As you expand your pressure washing business you may find yourself picking up commercial clients. Commercial jobs come with their own challenges, and one job washers often come across is dumpster pads. At first glance, dumpster pads can be a job that you may want to avoid, but with our tips, they are just another job you can add to your business’s repertoire.
What equipment do you need?
If you want to tackle dumpster pads, there are a few key pieces of equipment that you need.
Hot Water: Hot water is a MUST when you need to clean any surface that has grease or oil. Think about when you wash your hands, hot water and soap get your hands clean faster and do a better job; the same concept applies with pressure washing.
Chemical: If you are cleaning dumpster pads, you need a commercial-grade degreaser. A commercial-grade chemical is going to be formulated to really draw out oil and grease, even those heavy-duty spots. Remember, commercial-grade chemical = commercial-grade results.
Surface Cleaner: You will need a surface cleaner to get the flatwork clean. Make sure your surface cleaner can handle hot water, and that the PSI rating of the surface cleaner is close to the PSI of your machine.
Pro tip: We love this 24-Inch Whisper Wash Surface Cleaner. It can handle both commercial and residential jobs, and you can use it with hot water!
Accessories: A stiff broom, trash bags, gloves, a mask, and some elbow grease!
Once you make sure you have all of the equipment you need, you are ready to get started.
First, you need to clear out the dumpster pad. Pull out the dumpsters, and clear all loose trash or debris. This is where your stiff broom comes in handy, use it to get everything off the floor or walls of the dumpster pad. We recommend wearing a mask and gloves for this part!
Pre-treat the oil and grease buildup with your commercial grade degreaser. It is better to be heavy-handed here, you should aim to let your chemical have 15 minutes to pre-treat before you get to work.
Use your broom to suds up the chemical you applied, and pay close attention to what color your suds are. Dark brown color suds (or even black!) tell you that you should apply another round of pre-treatment. Once the suds lighten up, you are ready to move on to the next step.
Saturate the pad with your main round of chemical, you will want your chemical mix time to do its thing before you rinse or grab your surface cleaner. Hit the flatwork with your surface cleaner, if there are any tough spots, let those be, you can hit them again when you rinse down.
Rinse the walls and floor of the dumpster pad with a nozzle, we recommend your 15-degree tip. You can also use a higher temp for the rinse stage than you did on the surface cleaner.
If any tough spots remain, hit them again with some chemical and your broom. If not- you are ready to show off your work!
Pro tip: Really nasty dumpster pads make great before and after photos for marketing.