I am a little confused… I am a window cleaner that does do some flat surface cleaning but am very intriguied in this soft wash thing. I have bought a few tips and a injector, the cherry stuff and 12.5 bleach but can someone walk me through it. I have a 4gpm 4000psi washer. ( i cant figure out where the injector goes that Bob at PT sold me??
Assume I dont have anything, can some one tell me what to do?
Do the tips i bought really toggle my pressure down that much?
Also, I keep seeing this ball valve being used to wash? It looks like it is connected to a regular hose? If this is true how do you draw the chemical?
You can use your pressure washer to do soft washing, but only at idle speed with a soap nozzle. Asking the guys over at Paint Service and Information will get you the best answers, but I’ll try to explain what some do.
I use the power washing at idle speed with soap nozzles. I downstream my chems and use a little hotter mix (I run straight 12.5% and simple cherry through the injector. thats because most injectors draw 10/1=10 parts water, 1 part chem).
Some guys have a whole different system set up for this type of washing. They use a chemical tank with their chemicals already mixed up. They have a 12 volt pump that pulls the chemical out of the chem tank, pushes it through a hose (or hosereel) and out through the 40-60 degree nozzle. Then after dwelling for a few minutes, they shut off the chemical tank at the valve and open the clean water tank. Through the same hose and nozzle set-up, they rinse with plain water.
I’ve had decent luck with the way I do it. I am preparing to put together a seperate system for soft washing this winter. Along side the soft wash, will go a new Power washing unit and hose reels for both chem and clean water tanks. All of this will be on a newly built, homemade trailer.
if the injector does not have quick connects, put some on it. You can place the injector anywhere after the pump. Most guys install it close to the machine, before high pressure hose.
If you told Bob what size PW you have, I’m sure he sent you the the right tips to soft wash.
If you have any other questions, please ask. Feel free to call too, if you prefer.
For downstreaming with simple cherry and 12.5% I’d recommend 3.5 gallons of 12.5 to 1.5 gallons of water and 16oz of simple cherry. (that’s listed on the pressuretek.com site, too) Remember to always add chemical to water - never water to chemical. This will make 5 gallons of house wash.
The injector will only siphon at LOW pressure. So when a ball valve is used, it’s at low pressure, thus the injector kicks in and draws chemical. You’ll have to remove the siphon tube from the cleaning solution to rinse with the ball valve however. And you won’t get much height with a 4gpm and ball valve. You’ll probably need a 8gpm+ to get a good deal of workable height.
Practice downstreaming and soft washing on your own house. Fill up a bucket with water and add a few cap fulls of laundry detergent. This will suds up really well, so you’ll learn exactly when the injector is drawing, how long it takes to clear the hose and so forth.
The injector and tips that Bob sold you are a perfect way of soft washing with a pressure washer.
Im new at soft washing too. I bought a new injector today with quick connects. (found my problem Ron) If you have the quick connects, it will connect to your outlet (where the high pressure hose connects)
Bob walked me through the proper tips to buy and a bought the four way nozzle changer. Im having fun learning my machine =)
Buy a pressure gauge to see how much pressure you’re pushing out with each tip.
-I dont running your machine at idle is going to help. You want get the volume of water you need.
You could reduce your pressure by turning the unloader valve.
Make sure you have the right nozzles though, Pressure Tek sent me the wrong nozzle by accident and it made a few jobs really difficult until I figured out what was wrong.
I have my injector installed at the pump outlet before the quick disconnect, you know where you connect your high pressure hose to the machine. I also have a injector with a quick disconnect in case I have to rent a machine.
Only problem with the quick disconnect injector is leaving it somewhere or losing it, then you are up the creek… for your next job.
My purpose for having it on the quick connects is to change it out quickly. When I was running acid through it a lot the internal spring would fail from time to time. Rather then taking the time to replace the spring - I could just take a spare and pop it on in less then 30 seconds and get back to work. I think it’s a good idea for everyone to keep a spare with quick connects on it for this reason. They’re relatively cheap. Other then when swapping them out, I never remove them from the pressure washer. I just disconnect the high pressure hose from the injector when I’m finished.
DON’T throttle down an air-cooled engine. It needs to be run at full speed.
Use larger orifice nozzles to softwash.
Either put a ball valve on your chem line and go back to the truck to shut it off or learn how to use a ball valve at the gun to cut off the soap without changing to a high pressure nozzle.
Hey guys, Bob sent me all the above mentioned tools. I have a good understanding of this, but I am curious. Once I have everything connected, should I lower the pressure on my 3800 psi 4gp Pressure Washer to pull the solution?
There is a filter on the end of the intake hose for the solution, any concerns I should know with this?
Also, the 4-way nozzle, you just switch back and forth on what is needed correct? and I should remove the solution from the equation when I rinse, or do I just increase the pressure.
I know I sound pretty inept, just want to get it working and do it right. Are there any articles on this? thanks!
Sounds a bit ‘hot’ (heavy on the SH), IMO. A lot of guys say to use only 2-3 gallons of 12.5% SH for a 5 gallon batch of housewash. If you’re starting out using dollar store bleach, you can go with straight 6% (plus soap), or 4-4.5 gallons of the concentrated 8.25% stuff. Check the manufacture dates if you go that route, since the fresher it is the more effective it will be. The date is usually formatted as a 5 digit number, where the first three indicate the day of the year (001-365), and the last two are the year.
Another factor that will affect the strength of your mix is the air and water temperature. I have to run a hotter mix first thing in the season and towards the end of my season. During the summer months I can get away with a cooler mix.
Regarding soap, a lot of guys have moved to a liquid soap for their mix, like the eLemonator sold by pressuretek. That’s what I use, and it seems to do pretty good job. 4 or 5 oz per batch is all you really need. It mixes up real easy and rinses nicely.
Using a j-rod holder for high and low soap and rinse tips is one alternative to the ball valve suggestion in that post. The rinse tips have smaller orifices which create more back pressure and will stop the injector from drawing soap. It will also allow you to rinse with a little more pressure, which some people prefer. It just might not be considered “true soft washing” depending on who you ask. If you don’t want to go that route, you can install a vinyl ball valve on your draw tube for the injector, or even have a bypass setup that will divert water around the injector for maximum flow.
For whatever reason, my reply did not get posted - probably because I am new. I wanted to thank you for your response.
I ended up using a 50/50 SH and water mixture for a 5 gallon mix and it worked great. Bob (Pressuretek) sold me the Jrod setup for my machine (4gpm @ 4000psi). Ironically, I found that I mostly used (liked) only 2 tips (soap high and low tips) for both soaping and rinsing. I used used the rinse high once or twice to get to the higher gutters and did not really care for the rinse low as it seemed to have too much pressure and required me to get much closer to the surface. As a result, I basically only used the soap high (0040) and soap low (2540) tips for the entire job. It turned out great.
