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Question for you chemical experts

Pjj

Premium Member
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13,422
Location
Cornwall
We did a softwashing job on a detached house on the coast yesterday it was blue k rend and had literally hundreds of seagull poo strikes on the house , when I quoted the job didn’t think anything about it as we get this all the time , however after cleaning and removing the bird poo and red algi the render underneath had lost its colour and was the natural yellow sand colour , obviously this stands out like a soar thumb on blue render , we have cleaned literally hundreds like this but usually yellow or white render and never had this before . It’s like the bird poo and red algi have sucked the colour out of the render, we went back and looked at it again today as it’s drying out but it looks awful and the  customer isn’t a happy bunny , we have cleaned the building and apart from theses issues it looks fine I haven’t charged him yet and unsure what to do , the problem is with the render not our cleaning , any ideas what’s going on with it ??? Wondered if @kevinc250 or @Dave B or anyone else can ahead any light on this , couldn’t get any photos as customer was watching us like a hawk ????

 
We did a softwashing job on a detached house on the coast yesterday it was blue k rend and had literally hundreds of seagull poo strikes on the house , when I quoted the job didn’t think anything about it as we get this all the time , however after cleaning and removing the bird poo and red algi the render underneath had lost its colour and was the natural yellow sand colour , obviously this stands out like a soar thumb on blue render , we have cleaned literally hundreds like this but usually yellow or white render and never had this before . It’s like the bird poo and red algi have sucked the colour out of the render, we went back and looked at it again today as it’s drying out but it looks awful and the  customer isn’t a happy bunny , we have cleaned the building and apart from theses issues it looks fine I haven’t charged him yet and unsure what to do , the problem is with the render not our cleaning , any ideas what’s going on with it ??? Wondered if @kevinc250 or @Dave B or anyone else can ahead any light on this , couldn’t get any photos as customer was watching us like a hawk ????
Probably the ammonia in the poo. which has drawn out all the colour. I would tell them to paint it.

 
Do you know that in Morocco a guy has hundreds of pigeons and each day he collects the poo and takes it down to the dyeworks. He sells it to them and they put it in a big barrel and tramp the leather hides into it. Its that strong it softens the leather and acts as a curing agent to protect them. I watched a program about it and found it hard to believe. Not sure what it does to their feet but no one has caught athletes foot. ?

 
Do you know that in Morocco a guy has hundreds of pigeons and each day he collects the poo and takes it down to the dyeworks. He sells it to them and they put it in a big barrel and tramp the leather hides into it. Its that strong it softens the leather and acts as a curing agent to protect them. I watched a program about it and found it hard to believe. Not sure what it does to their feet but no one has caught athletes foot. ?
I read that the reason all the Pigeons in Glasgow are missing feet due to standing in their own poo! ??

 
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hi paul, its possible that the acid from the poo could have lifted the final powder blue coat of the render though i doubt it, you might have to ask k rend though for clarification as we don't have that much render up here in yorkshire and next to no red alghi just the green and black stuff, so i am no expert tbh, i highly doubt that bird poo would lift the top coat so it might be worth a wait for a week just to see if the colour is coming back-i'm not sure if they add titanium dioxide to their mix to keep the shade even if so and the surface is fine then the shade will return in time.

k rend can be repaired so you would never see the difference should it come to that.

 
hi paul, its possible that the acid from the poo could have lifted the final powder blue coat of the render though i doubt it, you might have to ask k rend though for clarification as we don't have that much render up here in yorkshire and next to no red alghi just the green and black stuff, so i am no expert tbh, i highly doubt that bird poo would lift the top coat so it might be worth a wait for a week just to see if the colour is coming back-i'm not sure if they add titanium dioxide to their mix to keep the shade even if so and the surface is fine then the shade will return in time.

k rend can be repaired so you would never see the difference should it come to that.
Hi Kevin , thanks for that , I have arranged with the customer to look at it again in about 3 weeks when we are working down there again  he’s happy with that . I wondered if it’s faulty render it’s about 12 years old and the builders are currently re rendering 20 houses due to it coming off in chunks so was wondering if this house has faulty render with the colour additive ?? I have suggested to the customer to contact the builder although the property is out of warranty and see what they have to say .  I have seen k rend repaired before and it looks awful you can see the patches and the colour is always different .

 
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