zocalo

zocalo

Monday, June 21, 2021

A New Contraption

 Way back in the 1970s my father had aluminum siding put on the house.  For a number of summers afterwards he would literally wash the entire house with Spic n' Span and then wax it with car wax.  Eventually that became too much work for him, and I would just rinse dirt off the siding with the garden hose.  You may remember that last summer I had new vinyl siding put on the house.  I was not about to go through the laborious cleaning that my dad used to do, but I went out and bought a power washer.

Yesterday, we had a respite from the rain, so I decided to see how my new contraption worked.  I am not very mechanical, so, carefully following the owner's manual, I put the thing together.  There are three nozzles which each have a different level of pressure.  The nozzle with the lowest pressure was recommended for siding.  I put that on, put the special soap in the receptacle, and began washing one side of the house.  It was not doing any better than if I were cleaning it with the hose.  So after I had used up the soap in the receptacle, I put on the middle nozzle, which the directions said was OK to use for siding.  That definitely was doing a better job, even without the soap.  I continued around to the back of the house washing the siding until I came to the cement patio.  That nozzle can also be used to clean cement so I decided to try it out on the patio.  I was amazed by how filthy the cement was.


I decided that before continuing to clean the house, I should do the patio.  I almost finished with that when the first drops of another rain shower started.  I scurried to disconnect the power washer from the electric outlet and the hose and to get it into the garage.  By the time I was rolling up the garden hose unto the reel it was raining in earnest and I got soaked.

This morning we had another torrential rain, but we are supposed to have several dry days later this week.  I will have to continue work with my new contraption. 

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