with it. Granted I have not used it yet but I can boast a near perfect record with it!
I am doing my first roof this week. The guys who delivered my SH use air pumps and say thats the only way to go however, they deliver the stuff not apply it so maybe there is room for electric pumps. I had researched the pump and many of the industry leaders reccomended the delevan 5850 for starters and make your own set up with that. However AC’s history in the industry warrents his advice to be headed.
He also is a vendor so remember he is giving a sometimes biased opinion,that being said he is a stand up guy and would never give you bad advice. unless you find yourself in a Kareoke bar in New Orleans then all bets are off! good luck with your decision
I have heard both great results and bad reviews with both. It’s not a super expensive piece of equipment and it WILL fail when you need it most. Whatever you buy, get at least two so you have a backup. An accumulator tank from Pressure Tek seems to make a world of difference both in performance and longevity.
And yes, we will find ourselves in THE karaoke bar- The World Famous Cat’s Meow- in just a few short months. Mark your calendars for NOLA2012. February 3 and 4. You will have a chance to hear AC speak and he has promised to wear his Rob Halford leather and sing Judas Priest at Cat’s.
FACT.
