Wash walls from bottom up or top down??
For decades I've read that when washing walls, start at the bottom, and I've never understood it.
Now I have to wash a wall, and I need someone to explain it to me, to convince me that that is the proper way.
Seems to me if you start at the bottom and get it clean, there will be dirt running down the wall onto the clean part as soon as I get the part above it wet. And I'll have to clean the bottom parts over and over again.
Helpful advice appreciated.
On 2/28/2011 10:52 PM mm spake thus:
I think you've got washing walls confused with shingling roofs.
Shingling roof: start at the bottom and work your way up.
Washing wall: start at the top.
When you take a shower, where do you start, top or bottom? ^_^
TDD
However this guy goes on to say he prefers from the top down, and two or three others say the same thing. That's what I wanted to do in the first place, so I will.
But like he says, everything *I* ever read before tonight said from the bottom up.
Thanks.
I always go from top to bottom. [Disclaimer; 90% of the time I'm just prepping for a paint job.]
Pure theory here-- If you start at the bottom, it will be easy to see when the drips from where you are washing start to be clear, indicating that your wall is really clean.
Do one wall from the bottom up. Do another from the top down. Does one seem easier? Ask your most honest friend to tell you which wall looks better.
I'd never heard of washing from the bottom up-- but I'd be interested in the results.
Jim
This is exactly what my mother used to say and do when she lived in a house located in a very dirty factory area. In this house, 1 year and the walls were filthy. One wipe of the rag or sponge, and you could literally see a major color change. She always said that if the dirty water drips on the already clean area, you can easily wipe it clean. However, my houses have been in relatively clean environments, so I really don't think it makes a difference in my case.
A good idea. At the moment, I have less than 2 feet of one wall to do, but it reminded me of the question. But later I'll be doing more.
And I ruined this test by doing the part of the wall in the middle, that didn't need a step stool; and I didn't do the bottom because it's covered by the stove and I can't get to it until the stove is out.
I got myself a new (to me) harvest gold stove, and I'm just cleaning where it will go.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll decide later, when I start to paint more of the house.
snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
I satisfied everyone, I put mine sideways :)
Harry K
Start washing you will figure it out in about 5 minutes.
Jimmie
I never like to do anything more than once. (With respect to cleaning something.) Cleaning from the top down means that I don't have to go back over an area that I have already cleaned because of dirty water / cleaning solution running down on an already clean area. If I am doing a wall, the last thing I want to have to do is get down off my ladder to reclean an area that I have already done. I don't know where you read the clean from the bottom up but it goes against everything I have ever heard, seen, or logically concieved.
Why wash it at all? Just paint right over it. No one will be the wiser.
Joe
Same as cars. Wash from the bottom up, rinse from the top down. you can't see where you've been washing if you get the whole thing wet by starting at the top.
Hell all this time i thought we were talking about exterior walls and pressure washers. WHY the hell would you "wash" an interior wall?
Car wash instructions: Wash from bottom up, rinse from top down. That makes no sense. If you wash the bottom, then wash dirt on top of that, what good is it? Rinsing from the top makes sense, though, keeping dirt under the rinse line.
Whatever.
Steve
Totally different circumstances. Yes, on a car you wash from the bottom up because washing a car is generally a two step process of wash with soap followed by rinse. The reason to start at the bottom is simply to keep the areas already washed wet until the rinse is done. If you allow areas to dry in the process the rinse is not likely to remove the dried on soap and dirt. Washing a wall isn't normally a two step process.
The reason you start at the bottom and go up is because if you start at the top and some of the water drips down the dry part wall it will streak and those streaks are hard, if not impossible, to scrub off. And I know from experience.
-C-
mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:
Wash the wall from top to bottom.
Raised any kids lately? Ever tried repainting a heavily-used kitchen in any house, or any wall in a house with smokers, without doing a scrub-down first?
Just sayin'
The thread sort of fizzled out while I was waiting for the second guy to get back to me.
Yes, it matches the fridge perfectly, even though it's a GE and the fridge is Whirlpool, and, of course, that means it matches the first stove too,
It looks great, very clean, NO scratches. Clock works, oven works. She told me everything works, and she wasn't lying for the money. I got it Sunday and cooked a store-bought frozen pie last night Tuesday. The self-cleaning is dependent on the clock so it probably works. Most of the oven is spotless, even most of the oven gasket looks new with a little browning on 20 or 30%.
He asked for $100 and when I give him 120, either because it is so nice or because I think he arranged to have a friend come home with him after church and they carried it up the stairs and to my friend's truck, he gave back the other 20**.
It's about 1/2 inch shorter than mine, and mine was 30 inches but the top piece was about 29.5, so the fact that the counter was 1/2 inch wider than the dishwasher worked out. (It was still hard to get the old stove out or in. I had to tip it on its front legs because the control panel in back was the full 30 inches and couldn't slide by the counter.) Anyhow, to get this one in I took out the baseboard on the other side, so that allows the whole stove to move a half inch to the left.
The seller had bought his house 4 years ago. This was his first email. "I have that stove and it's in ridiculously good condition. We moved it downstairs when we renovated the kitchen. The woman who owned the house before us was supposedly OCD, so she kept things really clean."
They also had her refrigerator downstairs, a white one, and plan to replace this stove with another. The wife said her mother and her 2 aunts had two stoves and two fridges and so she does too, and oh, yeah, it is good when/if they have a party.
But on the phone he had implied that he wasn't trying to sell the stove. I asked about that, and he said he was looking for fire wood and he searched on fire on Craig's list and found my ad that referred to my having a fire. Who knows how many of these stoves there are that people would sell for the right price but they don't know if anyone's looking.
I had them right next to each other last night and took pictures, although the last time I tried to post pictures it went badly. :(
The first guy answered me two days after the ad appeared and I wrote him right away. Then he didnt' get back to me at all until his wife did a week later.
A day or two before I saw the stove, someone else replied, sending a picture and wanting me to make an offer. I wrote him three times and he never wrote back, but since the first couple took a week to write back, I waited more than a week for the second guy. I told him, If I'm willing to driv 30 minutes each way, you know I'm serious. I don't know why he didn't write back. But if he had, it would have made choosing harder.
**(My friend with the truck is 74 and normally doing half of this would be nothing for him, but he's having arthroscopic surgery on his knee tomorrow and couldn't use that leg for much, and I had pushed for using the basement door because I'm out of shape and would run out of wind if we had gone up the stairs, but his toddler's toys were all over the place in front of the basement door, and the ground was still wet, so I guess he wanted to use the stairs and the front double doors, and I think he arranged to go to church with his friend and his little kids.)The Heat On indicator lights are smaller and dimmer than mine were. Had to turn off the light over the stove to be sure if they were on, but that's the sort of thing one faces with every new thing one buys.
replying to mm, Jbad wrote: My Mom said that if you start at the top, the drips will make streaks and the streaks will show when you finish washing the wall. I didn't believe her, washed a wall from the top and the streaks made me crazy.
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