Power Washing and Roof Cleaning Forum

Yea, Zach,..I don't blame you for not saying. I figure it will surface eventually on it's own if it actually has merit. I won't ask AC to reveal anything. I know it can be done,..I used it for about 4-5 years on roofs and house,..basically in place of SH. It does work. 

Jeff

Interesting AC, glad you got a way to at least make it usable. Yea, I agree on the hazing issue being able to be dealt with relatively easy,..I remember when I was using it on houses and roofs, Work in the morning hours and rinse like crazy,Ha,Ha,. I would strain it through a vegetable strainer and pantyhose, but I had still had the solubility issue,..your system sound more advanced, Ha,Ha,... Cool,..hope to see it become the choice of everyone eventually.

Jeff

Jeff Wible wrote:

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Here's an interesting article on SH and CH:

Okay guys, I was a company GM in the chlorine manufacturing business for about 12 years, running out about 6 million gallons of 5.25% sodium hypo or laundry bleach (manufactured at 6.0% for shelf life purposes), about a half million gallons of 12% stock or pool S/H (manufactured at 15%), and 7 million gallons of 15% manufactured for bulk shipment only for largely the paper/pulp industry (manufactured at 18%). Our specifications had to be exact because we were dealing with companies that also tested our products on the other end, the government weights and measures, the EPA and a variety of other agencies who were pretty much always looking to decapitate someone.

Here's the deal. There are reasons each of these products is made different from the others instead of having one product and telling the consumer to dilute. Cal hypo and sodium hypo aren't the same thing plus or minus water. They accomplish some of the same things that are being discussed, but there are many other considerations and how each product will react doing different jobs.

Because of the nature of the finished product, there are no straight line measures of degradation. The stronger the solution in liquid form, the faster it degrades. Household bleach (5.25%) is only made at 6.0%, but has a guaranteed shelf life of 6 mos, but a realistic shelf life under ideal conditions of 12 months. Sodium hypo pool S/H (same product as household but stronger) has to be made at 3% higher than stated value, but because of it's concentration, but will lose that whole 3% within 30 days, and would be down to about 8.5% (a little more than household bleach) plus a lot of salt in 6 months.

Cal hypo is VERY stable until you add water. Then it becomes VERY unstable. It will start to degrade almost immediately. The chlorine starts to come out within minutes and will be very smelly and potentially dangerous within hours. Given the right conditions, it can and I've made it blow up a sealed container. Metal equipment in the area will be attacked by the fumes, and it will sink to the floor level and can cause serious injury to animals or children at floor level.

Cal hypo doesn't really want to dissolve that well either, and when it does, calcium tends to precipitate out and it gets really pretty nasty. The dissolve rate depends on the temperature of the water is being put into. You'll get little dissolve rate at 40 degrees, much more at 70 and much higher at 90. However, the temp of the solution is a strong factor in how fast it becomes unstable. 90 degree household bleach would be smelly, but 90 degree cal hypo will run your butt out of the house.

Also reread your cal hypo labels to learn what you have. It may say 99% cal hypo, but what's important is the available chlorine which is usually 59-65%. It might also be helpful to know what the buffers are in there as well. Not all cal hypos break down the same, and some will leave you with nasty results. Calcium that precipitates out and is left to sit can become very sticky to resemble a highly toxic rubber cement like product that sticks to your pipes and grabs anything that goes by. If you don't have perfectly drained pipes, plan to replace these when the calcium eventually turns the pipe into a solid mass of calcium glue and whatever goes down that drain. Nope! Draino doesn't cut that.

If you want rough equivalants for doing something quickly, you have to know what product you have and when it was produced because the difference between fresh product and 30 day old product can be as much as 25% when it comes to sodium hypo. But figure that 1 gallon of pool sodium hypo = 1# of cal hypo = 2 gallons of household bleach.

Cal hypo dilutions can also be very dangerous depending upon what your water chemistry is. If it's a low pH or has metals in it, it will degrade quickly and sometimes violently. Cal hypo plus water is also known to get very hot quickly depending on the right conditions. That won't matter under normal use conditions for the product like when it's added at 1 lb per 10,000 gallons of pool water, but if your water isn't very good and you add a couple of gallons to a pound of cal hypo in a bucket, a reaction is possible if not probable.

My recommendation is to use cal hypo for your pool, cleaning concrete, and that's about that. Keep some around for emergency sanitizer, but save yourself from a hospital visit.

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 Very good feedback! Wish I had read this earlier would of saved me a ton of research.  Your points are right on. Thanks.

Ok,.back to the CH.

Ok,..for those who may be interested in Calcium Hypochlorite,..here is a picture of a test spot I did on a shed roof on a property today,..I was doing the whole house roof,..which was huge,..and while I was waiting for the roof to dry from the heavy fog we had here this morning,....I decided to hit a spot on the shed roof with Calcium Hypochlorite.

The mix was this: It was HTH from Walmart,..56%. I mixed 3 lbs. into a 5 gallon bucket of water and let it settle overnight,..then pump off the clean CH from the top,..letting the slurry of lime lay on the bottom. I use a small 12V 1 GPM pump for this because I don't want too much suction for fear of drawing the crap from the bottom. For testing I pump it into 1 gallon jugs to use in my 12V hand held spot sprayers I made.

So with my clean CH,..I added a basic soap,.Lauramine Oxide,..(AKA) Ammonyx Lo. I sprayed the spot you see in the picture and it turned this way in 5 minutes or less. Letting this stuff settle REALLY solves alot of the issues with all the hazing. Allowing it to settle and then use as you would a standard mix does work. I did it years ago and had been wanting to dig it back up again. And this is how I remember it working.  Oh,.and this wasn't rinsed at this point. 

*The recommendation on keep mixing it is severely misguided information!  And having to buy activators and all isn't necessary.  Anyone buying all those filters and tanks with agitators are really just wasting their money. It isn't needed. This is a simple mix I used,.with CH from Walmart.

I do know that all isn't made the same,..some use a different carbonate in the mix " Lanthanum carbonate" And is said to leave pools more cloudy if used as opposed to standard CH? Zappit 73% is the brand that has this Lanthanum carbonate.

Either way,..letting it settle gives a fairly clear,..yellow liquid,..stick your fingers in it,..rub them together and it smells like regular SH.

I will be further testing the use,.and may buy 100 lb. drum of 65% from Univar.  Univar is changing their minimum order and CH may come in handy for some people. 

Jeff

Brandon,..just curious what was your system for CH,..others may be able to benefit,.......and what was the cost comparisons to using SH?


I personally see no real system needed,.other than letting it settle then use regularly.

I have crunched the numbers a few times and it comes out this way for me.  For a 5 gallon bucket of roof strength Ch it will cost $6.15 and for SH it would be $8.33.  That comes to $26.00 savings on a 60 gallon roof mix.   I do not plan on switching to CH from SH due to this. Because SH is easier to use and I'd still rather just charge the customer enough to make using SH the better option.  But Univar is doing some changes and it may be a more suitable option for some guys.

Although you can get CH to work on roofs I don't think it can be made as strong as 12.5% SH. But 12.5% isn't necessarily needed,..although I do use it full strength at times in a spot sprayer.

Jeff

Maverick Contracting wrote:

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For that price difference I see the time factor of mixing and waiting to settle isn't worth it

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 I agree Maverick,.but it is nice to know how to work with another product if ever the need would arise.

Jeff

That's Interesting....

Oasis Power Wash wrote:

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Very interesting thread...As of yesterday ran into a customer looking for a roof cleaning so I ran out to give an estimate and he insisted that no bleach be used on his barrel roof. Asking him why he said he had done some research on cleaning roofs using hydrogen peroxide and that it would not harm plants. I have done some reading on HP but am curious if anyone else heard of using hydrogen peroxide to clean and kill mildew off roofs.

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   As AC once said, "If your killing the plant on the roof, You can kill the plants on the ground" or something like that!