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Overr coming Poor drainage when pressure washing

DJT

Active member
Messages
192
Location
Stourbridge
Hi guys, did my first proper pw job for a current window customer today. Pics are below. It turned out to be a nightmate because there was no drainage at all. Clay soil apparently she tells me after the job. Took me forever as couldnt get rid of the water. Had to suck up some with the vac and dump it elsewhere. Any advice on how best to deal with pw when drainage is poor?

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Not a heck of a lot you can do apart from your best, and try to keep your cool. Good job btw. As adman said, better to price at the higher end of the scale, then if there are any unforeseen circumstances that crop up at least you still feel like it’s worth the bother ?

 
Nice job done looking good , getting rid of water is a pain on some jobs , part of the quoting and pricing part of the job is looking at drainage , I remember doing a job years ago took about an hour to pw  it took about 3 hours to get rid of the water ???, that was a sharp learning curve , never made that mistake again .we generaly have one guy washing and one or two more sweeping water away if drainage is a problem 

 
First things I check when quoting are water supply and drainage,  if it turns into a pond and your there alone then its going to be a case of pw for a while then sweep sweep sweep......pain in the ****, look out for inspection hatches that can be raised to send all water into the sewer etc, saved me a few times in "sunken" patios which have been walled in with no drainage whatsoever (unless you count soakaway grates.........) water pressure and drainage are the killers in my opinion, both can add hours to a job that would otherwise take half an hour. all you can do is price accordingly and take a win if you get it done quicker than expected but be able to endure if it takes forever

 
First things I check when quoting are water supply and drainage,  if it turns into a pond and your there alone then its going to be a case of pw for a while then sweep sweep sweep......pain in the ****, look out for inspection hatches that can be raised to send all water into the sewer etc, saved me a few times in "sunken" patios which have been walled in with no drainage whatsoever (unless you count soakaway grates.........) water pressure and drainage are the killers in my opinion, both can add hours to a job that would otherwise take half an hour. all you can do is price accordingly and take a win if you get it done quicker than expected but be able to endure if it takes forever
Yes. I met my match yesterday. 2 patios, back and front. Back patio with pathway walls etc, a fair size. Front one smaller but still a good 20 sqm. Both looked as if they would need a bit of hypo, anyway, didnt put it down thought see how it goes first. Back one came out great just pressure washing, customer happy even when there were a few deep embedded algae left on the step, he said dont worry about them im more than pleased with these results, to be fair it was a hell of a turn around. Front patio ran downhill on a steep incline towards the road, and a brick wall + rockery between the patio and the pavement. The only drainage was those narrow channel drains cut in to the brick wall, which were under a rockery at the end of the patio. All 5/6 of the drains got blocked up with silt, there was no way of avoiding it but i had to run back to base, grab the vac and ended up sucking gallons and gallons of water up with the vac. I then tried for over an hour to dig out the rockery and unblock the drains, to no success. I am now concerned when it rains there is going to be a lake building up in the front garden. Even though cleaning results were very good, i’m not impressed that I've done a job and potentially created another.

Pressure washing always seems to be the one add on where things could go wrong. I expected it to take 3-4 hours and was there 6. I dread to think of the consequences had i put hypo down. Everyone could take something from this post. Don’t ever use the stuff unless it’s a last resort and unless you know drainage is not going to be a problem

 
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You sure they weren't blocked up to start with? I had one last year and it turned out it was blocked before I started.

Ended up like a swimming pool. I just had to sweep if off the drive again and again. 

Go there in the end..

 
Nah dude i’d love to be able to say that was the case. They were all running to start with and then it started building up, but you cant leave a patio half clean so had no option but to carry on you know. I thought bloomin hell ?lets at least do what we came here to do. 

The drains were so far down under the rockery and there was so much silt caught between the stones i didnt stand a hope in hell of finding them.

the bloke said he wasn’t bothered and not to worry about it he can sort it out (he said he’s gonna pull it all up at some point to lay artificial grass anyway) i felt bad and didnt ask for the money off him i didnt have the cheek.

But he insisted & literally shoved it in my hand & said “you’ve done an amazing job on what you came here to do and dont let these little things get to you, these things happen, you wont be in business long if you worry about little setbacks like this

& i’d feel bad if i didnt pay you”When i got home i realised he’d tipped us an all ?

makes me feel worse as i know they’re lovely people.

I did say if it becomes a major problem ring me, & i guess i’ll find somebody to come & sort it out, although how they’re gonna do that, i don’t know ?‍♂️

 
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