CATEGORIES: ANODIZED ALUMINUM - GLASS - SIDEWALKS - CONCRETE - COATED PANELS - PAINT - EIFS

PAINT

Paint cleaning has a number of different issues:
1. Siding cleaning, aluminum and vinyl
2. Mildew removal
3. Chalk removal from siding
4. Cleaning for painting
5. Paint chalk removal from brick
6. Under Eave stains
7. Commercial and industrial buildings

Normal cleaning is done with Cleansol. Safe for plants, glass, and people it will give you a waxed appearance with or without scrubbing. Cleansol is capable of removing virtually everything from gutter streaks, to chalk, to clay stains on paint; often without brushing. The best way to use Cleansol is through a downstream injector on a pressure washer. This unit (opened all the way if it is adjustable) should apply the product at 10 to 1.

MILDEW REMOVAL
Britenol will deal with mildew much better than Cleansol. (Caution: never allow Britenol to go on plants without immediate rinse.) Britenol has proven to be a sanitizer, it will provide kill of bacteria, mold and mildew without damaging the substrate like bleach. People would never dream of washing their $30,000 car with bleach because they know it would ruin the finish, but you can paint a car for a thousand or two. Try to paint your house for that, and you will have the best reason not to use bleach on your home. Those that do it are doing so to save a few dollars of cost while dumping tremendous expense on the homeowner down the road. Britenol will be applied with a double soap at up to 8:1. If circumstances are extreme you may need to use an undiluted double soap with pressure rinse but you will be getting very deep kill and much longer protection for your surface (see limestone).

CHALK REMOVAL
Cleansol will remove all the chalk from aluminum siding. The range of dilution will vary as described before in normal cleaning. The advantage of Cleansol for this application is that it cleans and protects the siding simultaneously. This means that while it is powerful enough to break the bond of this paint chalk from the paint it does it by a system of sophisticated detergents not damaging solvents or caustic as many cleaners do. So after a Cleansol cleaning you will have a shiny surface that will not rechalk for a long time instead of in a week as with other products.

CLEANING FOR PAINTING
Cleaning for painting is best accomplished with a two step process. This means two applications of soap each with a different pH and purpose. These two would be Cleansol and Britenol. The cleaner would be applied first to remove all soil, pollution and chalk from the siding. There still may be some aluminum oxides, mildew or under eave staining present. The application of the Britenol at between 4:1 to 10:1 over the Cleansol will give both neutralization to the surface to be painted and final removal of the other problematic contaminants so that the paint will adhere as well as possible. All this should be rinsed with a pressure washer very well so no old paint chalk or anything else that has been loosened by the chemical remains. Brushing is not normally needed but if the siding is extremely degraded it may be required. Gutters to be painted should definitely have straight Britenol used on them. As always cover plants when using Britenol.

PAINT CHALK REMOVAL FROM BRICK OR STONE
If your siding or shutters have bled paint chalk onto the brick or stone below them you now have a safe alternative for removing this, Britenol or SafeResetore, used undiluted and rinsed with a pressure washer. You should not prewet the wall first as this chalk rarely is deep in the pores. You can apply the product either with low pressure either a trigger sprayer or pump up sprayer or by brush. If you are using a brush, dip it in the undiluted soap and shake it dry and then brush the affected area. This reduces runs and also penetration of the soap so that the surface that has been cleaned will remain an even appearance with that which has not. If this little professional trick does not work follow the brick restoration instructions and do the whole wall. Just pressure washing the wall will often blend the clean and uncleaned areas enough that you do not have to clean everything.

UNDER EAVE STAINS
These stains are usually cleaned with Britenol before using Cleansol. Stains under eaves tend to be heavy build-ups of generally airborne road and atmosphere soil that never gets rinsed off so that just Cleansol will not deal with it. The Britenol applied first at 10 to 1 followed by the Cleansol at the same dilutions may remove everything in one cleaning cycle. If not I always had a bucket with a little (an inch or two) of the undiluted Britenol to brush on before reapplying the Cleansol to neutralize and clean.

COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL RUBBED PAINTED SIDING

This job can become easy and very profitable for the professional with a down stream injector and Cleansol BC. The Cleansol BC is available only to professionals and will allow you to soap and rinse get stunning clean at amazing speeds and rip right through huge jobs generally without ever lifting a brush or ever slowing down. The beauty of it is that while you're breezing through this normally very difficult cleaning you are doing it with no danger of damage. So get yourself a lift, long wand, or ladder and prepare to let it rip. The dilution is 10:1 from the BC and you may or may not need a double soap but the jobs pictured were done with no brushing and the siding when finished. The only thing that looked better was the contractor's bottom line. That 60 foot high exterior pictured was a thousand feet long and was totally cleaned in three days by two men. The cost of the soap was totally paid for three times over in lift and labor savings and the profit was greater than with any other method of cleaning.