| EaCo Chem Inc. | New Construction Learning Center |

NEW CONSTRUCTION

1. LOW PRESSURE APPLICATION With NMD80:
You may apply NMD80 with a brush and bucket but you will be wasting time and money. Recommended dilutions always start at 4 parts water, 1 part NMD80. Applying NMD80 with a low-pressure applicator is a very good way to increase production while maintaining good control of the amount of chemical used. Prewet the wall with your pressure washer by applying water using low pressure. Simply try to fill the pores of the masonry. Now take the applicator wand and begin spraying from the bottom up, use long even passes while spraying and make sure the surface is completely covered. You will see white foam on the wall that does not turn green like raw hydrochloric acid. To see if you are ready to rinse, use the scratch test. Using heavy rubber gloves rub lightly on a mortar smear or blob. If it crumbles easily you are ready to rinse. Generally this occurs in seconds because of the penetrating surfactants in NMD80. If there are problems with one application cleaning you may want to use one of these options; decrease the dilution, scrape more thoroughly, or use two applications. The whole idea here is to keep production up and rinsing is the most time consuming aspect of the clean up. Spray the detergent on only as much surface area as you can rinse comfortably without the surface drying. If you are working off of scaffold, swing stage, or ladders you will generally work in a much smaller area (25 to 40 square feet). if you are using a lift you may be able work a much larger area because the water running down the wall will keep the wall below you wet and rinse the detergent down and off the wall as you work above. I would like to give two cautions here: 1) allowing the product to dry on the wall may not harm anything but it is never recommended, 2) you always should rinse from the top down to prevent drying.

Low pressure application

Cleaned ground face block
inside a school

2. DOWN STREAM PROJECTION:
An advance in detergent application that has merit is the downstream high volume projection units. These allow you to shoot the detergent great distances with relative ease using high concentrations so it will still be effective at cleaning. This will be useful in situations like tilt up concrete where evenness of the surface appearance and removal of construction dirt are the primary goals. The job is not properly done if not properly rinsed. That means gaining good access to all areas and using proper rinsing techniques is still required. The use of extension poles following this type of detergent application would be appropriate in limited circumstances such as certain chimney and roof structures. It would not be recommended for large scale cleaning as it is very difficult to maintain the required overlap of passes from a distance and at such a viewing angle.

3. SCRAPING:
Scraping the wall is another issue that seems to have a lot of loaded opinions associated with it. Use a steel garden edger, carbide blocks, and bricks when required. I see few difficulties associated with using the garden edger as a scraper and leaving steel in the wall, use the scraper very lightly just to remove chunks. The other two methods are very slow and may have been more critical in a time without pressure washers and good detergents. The scraper is mainly used on the bottom ten feet of a waIl. That would change of course if there is a section where the masons had particular problems which allowed a lot of blobs to stick. That area would be scraped before detergent application. Hold the edger at a very narrow angle to the wall and very lightly graze it along the wall until contacting an obstruction, then use a quick chop to the blob, not the wall, to release it. Work in small 5 to 6 foot sections at a time and work back and forth in both directions very quickly. Scrape only the amount to be cleaned in a day which is normally 3000 square feet per man. This should be a very quick process normally. Labor and time must always be balanced against benefits returned and the detergent provides far better evenness and release than scraping.

4. PROTECTION:
There are two aspects to protection; personal and building surfaces. Glass, anodized aluminum, virtually any kind of brick or block, even limestone is not usually negatively affected by NMD8O. As with any product though, this does not excuse any one from proper job site conduct or safety precautions. This means that when compared to any other product, your chances of causing harm, when using accepted standard practices, are virtually zero. We have seen damage occur primarily in two areas; with some imported “stainless steel” door and fountain hardware and with some “brass” coated parts on exterior lamps that were not covered during cleaning. In both cases the materials were exposed to strong product and were left unprotected. There have been two isolated incidences of brick burn, both on the “Antioch” type hard brown jumbos. When questioned as to the usage that caused this problem no one seemed to know what was done except new personnel were left unsupervised in difficult situations. There may be a lesson there. If burn occurs on brick, BURN RESTORE when brushed on and left there will solve these problems quickly, inexpensively, and easily. Personal protection requires that all OSHA approved procedures be followed at all times. NMD80 is very easy to use and few problems are expected but always refer to the MSDS if there are problems.

5. TILT UP CONCRETE:
Tilt up concrete cleaning is generally accomplished with the NMD8O at high dilution levels. The range of dilutions will vary according to the surface finish but the range should be between 15:1 to 30:1. This is an area where a projection downstream nozzle might be appropriate for chemical application. The usual cleanup only entails removing surface dirt from the construction project and not removing heavy bits of mortar or smears. The main goal of the cleaning project here is to make the face of the building appear uniform without causing any further surface changes. This makes it important not to use restoration detergents as they may whiten and/or streak the building. Apply a light coat of water to the surface just to the point of run from top to bottom. Follow this with a quick even application of NMD80 at the dilutions recommended above. You may apply this from the top or the bottom but except in the case of very tall structures of multiple levels you should clean one whole section at a time. Rinse from the top down, taking care to use long even strokes that overlap, while keeping the wide angle nozzle adequate distance from the surface to avoid stripes on the surface from use of pressure.

6. FORM RELEASE:
Apply a solvent based product to remove most form releases and to allow standard cleaning practices to work. Either C-Tar Melt or Stripsol are very effective pretreatments before NMD8 cleaning in order to remove work dirt or to even out the appearance of the surface.

7. RINSING:
Rinsing is a deceptively simple act that determines much of the quality of the job. By varying tip width and distance from the wall you can have as little pressure as a garden hose or enough to blow out mortar joints. Generalized rules of rinsing would include, 1) using a wide tip of not less than 25 degrees, 2) using overlap while rinsing, 3) allowing the chemical time to do the melting job (do not try to blast away mortar) and, 4) 2000 psi. is a good pressure to use. Taking these issues in reverse order, the reason for settling on 2000 psi is based on a number of factors. First is operator fatigue, workers release the trigger a lot less often when only using 2000 psi all day long. 2000 psi is also much safer in unbalanced situations like a ladder or reaching on scaffolds. Generally 2000 psi machines use less water which may or may not be an issue on certain job sites. Having said all that any pressure from 500 psi to 3000 psi is generally acceptable in the hands of a trained worker. More chemical will be used with the lower pressure and greater care will need to be taken with the higher pressure on certain types of special brick finishes. Letting the chemical do the work instead of the pressure will of course seem to be self serving coming from the manufacturer of the chemical. Anyone experienced in these jobs knows full well your biggest expense is not the detergent, but the labor. Also the chemical if properly applied is totally uniform and efficient in its’ work. Hunting and pecking for spots on a large wall with a pressure washer is totally inefficient. Using the proper dilutions and application techniques with NMD80 will bring your detergent cost down so much that when viewed with the labor savings from increased production it is definitely the most cost effective way to get the job done right. Always use overlapping passes to achieve a uniform appearance to the job. A 40 degree nozzle tip to get wider coverage and increased speed is recommended. A two or one and a half brick overlap are easily achieved with this nozzle and is definitely recommended on sand faced or other special brick surfaces. This also decreases the potential for surface damage. Finally take great care when using rotating zero degree nozzles. They can do great harm to mortar joints and masonry surfaces, such as leaving swirl marks in the surface. To prevent this keep the nozzle well back from the masonry surface.

Cream in the joints were
undamaged by NMD80.

Limestone and brick cleaned with no
extra precautions needed to protect
the limestone.

8. NO EXPERIENCE NO PROBLEM
Some Milwaukee based contractors had not fared well in the truck washing end of the pressure washing market. They had lots of work and did a good job but competitors, lowball pricing and overhead costs made the bottom line too slim. They decided to switch gears completely; leave the other business and go in a new direction. They noticed all the new construction in Milwaukee and called EaCo Chem, Inc. and asked if we had something that would allow them to get into that market. We told them of a unique new masonry detergent and told them how to apply it. They in turn went to the construction site of the Express Center, the new convention center being constructed in downtown Milwaukee. They got a demonstration and true to form NMD8O was chosen to clean the new masonry. I tell this story because it proves the effectiveness of the product. These guys had never cleaned new construction nor used the product before but they did a demonstration side by side with the competition and not only got the job but have gone on to enjoy financial success and gain a reputation for excellence in their field.

9. LOW ODOR and VOC COMPLIANCE
A great demonstration of the low odor of NMD80 was on the new Fish and Wildlife Management College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The federal government was building a new training center for its employees that is a large multiple building complex by the Potomac River. The potential cleaning contractor had called when he tried to clean the ground face block inside a classroom building with two different national brand name products which had been approved. The products had not performed satisfactorily. The mortar mix being used resisted cleaning even with the competitors product brushed on straight. He was working in close proximity to electricians, dry wallers, and other tradesmen who were very vocal in their displeasure with the fumes. He had a further problem of getting all the water out of a building without drains. The more applications required, the more rinsing required, and the greater the problem became. NMD80 was demonstrated for the contractor at a 4:1 dilution. Later a large test patch to demonstrate NMD80 for approval of the architects, Army Corp. of Engineering, the general contractor, and the masonry contractor was sprayed on as the workers filed past to return to work. Not one complaint was registered and NMD8O was approved and used on the whole college complex. An official OSHA test was done at the Great Lakes Naval Air Station where badges had to be worn that would register excessive exposure and the need to wear special masks. The results were that no masks were required and once again NMD8O was chosen over the specified product to do the job.

It leaves a very crisp clean surface behind without removing the cream, etching, or discoloring and dilutions generally would be higher to clean these surfaces. Such as on the Federal Courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts. The architects on that job a very highly respected firm that is known for wanting the colors they spec to be the colors maintained. The 150 foot high runs of masonry on this building were kept scrupulously even by the masonry contractor cleaners by using the product at 15:1 on most of the structure.

Another benefit of the product in the concrete market is its ability to clean the soft metal forms without doing harm. In head to head dip testing a leading phosphoric acid cleaner, supposedly very safe, etched the metal forms badly, while the NMD80 left them looking almost like new.