Power Washing and Roof Cleaning Forum

Chesapeake · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Artillery Fungus

Art O · Approved Exterior Cleaner

This stuff is nasty. I havn't had any luck getting it off. When I bid a job I always look for it and alert the homeowner that it will not come off. This stuff is tuff.

Diamond Roof Cleaning · Approved Exterior Cleaner

You have to catch it within the first two weeks. If not the forgetaboutit.

Patrick G · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Magic eraser? It removes it?

Chesapeake · Approved Exterior Cleaner

I've never tried it, but thats the word on the street. Mr Clean magic eraser.

waxman18324 · Founding Member Rest in Peace

Art O wrote:
This stuff is nasty. I havn't had any luck getting it off. When I bid a job I always look for it and alert the homeowner that it will not come off. This stuff is tuff.

this video should be on the syfi channel.

Hank

John Aloisio · Approved Exterior Cleaner

We tried the magic eraser on a few jobs this year and it did work. Just be careful which one you use, the regular magic eraser should not be used on metal painted surfaces...ie..aluminum siding or window frames. It can scratch the paint surface and in some cases remove it. We also tried a product that J Racenstein sells called artillery funus remover. It worked on some areas without any agitation nd did not work at all on other areas.

lkendall · Approved Exterior Cleaner

or back to scraping with a credit card or plastic/razor blade type thing they sell for removing stickers.. I just tell them that its called artillery fungus because you need heavy artillery to remove it.

Art O · Approved Exterior Cleaner

I just washed a house the other day. The back of the house was covered in Artillery Fungus. The landscaper put mulch down the year before. I told the homeowner to have the molch i removed

Dan Dykstra · Approved Exterior Cleaner

We have run into this alot this year. I make sure I inform the homeowner about it before we start the cleaning. Also offer to remove the mulch and replace with rock (for a price of course) so it wont get worse.

Liberty SoftWash Lisa · Approved Exterior Cleaner

We also have a disclosure on our estimates that state the artillery fungus will not be removed with house washing. We usually make the suggestion to replace the mulch with rocks but, if they insist on mulch, we suggest treating new mulch with a 50/50 mix of household bleach and water, applied with a pump sprayer, prior to spreading.

-- Edited by Roof Cleaning by AE on Tuesday 3rd of December 2013 04:42:31 PM

Capital Roof Wash · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Yikes!!! That is some nasty suff there. I put down 6 yards of mulch just before my wifes family came up for Thanksgiving. I'm gonna have to hit it all with some left over house wash mix.

gutterdog · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Roof Cleaning by AE wrote:
We also have a disclosure on our estimates that state the artillery fungus will not be removed with house washing. We usually make the suggestion to replace the mulch with rocks but, if they insist on mulch, we suggest treating new mulch with a 50/50 mix of household bleach and water, applied with a pump sprayer, prior to spreading.

-- Edited by Roof Cleaning by AE on Tuesday 3rd of December 2013 04:42:31 PM

That makes sense!

Jeff Wible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Magic Eraser works awesome on artillery fungus. There is probably a niche' market there if anyone wanted to put the effort into it. I also point it out any time I see it, and state it will be there when we leave.

Spraying it before spreading isn't going to help,..the fungus is "born" as the mulch decays,..afte about a year or so. As one of the preventive measures, they say to put new mulch down every year,..AFTER pulling out the old mulch. So it's not a problem until it gets old.

Jeff

Eric Schnaible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

From what I have read, there can be an issue with artillery fungus and new mulch since most new mulch is mixed with old recycled mulch that already has the fungus.

Roofcleanse+ · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Ran into it on a couple of housewashes I did. Thought it was Asian beetle or Fly droppings. Real pain to remove, spent a good hour trying to scrape off.

They were all on vinyl siding so the magic eraser should do the trick !! Thanks for the info. Now I know how to remove it.

Accuwash · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Artillery fungus is not a good way to try and get $$. Too much time and too high a fail to remove rate. Look into it, many car dealers sued some major mulch manufacturers a few years back. They couldn't get it off the cars. It comes from poorly cured mulch and became prevalent during the housing boom. We inform people that we wont be removing it and how it works. We then recommend they get the much treated or remove it and replace with stone or plastic chip.

Jeff Wible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Bill, the only places AF can't be removed easily is on soffit and ceilings,..especially vinyl,..too much give to easily remove AF with Magic Eraser. Time consuming yes,.but many customers would gladly pay it and there are plenty of guys in this business that have plenty of time,. and could use the extra income.
Marketed properly it could be a sideline income,.. I've been asked many times to provide this service,..but it's not for me. Some people may think painting is too time consuming, but yet many do it.

What do you tell the customers to treat the mulch with to stop the artillery fungus??

Stone is the best replacement choice,..old tire mulch and plastic is a never ending battle trying to keep it in place.

Jeff

-- Edited by Jeff Wible on Saturday 14th of December 2013 06:33:00 AM

Doug Rucker · Vender

Jeff Wible wrote:
Bill, the only places AF can't be removed easily is on soffit and ceilings,..especially vinyl,..too much give to easily remove AF with Magic Eraser. Time consuming yes,.but many customers would gladly pay it and there are plenty of guys in this business that have plenty of time,. and could use the extra income.
Marketed properly it could be a sideline income,.. I've been asked many times to provide this service,..but it's not for me. Some people may think painting is too time consuming, but yet many do it.

What do you tell the customers to treat the mulch with to stop the artillery fungus??

Stone is the best replacement choice,..old tire mulch and plastic is a never ending battle trying to keep it in place.

Jeff

-- Edited by Jeff Wible on Saturday 14th of December 2013 06:33:00 AM

+1000. We have had a few customers that live in high end homes that paid well to have it removed. Did take some time, but is pretty simple to remove, just have to be careful and patient...these type customers are the type that have had the ALL the mulch replaced before you show up to remove it.

Steve Salley · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Be careful with some colored mulches, particularly the dark stained materials. We had some overflow run into a fresh mulch bed, and it turned the mulch from rich dark brown to faded orange. Not pretty at all.

It was a 30% roof mix, so we filed that under lessons learned.

As far as artillery spores, I have millions of them on my siding, custom white railing and spent several weekends carefully removing them from our service vans, so we hate the stuff. We resorted to removing the wood mulch around the shop and replace it with red lava rock. It actually looks very nice. Also, be careful scrubbing with Mr Eraser, as you can mar the clear coat on paint.

Keep talking to chemists and others, because sooner or later we may stumble into the solution and that will make someone rich!

Penn State has been doing ongoing research, and so far, no miracles in a bottle...

mistersqueegee · Approved Window Cleaner

I've seen the stuff 15 ft up the side of a house. Talk about a shotgun fungus.

Jeff Wible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Doug Rucker wrote:

+1000. We have had a few customers that live in high end homes that paid well to have it removed. Did take some time, but is pretty simple to remove, just have to be careful and patient...these type customers are the type that have had the ALL the mulch replaced before you show up to remove it.

I can believe that Doug, some people are beside themselves with this stuff, insurance companies used to cover AF but they stopped,..apparently due to so many claims.

Jeff

Accuwash · Approved Exterior Cleaner

That's a good point Jeff. If someone has the time and the need is their, than it's good sideline. Around here we have seen a few companies that treat the mulch with lime or chlorine. I have no reports back of how effective it is or if it works at all.

Paul · Exterior Cleaner

I would suggest trying white vinegar with a pump sprayer you will need to do test areas for your dilution rate add a little dawn dish soap as well allow to dwell but not dry. I found that depending on how old the fungus is will determine your results. I would as Art stated inform the home owner that you might not be able to remove all spots.

Jeff Wible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

If it's been there for longer than a few weeks there aren't any chemical options.

Jeff

Art O · Approved Exterior Cleaner

SunBrite has a chemical, but I'm not sure if it works or not.

Jeff Wible · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Hey Art, if it worked we would all know about it. I've had customers show me they found something that works, they spray it on then scrub for 15 seconds and say,.."See, that works",...Ha,Ha,..then I say you could've done that without the cleaner,..they simply abraded it off.

Jeff

Admin · Head Quarters

The good old Artillery Fungus thread

Steve Salley · Approved Exterior Cleaner

Still waiting and hoping but no good stuff yet...

BlueRidge · Approved Exterior Cleaner

I have been meaning to take pictures of the box truck that was attacked on the drivers side while parked in a customers driveway. If it was just one explosion there are a lot of black dots. Once there is time I'm going to remove them one by one furious .

Power Washing and Roof Cleaning Forum

Roofcleanse++

Chetek WI