“How do you apply chemical for hood cleaning” is a question I get asked often. Most people have seen my foam videos and most people think I am some foaming maniac. As much as I use to be, it’s just not true anymore. As a matter of fact, downstreaming is my preferred method of chemical application just about 100% of the time.
If you don’t know what downstreaming is, let me know and I will help you. But, basically it’s using a special injector that sucks your chemical from a bucket beside your pressure washer (usually) and is pushed through your pressure washing hose out your gun.
The chemical is injected into the stream “after” the pressure washer pump so there is no damage to your pump; that’s the good news.
The bad news is it’s still going through your hoses and I’ve heard many people tell me that it shortens the life of your hoses and all that crap, but I haven’t had a problem and it wouldn’t matter that much to me anyway because it saves so much time and is so simple and effective.
Anyway, enough with the layman’s down streaming lesson as best as I know to explain it.
Although the injectors are usually somewhere between $12-$65, they usually only seem to last about 3 or 4 months. However, I just got an email from my good friend, Alexy on his find and solution. Check it out.
Just wanted to share a way to clear up downstreaming issues we have had and a simple fix. We have been downstreaming for 95% of our jobs for the last year and a half. In that time we found that the regular general downsreamer would last about 3-4 months before the valve seat went and the Adams injector would get about 6 months out of it before the same thing happened.
We switched about a year ago to the check valve downstreamer made by Bob at Pressure Tek and since then we have not had any stoppages because the downstreamer valve failed. We have however had alot of cases where after about 4-5 months the same downstreamer would not flow as much chem or stop flowing at all with the valve working.
After scratching our heads trying to figure out what was happening I found that the chem was collecting immediately downstream of the injector at the fitting and building up in the inside of the hose end to where it goes into the hose to the point that it was restricting the flow to the point that the downstreamer would not work. The solution was to take a 15/64″ drill bit that has from 6″ to 8″ and use it to ream out the hose end past the end of the metal ( you will not pull any metal off but will pull a bunch of dried, caked SH out that looks like chalk) We had two, 100 foot sections and one, 50 foot section we did this to and were amazed at how much dried SH had collected in the fitting.
Hope this helps.
Alexy
Washington DC Hood Cleaning Specialists
This is something that I’ve never considered and it’s a great tip. Thanks for the permission to use your email Alexy. I’m sure my readers will appreciate this tip.
If you have a tip you would like to share, feel free to put it in the comments below, or email me if you would like to go into more detail.
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