muriatic acid

B

brian6839

New member
Ilive in Georgia and cleaned a house the other day with white siding that had red clay mud on it.Well i cant locate 12.5% chlorine in my area so i used household bleach and had alot of trouble removing the stains.bottom line i spent more time on this house than i wanted. Anyway i ran across a website that said i for tough stains you should use muriatic acid mixed with water in a 4:1 ratio. I have always been a little scared of useing acid on vivyl siding and would like the opion from some of you pros on this matter.
 
What ratio mix was the final application of bleach? Did you add anything else to it? More info on how you appplied it may help figure out what went wrong.

Acid works good an concrete for removing red stains but must be done carefully or it will etch and remove the cream.
 
In the end i put straight household bleach on it with no water. I finally got it clean enough to satisfy the customer but not myself. I applied bleach and scrubbed many times. I spent 3 hours on 1 this of the house and the rest of the house only took 2 hours.
 
I know know that georgia red mud contains alot of iron (hence the color red) and that makes me wonder if a rust remover would work
 
I'm in Georgia and bleach doesn't do much to remove clay stains. I recently did a stucco house and the owner asked me to try and get the stains off the bottom of the stucco in a few places. I told him before I started they would probably not come off unless I used an acid cleaner. He told me to put in on and it did lighten them up in some areas. It was a hydrochloric acid cleaner cut 4:1. Whenever I quote a house I look for those stains and tell the customer they will usually lighten but probably will not completely come off.

If anybody knows a safe and proven way to remove them from vinyl, stucco and hardboard siding I would like to know.
 
I only put muriatic on brick or concrete - I would be very scarred to try it on vinyl basically because it is really nasty stuff....Full force on concrete it turns lime green and makes a hissing sound (anyone else ever get this result)?

We have the red clay dirt out here and I find that the 12.5 works well - Behr has a product that is really good - its sold at Lowe's - Its just a basic Siding Wash but it works REALLY REALLY well and its only $4 A GALLON..
 
oxalic, or try ShurClean 600. ox goes real good for rust, and the 600 kills clay good
 
russ s said:
you must use a chem to lift the stain out of the substance the holds it unless it was vinyl then you can 2 step it but be careful
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Glad to know somebody else sees the benefits of 2-stepping things. Works wonders on old aluminum mobiles as well. Gutters too..
 
Another newbie question here: What is 2 stepping. I assume its lifting a stain then removing it. It seems like everytime I learn something there's 2 more lessons to take ita place.
 
2 stepping is a common cleaning process in fleet washing. In a nutshell it is the application of an acid followed by a base( soap..NaOH). A small microscopic reaction occurs at the surface. (Think baking soda and vinegar) This lifts the dirt off of the surface allowing it to be rinsed off.

Use the search feature on this board. There is a wealth of information on here and thanks to Ron and Grant, it is FREE!
 
Larry B said:
Glad to know somebody else sees the benefits of 2-stepping things. Works wonders on old aluminum mobiles as well. Gutters too..
Click to expand...

It has removed stains from houses that I never thought would come off. Kinda discoverd it by accident about 10 years ago when my guy put the chem line in the wrong bucket after some fleet work.
 
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