Concrete Cleaning Process, Chems?

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Ross Martin
Just did a concrete cleaning job. Removed a LOT of dirt and the concrete brighten up.

But, I was not completely happy with the results. A lot of stains, etc were not completely removed.

This was a warehouse, not a greasy oil-stained garage.

Don't do much of this and not looking to buy new tools. Just want to improve results with my current setup.

What I did:
Pre-spray with tile cleaner with oxidizer.
Pre-sprayed grease, tape lines with de-greaser.
Scrub with 175 and Black scrub pad, dwell.
Tile spinner clean pass.
Final rinse tile spinner.

What can I change to improve results? Chems?

Thanks.

Back section cleaned, not final rinsed:
15590477_10210369660971810_7457731283848356510_n.jpg
 

Mark Saiger

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Concrete stains and also changes color over time.

I would say your procedure was very well thought out for best results

If doing a lot of concrete cleaning there are larger concrete blasting turbo and pressure washing set ups... But that's another investment.
 
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Desk Jockey

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When its big open areas you are much better off renting a walk behind scrubber, battery operated. It will increase your production rates to easily cover the cost of rental.

Combined with hotter juice it should also deliver a better end product too.
 
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CPS Dave

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SteveCleans

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Cleaning an occasional small area of concrete is fine with a TM/turbo tool. If you're going to clean any large square footage, it's a whole different investment and a whole different animal. I clean carpets every morning. And I clean concrete and exterior work every afternoon. Two totally different scenarios.

IMG_4441.PNG
 

SteveCleans

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When you do any type of concrete cleaning, which is referred to as surface cleaning, pressure means nothing. Don't let anybody tell you it does. It's all about flow, GPM. The above picture you see is a 2 foot surface cleaner that's being driven by 2500 psi in about 8-10 gallons a minute. That's high flow but low pressure actually. But it's much more powerful than 4500 psi in 5 gallons a minute, although you would not think that it would be. When you use that much flow or GPM's, you will need to have a buffer tank because you were drawing more than a home or business water supply can supply. So it requires trailers and buffer tanks, etc. To turn the jets on a pro surface cleaner you're looking at almost 5–6 GPM minimum fm a pressure washer. An 8–10 GPM PW , preferable, will cost $4000 +. Surface cleaners, trailers etc. are on top of that. As I tell everybody that comes to shadow my work, welcome to the big leagues. :-) But for small concrete jobs that are very occasional, you can get away with a turbo tool & 1000 PSI. It's just very very slow. The driveway in the picture above this post I think was 10 feet by about 220. With my Tools I cleaned that from dirty to looking brand-new in about 40 minutes. - $300 . do the math on why am on the outside working and only doing carpets until noon. Cheers
 

Old Coastie

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I think that your rig has a tremendous advantage; the lower pressure. How many surfaces have you seen that were blasted so hard, so often, they are degraded and aged by decades?
 

SteveCleans

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On concrete it never matters because you cannot damage it with high-pressure. It will sustain much more. The damage on concrete around here stems from all the salt's and stuff in the winter. With that said I wash about 90 homes a year. High-end houses where i do the roof and windows and screens and all of the siding, concrete from the chimney to the mailbox by the road. When I wash the house I use this low pressure washer 2500, 5.6 gpm, . But I only run about 250 psi. It's called 'tipping down' .... you cannot change the flow or the gallons per minute that the machine is putting out, but you change the pressure by changing the tip orifice, very safe for the machine as each tip is designed for that particular GPM/psi machine. and it's done in a matter of two seconds. For instance I can be's rinsing my pre-spray off of the vinyl on a house around the window with a tip that has 100 psi, very safe, and then I could switch up to 250 psi and go back to rinsing vinyl in the open area. And then I could drop in a tip that has 1000 PSI and cut in the driveway concrete where the block foundation meets the concrete, before I hook up a surface cleaner and do the concrete which will be at 3000 PSI and 8–10 GPM . 99% of pressure washing companies do not understand the premise of tipping down. that's why I have a schedule full of people wanting to come here and work with me. Respectfully. I will be having a fest in the spring and having eight or 10 people here for couple days. We will do traditional and pure water window cleaning, we will do some roofs . Acid wash some gutters, soft wash some houses and do some service cleaning. My shop is a dream for carpet cleaners are exterior house wash people so it's like a festival of tools, and I mean the modern cream of the crop tools. I'm blessed. Sorry to ramble. I love to talk shop and I talk into my iPad so it is adds up real quick.
 

SteveCleans

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You asked about softwash above, I get a lot of my stuff from the power wash store up north of Milwaukee. Pressuretek.com (bob) is an industry favorite (ohio) check out his website. Soft wash is just a tool in the box. Like carpet cleaning you need a CRB, rotary, wand, etc. different tools for different situations. I have been so successful and in demand on the outside because I take the carpet cleaning mentality ( prespray, scrub & rinse) to the outside. It's a very interesting concept. people want clean but they also want safe.
 
Joined
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New Port Richey, FL
Name
Ross Martin
When you do any type of concrete cleaning, which is referred to as surface cleaning, pressure means nothing. Don't let anybody tell you it does. It's all about flow, GPM. The above picture you see is a 2 foot surface cleaner that's being driven by 2500 psi in about 8-10 gallons a minute. That's high flow but low pressure actually. But it's much more powerful than 4500 psi in 5 gallons a minute, although you would not think that it would be. When you use that much flow or GPM's, you will need to have a buffer tank because you were drawing more than a home or business water supply can supply. So it requires trailers and buffer tanks, etc. To turn the jets on a pro surface cleaner you're looking at almost 5–6 GPM minimum fm a pressure washer. An 8–10 GPM PW , preferable, will cost $4000 +. Surface cleaners, trailers etc. are on top of that. As I tell everybody that comes to shadow my work, welcome to the big leagues. :-) But for small concrete jobs that are very occasional, you can get away with a turbo tool & 1000 PSI. It's just very very slow. The driveway in the picture above this post I think was 10 feet by about 220. With my Tools I cleaned that from dirty to looking brand-new in about 40 minutes. - $300 . do the math on why am on the outside working and only doing carpets until noon. Cheers

When you are putting out 8-10 gallons a minute, how do you get out of your own way?

If the water is not being extracted, does it not pool up right away?
 

SteveCleans

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Good question but the answer is no. It's almost all outside and most sidewalks & driveways have a slight drainage angle to them so the water will gradually move down and slide off of the concrete into the grass. I clean X amount of square foot and then I unhook my high-pressure hose from the surface cleaner and hook on my gun with a three or 400 psi tip and I spray everything off real quick. It looks brand-new. And I hook my surface cleaner back up and clean some more and repeat the process
 

Jamesh921

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"The driveway in the picture above this post I think was 10 feet by about 220. With my Tools I cleaned that from dirty to looking brand-new in about 40 minutes. - $300"
$300 divided by 2200 sq. ft. = .136 cents per sq. ft. Is that how you price your concrete cleanings or do you price it be the job/time it takes? Basically, I'm asking how you price out all your powerwashing jobs. I've been dabbling in cleaning parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, etc... But I really don't know how to price it because I don't have enough experience doing it yet to know how long each task will take me. And, of course, I'm using power washers with wands or a Turbo spinner. Not the high quality equipment you have BUT I have been looking into that equipment.
 

SteveCleans

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No to be honest, just experience. I just look at it and I have a small medium and large price in mind. Like carpet cleaning, and a minimum of say 129 for a small driveway. A medium driveway might be 199. And then upwards of that. Sometimes I toss in a few sidewalks that lead up to the front porch. Residential concrete usually does not have many stains. It's just topical dirt and it just comes right off even without chemical.
So I would like to tell you I have a magic formula but I don't. I just know by looking it's going to take me an hour or it's going to take me 90 minutes and I just have a number in mind. This is not much help I'm sure :-)
 

Jamesh921

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I get it. It's just a matter of the tools you have at your disposal + soil level/type + time to do the job which only comes with experience. I cleaned the parking lot in a restaurant with 2 power washers where they had a huge grease spill which the disposal company caused when their hose broke when siphoning out the grease pit. It was about 3500 sf and 10 hours later I realized that this $400 job should have cost them about $1200. Sometimes experience is costly.
 

SteveCleans

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Yep.

I rarely do commercial work. On rare occasion I will do some commercial carpet cleaning. But I never do commercial concrete work. Way too much bubblegum, Greece etc. I offer to many services I have too many good jobs to mess around with the junk. 95% of my work is all residential whether it's carpet cleaning, roofs, house wash or glass. Just my choice
 
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SteveCleans

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No, sorry if I made it sound like that. I do a lot of Window cleaning. I am a carpet in a post tree cleaning guy first and foremost, that has been my front runner since 1999. Customers asked me to go and learn to clean stained refs which led to house washing which led to a lot of water spots on the windows from mineralized water, so I learned about pure water cleaning and traditional window cleaning. And that lead to going ahead and tossing in the sidewalks and driveways. So it got all inclusive from the top of the roof to the mailbox at the street LOL. And then all the stuff inside house. Carpet/upholstery/tile etc
 

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