I agree too never killed any plants either. I only cover flowering plants till i'm done spraying bleach the flowers drop like flies.The hardy green bushes are no problem as long as I rinse off the leaves REAL well!

Shane Brasseaux
Wood Savers Of Texas

I'm with Flying-D properly diluting bleach is fine as long as there isn't any plants around. Think about it. 1 cup of bleach in your washing machine with 5-8 gallons of water. Your whites are whiter. You wear the clothes with bleach residue next to your sensitive skin. No problem! Now soak your old favorite Converse basketball shoes in the sink with a cup of bleach. 2 days later the material is falling apart. It's all in the mix!

ED

As a chemical engineer once told me,"there are no safe chemicals".

The type of climate makes a big difference in using bleach as a power washing cleaner. I power wash in Atlanta, Georgia and the climate is brutal. High humidty ccoupled with rain breeds algae and mildew. I use bleach and have not had any complaints from my customers. Down stream chemical injecters with control flow safely mix the bleach with h2o. Throughly wetting down all plants close to the surfaces to clean will elimate any damages to them. However Japaneese maples are very delicate and require covering.

hi am thinking of doing somerestortion on my wood fence.show i bleach it and do you have before and after pictures of a wood fence. that has been bleached and washed and stained in a semi-gloss stain. thanks

hi am thinking of doing somerestortion on my wood fence.show i bleach it and do you have before and after pictures of a wood fence. that has been bleached and washed and stained in a semi-gloss stain. thanks

I will like to say,I use biograble bleach and tsp, and tide.When washing my houses.I had no problem.We wash ours cloth in it.The most important thing is mixture.I clean my shows with it,it never yellows,I brush it and than raise.See some of you guys think,you can spray on a product,wait than wash it off.But you have to scrub some thing.To loose up the dirt.

Any of you guys ever heard of/used a product called Jomaxx? It is a mildewicide that is sold at Lowes I discovered, and after using it I also found it to be quite popular with local pressure washers, deck cleaners etc. You do mix a very small amount of bleach in it, but it seems to work much better and quicker especially on vinyl siding compared to a bleach solution by itself. Just curious if the more experienced PW's and deck restorers in here have any feedback on it. Thanks.

Tim

Tim,

When we very first started out we used the Jomax/Bleach mixture until we found a contractor grade cleaner that has proven to be a time/money saver for us. We now prefer chemicals from Rowlett Pressure Cleaning mixed with our 15% sodium hypochlorite - much more effective for our housewashes. As far as decks go, we are not proponents of using bleach on decks or any wood for any reason. You will get as many opinions about bleach & wood as there are pressure washers - we just don't but that doesn't mean that others that use it are wrong. What it ALL comes down to is to know your chemicals, their purposes, how to use them to get the best results.

Celeste

Carolina ProWash

For the advice Celeste. I find myself spending a lot of my free time either online or in the local hardware stores reading bottles and getting to know the different product names and what not. I had an interesting local guy tell me something the other day about cleaning decks. He said that he had a local pressure washer a few years back (no longer in business) that would swear by generic draino to clean decks. I forget the name of the product but he said for some reason it worked wonder on cleaning and brightening decks. Ever heard of this type of thing or is this the reason why he is no longer in business?

Tim