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Caleb,

You and I think alike, our roofs are differant to shingle roofs that are rough, gravelly and hold water and have grip to walk on, our roofs are tile & tin that are very slippery when wet and water runs off them like water off a ducks back, In another life I was an Electrician and have been on a lot of roofs in my time, and nearly fell of a few due to wet mold, slime or light rain. I am glad to see the foam thing works for you, I was thinking about going down the same road, I even thought about using just a commercial foamer machine, no pumps, no batteries and depending on the situation no mixing as the proper foamers have chemical proportioners, just drop the chem hose into the SH / surfactant concentrate mix, connect water hose (may be a compressor) and foam away, change the ratio of the mix simply by turning a knob from 5% to 50% depending on the job. I'm also glad to see that you are getting work for roof cleaning, are you having trouble getting people to do it, or are they happy to know that it can be done, cheap

-- Edited by idontknow on Thursday 3rd of December 2009 11:48:31 PM

No worries mates!
Please post some pictures of the roof cleaning foamers ?
Maybe you Aussies can teach us roof cleaning yanks a thing or 2 ?


Which ONE are you  guys using ?
http://www.hydrosystemsco.com/hydrofoamer_ov.asp

-- Edited by Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa FL (813) 655-8777 on Friday 4th of December 2009 01:56:18 AM

RoofBright of Florida wrote:

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Wonder how often you have to fill the container during a cleaning? I'm all ears on this one. Like you say Chris, may we can all learn something.

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I was thinking the same, BUT, remember, it is only soap in there. so ya just carry the gallon of surfactant up therte, and re fill, I guess ?
I guess the question is How long does the soap in cannister last ?
Blowing Bubbles, a little soap goes a long way, LOL

A little concerned that ya can't see what is going on, under the foam, and it will make tile roof slippery ?

 

cbtodacb wrote:

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fellas i will post some pictures of it in action...got a commercial job next week where im going to use it..

the thing is im using a very thick bleach and caustic foaming detergent i get from my chem supplier...doesnt even weaken the mix so it works a charm...

it lasts a longgggg time...my foaming pot is 2.8 L and the foaming attachment sucks only a tiny amount from the pot at a time...because the stuff i put in it is a high foaming detergent it doesnt use much because a small amount does a longgggg way

ill post the brand and name of it when i post the pics...

hey martin from aussie!

yeh mate roofs downunder are very prone to run off...without the right solution a lot of waste is incurred...martin you come across many glazed terracotta tiles that were put up in the 20's and 30's post world world?? now they are a challenge!!

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Yeah, I remeber blowing bubbles, the mix lasted a long time.
There are several high foaming bleach compatable detergent formulations commercially for sale, or we freaking rool our own ?
Wow, that pretty cool, most foamers have a small hose to suck suds from.
This is basically a hose end sprayer, huh ?
I wrote to the company for literature a few days ago.
This looks real cool!

 

It would help clean because it keeps the mix on the roof and not on the ground giving more contact time. yes it is just bubbles, but if you think about it like layers, the first contact covers the roof then as the bubbles disolve an other layer comes in to contact with the roof and so on, SH stays active for about 15 minutes so if you could keep it on the roof for 15 min then it would be doing it's thing for longer, Run off is wasted SH and dose nothing to clean anything apart from frying worms in the ground, This is my line of thinking any way.

upstreaming like in pressure washing and real foaming from foaming equipment are two differant things, do not confuse them. the whole idea of foam is to allow longer chemical contact times that is why foamers were invented. foam generally only last minutes depending on what you use

With that being said, don't send up ten 'drops' of Love when just One will do? I guess that's my secret? Waste not want not?

-- Edited by KP Diamond on Wednesday 9th of December 2009 02:36:53 PM

i suppose why some of you dont understand the foam theory is because we are probably talking about totally different roof types...

In the US i know you guys encounter mainly shingle roofs...over in Australia its mainly tile and they are really soiled...

Ive done the tests...Ive sprayed normal apple cider on the roof and yes it does clean most stuff off, in my experience though, on heavily soiled roofs the ridges of the tile are still very dirty...

The concept is to create a foam which enhances the dwell time giving the chemical more chance to work as chris was saying

Hi Walk,

I wasn't going to say anything more about foaming but if you look at this video (which is not realy a good example of foaming) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkYG9HYqdQg but you will see with a real foamer you can adjust the foam level from a "wet" foam to a "dry" foam and every combernation in between, real foamers will shoot 25 to 30 feet the same as a fatboy. the foamer in the video is a foammaster 890 in OZ they cost around $650 complete in the USA they would be around $300 complete. Lafferty make the best foamers, eg. Lafferty HV foamer in the USA complete with hose and wond $450 in Australia the same unit is a whopping $1,800!!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uVvWplg7DU
I want to say when I in perticular talk about foamers our roofs are 90% tile roofs the rest are colourbond steel roofs, as such we refer to foamers for TILE & TIN ROOFS I can count the number of shingle roofs I have seen in my life time on one hand, and ALL of our roofs have gutters.

I say SHOW ME ME MONEY!!! let's see this magic wand in action...