Randy Ward
New member
First post so try not to ream me too badly here ladies and gents!
Starting a pressure washing business with my friend and not business partner, he is on here Alfredo but I have jumped on here as well to try and get a better understanding of the chemicals being used.
I see that most of you are basically using bleach for a majority of your mixes for house, concrete and roof wash. All 3 just happen to be the market we are trying to break into here and I am just trying to get an understanding of how effective, how safe and how plant friendly all of this is. One mix in particular I have seen come up numerous times on here as well as other forums I have been lurking on while at work over the past month or so is Applesauce. Granted the amt of water vs the amt of chemicals being used does help to dilute the solution down but you are still spraying essentially bleach, TSP and Borax on these surfaces which in turn end up on grass, plants, trees, flowers etc. All 3 of which will kill plant life in various different ways which after the amount of effort, time, sweat, cursing and money I have spent on my yard...if a cleaner killed it I would probably go off my hinges and throw a temper tantrum in my front yard giving my neighbors one hell of a show. My main question is at what point is the dilution little enough to not cause any issues with plants, grass, animals, flowers etc? if that point even exist.
Just speaking with the guy I purchased my equipment from in a little town close to here last week (he runs a chemical supply company) essentially told me that he would not sell me any chemicals because they are not needed. His business aside from repairs it literally probably %95 of the money being brought in at that company yet he tells me at most even cleaning his house he used 2 gal of outdoor bleach over a fairly large 2 story house, heat and some ext on his wand. After a few horror stories about roofs being cleaned by a guy locally in a very very affluent neighborhood is probably the one that stuck out the most. Guy is contracted to clean the roofs of several houses (keep in mind if you find a house in this neighborhood under 600k you have struck gold), cleans the roofs and starts getting phone calls of the owners wanting his head on a pike because he has completely obliterated the plant life around their home. The main advise I was given to do nearly all cleaning is %100 water.
Again, I can see the fact given that in some situations a cleaner like bleach would be needed but by reading a lot of forums it seems as if a lot of contractors are spraying bleach on these houses and businesses like they throw out dollar bills at the strip club.
Anyone have some concrete on paper information with some form of research of any useful information that shows these sort of mixes is not going to cause lots of harm to plant life? Not to mention I love the outdoors so the thought of me putting these additional poisons in the ground that could contaminate the ground or ground water makes me wanna puke a little. I know that a lot of you have been doing this for some time, have created, tampered with and have tried and true results for these mixtures but at the same time what sort of issues have you ran into? This of course is in no way shape of form ment to insult anyone, call you out etc so please dont take it that way because all I am trying to do is expand my horizons. I am by no way shape or form a hippie of any sort and hopefully not putting myself off in that manner...simply wanting to be able to get the job done without using a ton of chemicals.
With that being said the equipment we currently have is
1. Landa skid belt driven with 3500 PSI, 4.7 gpm, and diesel fired coil
2. Landa Direct drive that is mobile (extra money spent, more productivity avail) also at 3500PSI 3 ish GPM and diesel fired coil
will more than likely be adding an electric pump setup in the future but time to pay make some money to get back the money that has been put into those 2 machines, accessories, trailer etc.
Any help, info, input is more than greatly appreciated! Rather than have 1 person to go to seeing their point of view I believe its best in this situation to get as much information as I can and making a well informed decision instead of the first opinions I come across
Starting a pressure washing business with my friend and not business partner, he is on here Alfredo but I have jumped on here as well to try and get a better understanding of the chemicals being used.
I see that most of you are basically using bleach for a majority of your mixes for house, concrete and roof wash. All 3 just happen to be the market we are trying to break into here and I am just trying to get an understanding of how effective, how safe and how plant friendly all of this is. One mix in particular I have seen come up numerous times on here as well as other forums I have been lurking on while at work over the past month or so is Applesauce. Granted the amt of water vs the amt of chemicals being used does help to dilute the solution down but you are still spraying essentially bleach, TSP and Borax on these surfaces which in turn end up on grass, plants, trees, flowers etc. All 3 of which will kill plant life in various different ways which after the amount of effort, time, sweat, cursing and money I have spent on my yard...if a cleaner killed it I would probably go off my hinges and throw a temper tantrum in my front yard giving my neighbors one hell of a show. My main question is at what point is the dilution little enough to not cause any issues with plants, grass, animals, flowers etc? if that point even exist.
Just speaking with the guy I purchased my equipment from in a little town close to here last week (he runs a chemical supply company) essentially told me that he would not sell me any chemicals because they are not needed. His business aside from repairs it literally probably %95 of the money being brought in at that company yet he tells me at most even cleaning his house he used 2 gal of outdoor bleach over a fairly large 2 story house, heat and some ext on his wand. After a few horror stories about roofs being cleaned by a guy locally in a very very affluent neighborhood is probably the one that stuck out the most. Guy is contracted to clean the roofs of several houses (keep in mind if you find a house in this neighborhood under 600k you have struck gold), cleans the roofs and starts getting phone calls of the owners wanting his head on a pike because he has completely obliterated the plant life around their home. The main advise I was given to do nearly all cleaning is %100 water.
Again, I can see the fact given that in some situations a cleaner like bleach would be needed but by reading a lot of forums it seems as if a lot of contractors are spraying bleach on these houses and businesses like they throw out dollar bills at the strip club.
Anyone have some concrete on paper information with some form of research of any useful information that shows these sort of mixes is not going to cause lots of harm to plant life? Not to mention I love the outdoors so the thought of me putting these additional poisons in the ground that could contaminate the ground or ground water makes me wanna puke a little. I know that a lot of you have been doing this for some time, have created, tampered with and have tried and true results for these mixtures but at the same time what sort of issues have you ran into? This of course is in no way shape of form ment to insult anyone, call you out etc so please dont take it that way because all I am trying to do is expand my horizons. I am by no way shape or form a hippie of any sort and hopefully not putting myself off in that manner...simply wanting to be able to get the job done without using a ton of chemicals.
With that being said the equipment we currently have is
1. Landa skid belt driven with 3500 PSI, 4.7 gpm, and diesel fired coil
2. Landa Direct drive that is mobile (extra money spent, more productivity avail) also at 3500PSI 3 ish GPM and diesel fired coil
will more than likely be adding an electric pump setup in the future but time to pay make some money to get back the money that has been put into those 2 machines, accessories, trailer etc.
Any help, info, input is more than greatly appreciated! Rather than have 1 person to go to seeing their point of view I believe its best in this situation to get as much information as I can and making a well informed decision instead of the first opinions I come across