As i'm a cheap bastard and thrill seeker i'm looking to Pressure Wash my house again. Vinyl siding. In years past I climbed up on my nice and sturdy fiberglass extension ladder and went to down with a narrow bit in the wand. This year my lovely wife said no more ladders. Someone advised purchasing the correct soap/chemical and just spray house and let the soap/chemical do the work; no direct up close spraying. Looking for suggestions on proper soap/chemical. 5hp/2800gpm gas powered unit. Prefer not to pay someone as I can use the $$ for Fuel Pump and tires and vino And i believe i'm still a nimble old ape that can climb 28' ladders. Thank you all
The rental place near me runs deals if you rent on Saturday afternoon and return first thing Monday morning. Maybe you could rent a lift to avoid the ladder. It’s probably not a lot more $ than the chemicals to do an entire house. It will be a towable lift, not one of the super cool off-road articulating things. Being cheap has it’s disadvantages.
rv pole/mop. spray on foaming agents will get most stuff off, but not all. think about rinsing a dirty car, or hand washing it. way different results. Ski
Whatever you do, make sure you're using the correct chemicals and following the soak/rinse time windows. There are countless horror stories of folks going out to buy pressure washers and thinking they can make some side cash by washing people's homes. They spray high pressure water directly onto the siding with unknown chemicals they mixed without care, and get an end result of nearly ruined siding. (Discolored, chalked, water damaged... etc.) Check this one out: https://www.reddit.com/r/pressurewa...d/just_did_my_first_house_ran_into_a_problem/ Top comment:
correct chemicals are great - hired a guy to do ours last time and it rocked. When doing it myself I found the best bet for me was a good pressure washer with a lot of flow and I use tide with some bleach mixed in. I have to get a lot closer with more pressure than he did but it works.
Go to your local PW store and get a giraffe telescoping wand and put your nozzles on that. Northern tool sells them if you don't have a local guy. Internet sales and big box stores fucked them over hard so many of the old time mom and pop stores that actually know the products are gone. If you're a bit older you're probably gonna want the one with the work belt. You do not want water behind the siding. Stay back a ways. Use a fan nozzle......any 0* nozzle is going to damage shit. Run a bucket of cleaner and a soap sucker hooked to the PW hose that will suck your soap into the washing water directly. If you have a son, a bucket of soapy water and telescoping brush head + scrubbing before washing is a better idea, but you need the 2nd guy. Do small areas one at a time, DO NOT let the soap dry. I like simple green cut with water but I'm not in the house washing business either. It is also biodegradeable so you won't be killing plants/shrubs. GPM is almost always going to be more important than PSI in house/deck washing. Look on the pump head and make sure you're using the right size nozzle orifice. Your nozzles will have a number on the side by the air type fitting. You'll probably need a magnifying glass. If you see a .0035 that's a #3.5. If you see a .0040 that's a #4. That nozzle size is very important. On our giraffes we run 2x # 4.5's at same time but I'm also running a 40hp machine that's rocking around 10gpm. Also, the tow behind manlifts now have a pretty impressive reach. I don't know your house or elevation, etc. but may be worth looking into. Vinyl siding will be more forgiving to chemical mistakes. Aluminum you can fuck up REALLY quick with the wrong chemicals.
