We are back. And, this is the second part in our series, pressure washing and deck cleaning 101 by All Pro Washing. Next, we’re going to get started and we want to make sure first of all is that your on/off switch is flipped on. So it has power. And secondly, you want to make sure that your gas is open. Then, you’re going to make sure if you want to try to choke it if hasn’t started recently, have the choke on which is to the left. And, you want to make sure your throttle is about ¾. With that then we’ll give it a pull.
One of the nice things also is that you can actually, because this unit comes with a 50-foot hose, you don’t have to take unit up the stairs. We’re going to go ahead and pass the wand up this way. It keeps the pressure washer out of the way. And then we can watch the deck up top without having to deal with having the pressure washer up there in our way. In this scenario what we’re going to want to do is we’re going to want to start in the far corner and work our way back. Now we’re not using chemicals today because this pressure washer is plenty powerful enough to do this without using chemicals. If you have a deck that’s very old and has a lot of build-up of different stains and stuff on it, you might want to use chemicals to get started but we try to avoid it as much as possible. They’re not great for the environment.
If you have a pressure washer has enough pressure and flow you don’t really need them. So we’re going to start in this corner and when I start working our way back. You also might want to think about starting on your railings or higher areas and work your way down from the top. And that’s always a good methodology to always keep working from the top down from the furthest corner in.
Next, what we’re going to show you is actually how to use what we call a broom. And what this broom will do is extend your spraying surface to three nozzles. It will actually help you increase your efficiency and get the job done three times faster. This is not always going to be perfect for small spaces like maybe the cap rail of the deck, but when you get to larger surface areas you’ll see how much this can actually help speed up your job.
Another important thing to note is that after you get done doing your upstairs area that you want to make sure that you clean off everything below it before you move on to your lower area. Essentially, you want to figure out what tip you want. You can probably go back to the same tip you were using the 25-degree angle. Or we also have another connection that you can put on and this tip is actually called turbo nozzle. The way the turbo nozzle works it’s actually very similar to a pressure washer tip. But what it does is take a 0-degree tip and it actually rotates it and gives you great blasting power. This is good for cleaning brick surfaces or cement, but you want to be careful not to get too close. Sometimes on wood products it’ll actually leave a swirling look which you can get rid of but it’s just something to take a consideration.
After you shut down your unit make sure you always release the pressure that’s built up in hose before you take off the tip. And that way you won’t have any extra pressure with that tip. After you’ve gotten everything done and cleaned up, you disconnect your water and your hose, you can coil up your hose and you can set it right here and the special spot that’s been designed for it. And then also, if you’re going to be leaving the pressure washer running period of time you want to put some kind of pump saver into it. What that does is, it coats the valves and all the mechanisms inside the pump. It also prevents if you’re in a cold climate from anything from freezing and cracking the pump. This is a very important feature. It’s a very simple thing to do. You essentially just attach a plastic bottle to this fitting and you pull the cord once for the starter. It then pumps some water through and some of the fluids special pumps a burr fluid that takes care of your pump. And will make it healthy for many years to come. Something else to keep in in mind is how good of shape your wood is and down below we had a deck that was only a year or so old. When we come to the upper deck here we actually had a deck that was much more porous and all older wood.
And with the older wood, you’re tempted sometimes to really get deep down in. Essentially, you don’t want to overdo it with your pressure washer and get to close with your tip and tear that up. Because that will actually cause you problems and damage the wood even more. So, be careful with that. In heavy duty situations you might want to use a chemical there to help bleach the wood versus trying to blast it out. And there you have a nice and clean deck.
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At AllProWashing.com, we specialize in exterior house power washing, driveway and concrete cleaning, as well as roof cleaning. If you need help with any pressure washing job, give us a call and request a free quote today!