Papa Roach. Remember that band? Probably not, but if you ever watched Mtv in the early 2000’s you 100% saw that video and know that line (well with the word “Suffocation” instead). Anyways, as most will do when starting a new job they are going to run into situations they might not know about. This happened to me on a job. Well kinda. I was doing a house wash for one of my friends; a decently sized job but no big deal. I started off on the side of the house and everything went fine. The vinyl was clean and was looking good. Started working my way around to the back and the other side and eventually a few hours went by. I walked back to that first side I did and about had my stomach drop and my breath was caught (bringing the title around full circle). At this time of day the sun was hitting at a certain angle and large parts of the vinyl looked very splotchy. It was almost like there were wet spots, but everything was dry by then. Not the best representation but this is what it looked like
Thoughts were racing through my head. Obviously going into full-panic mode and thinking of the worst possible outcome. I thought I used way too high of a contraption of bleach and had ruined the paint. After thinking how much it was going to cost me to fix this I settled down and begin to think it through. I thought “Well it couldn’t be the bleach because I had batch-mixed it just before the job and the concentration may have even been a little lower than what I usually use”. Plus I had done the back of the house and by now it was try and that looked great. I didn’t actually know what the answer was but it was bothering me for the rest of the day. I didn’t get to finish that job that day and my friend was out of town so that night I took to research and was going to explain everything to him once I went back and finished.
Turns out that splotchiness or discoloration was due to oxidation, which according to the dictionary is “the process or result of oxidizing or being oxidized” . Gee, thanks Oxford. Simply put, its the process where the material on the vinyl breaks down and becomes faded or discolored and can also leave a chalky residue. This is caused by persistent UV exposure, and wouldn’t you know that’s the side that gets full sun.
Now I knew what oxidization was before this, but in the moment it just didn’t dawn on me. When I went back to finish the job it obviously still looked the same and still had a chalky residue to it. So even though nothing here was my fault I still think it was an important lesson. See I think I should have caught this before any work was done. That way I could have explained to my client that although I’d be able to get the side of his house clean, there wasn’t going to be anything I could do about how that oxidation looked. Plus it would have been important for the client to know that I wasn’t responsible for how it would look because of that. Of course, like I said this was my friend, and he knew all about how it looked and was planning on having it re-painted anyways, but its still important to try and hit all bases with customers before starting something.
There is the process of actually removing oxidation, but that’s for another time and its something I haven’t decided is worth adding on to the services menu yet
Still, the house got fully washed and when it was dry it looked beautiful. Oxidation is just one thing to keep in mind when maintaining your house. Its just one of those things most home owners have to deal with.
I’ll see you out there
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