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Softwashing advice....

Clarkus84

Active member
Messages
238
Location
Ballynahinch county down
Alright lads. I done a test patch for a potential customer the other week on their pebble dash wall which they were happy with. Since then some other people around the estate are also interested in getting their houses done now although I know of one guy who apparently has ivy or some kind of plant which grows up the walls on 2 sides of the property. I would be wary of using hypo incase I killed them. Is there a product I can use which won't effect the plants or would a weak hypo mix be sufficient with plenty of rinsing down? Any advice appreciated 

 
Pjj is probably the best man for advice.

personally i use benz products, i follow the recommended dilution guidelines and follow the professional handbook that they have published & i’m yet to have a problem. Saying that i’ve only really done patios & drives but had no issues with surrounding grass or plants. I saturate everything before starting and after i’ve finished.

there’s a product out there called safewash that looks amazing & is totally plant/econfriendly but i’ve never used it. I do have some trouble winning quotes with benz products and if its a big job my quotes would probably seem significantly higher than others who use normal hypo. I just like to know im using professionally manufactured products at approved dilution ratios, they're also hse approved. If something went wrong at least in my mind i know i’ve done it “by the book” whereas if i was using normal hypo i have doubts insurance would cover it.

regarding killing plants etc maybe this happens when people use insane strengths e.g. 50/50 or neat etc. i think Someone posted a render clean a while back where some company had killed all the surrounding grass.

i’ve found a 2% mix to be sufficient for all my jobs and if it failed to please i just re-applied. Now however i also use tornado cleanze which comes in a gel form and is painted on to surfaces, its real safe and effective as it sticks to the surface like paint rather than running off, so contact with the contaminant is very prolonged. theres no run off until you rinse and providing everything's pre-saturated which i know it is then i just keep diluting it. I will be using more of the stuff

 
Alright lads. I done a test patch for a potential customer the other week on their pebble dash wall which they were happy with. Since then some other people around the estate are also interested in getting their houses done now although I know of one guy who apparently has ivy or some kind of plant which grows up the walls on 2 sides of the property. I would be wary of using hypo incase I killed them. Is there a product I can use which won't effect the plants or would a weak hypo mix be sufficient with plenty of rinsing down? Any advice appreciated 




Hypo or biocides are designed to kill bacterial growth and will kill growing plants . 

However we have used hypo on walls that have plants right next to them provided you wet them down first and keep applying a mist water vapour on them whilst the hypo is being applied we have never had a problem, if it’s ivy on a wall I would wet the wall down and the ivy with the garden hose first , then apply hypo mix , then dust the ivy down with the garden hose , ivy is a very hardy plant and would take some killing to be fair , I have seen videos on line of people trying to cover plants with plastic etc to protect them , but as I say in 10 years we have never killed or damaged anything that we didn’t intent to . We do a lot of pebble dash houses round our way it works a treat as there is no other way of cleaning them without blowing the stuff off the walls , 

 

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