richard bond Report post Posted October 2, 2014 OK, after using F9 Rust Remover with excellent results for about a year now I've finally found a real challenge for F9 Efflo Calcium Deposit Remover. (Efflorescence Remover) I'm waiting for my order to come in so we can try it on this slate roof, its a bit tricky with the copper roof butting right up against the slate but what the heck, you only live once.. (but can be sued over and over,,) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777 Report post Posted October 2, 2014 OK, after using F9 Rust Remover with excellent results for about a year now I've finally found a real challenge for F9 Efflo Calcium Deposit Remover. (Efflorescence Remover) I'm waiting for my order to come in so we can try it on this slate roof, its a bit tricky with the copper roof butting right up against the slate but what the heck, you only live once.. (but can be sued over and over,,) Rich, Craig Harrison, the head honcho at F9 recently joined the RCIA Forum ! Maybe he will see this thread, and have some tips for you ? When we do roofs of any kind that have copper anything attached or close to them, we explain to the customers there is a chance of losing their Patina's. We cleaned the roof of Fred and Victoria McGriff, the famous ex baseball player, and had to use a lift. He had copper dormers, and no way could we keep the roof cleaning chemicals off of them. But, his wife loved the copper penny look, and they actually paid us extra to remove that old green patina from all their copper! 1 Craig~Front 9 Restoration reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Craig~Front 9 Restoration Report post Posted October 2, 2014 There are several things to watch out for here if you decide to do this one at all via chemical restoration. For sure, it is a VERY tricky job because of that copper roof. It won't take much Efflo to shine that thing up like a new penny, which really isn't a look many homeowners will go for. Other things to take into account: 1. The rust coming from the stone looks like pyrite chips, unless they drilled and hung something from that stone (highly unlikely). These chips will keep leaching rust until the aggregates are totally dissolved. Since the pyrite aggregate is in the stone itself the rust will be more difficult to remove and require a higher concentration of F9 BARC. This wouldn't bother me and you can get great results on the stone but again, the copper roof is right there. F9 BARC can have the same cleaning effect on copper as F9 Efflo, but it just takes longer to get there. By having to use multiple applications on the rust you increase the risk of runoff unintentionally cleaning other substrates. 2. The Efflo you see if probably either calcite (hard to remove) or lime run (easy to remove). You'll have to do a test to see how difficult it's going to be and if the color in the stone will be affected. The typical process for removing calcium stains like that is to apply the Efflo at proper dilution (your tests will determine this), immediately scrub with stiff deck brush, use an alkaline product to neutralize (sodium hydroxide, sodium metasilicate etc NOT BLEACH), and then pressure wash. Sometimes you need to repeat several times or even more. So, ultimately and personally this is something I would pass on unless you warn the customer of all dangers and possibilities. They need to know and sign off on what can happen. Like Chris said, maybe they want the whole roof cleaned... who knows! There is another method to removing rust and calcium for scenerios like you have above that could work better than a chemical restoration. It's a wet mineral blasting process using maxxstrip's Kieserite. Take a look here: http://www.universalminerals.com/ 1 Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777 reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
