# Long Term Storage question



## wopachop (Dec 10, 2015)

Hi everyone new member. I just bought a little graco X5. Sprayed some stain today and im confused with the cleaning instructions. Im looking for a fast answer so i jointed the site instead of writing Graco. I like forums and hope to read and learn a ton.

Here are a list of questions i have so far. I did a power flush with a hose. Then added warm soapy water to a bucket for another flush. After that a second power flush with hose water. 

1. Is the warm soapy water really necessary after a water based stain? 

2. Do i need to run the motor during the power flush stage? I started with just water pressure and then ran the motor a bit. At what point am i wasting motor life on the cheap X5 trying to clean it extra good?

3. How do you remove liquid from the hose?

4. Or should i run pump armor into the hose and gun?

Plan is to prime the unit with pump armor, then set the output to SPRAY. But wont the hose still have liquid water inside? The instructions say make sure to get it dry. 

Thanks for any advice. At the moment the gun is air drying. I used compressed air on the gun filter and gun itself. Im pretty sure the gun needs to be installed before the Pump Armor Prime but i dont want to put it back together wet. Wondering if i need to blow out the hose as well.


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## Damon T (Nov 22, 2008)

Clean whole unit with water or soapy water until runs clean. Rinse with clean water both pump and hose and gun. Clean all filters. Long term storage use pump armor or RV antifreeze in at least the pump, but might as well run into the hose and gun too.


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## DeanV (Apr 18, 2007)

I still use mineral spirits for longterm storage. Do you find the RV antifreeze is equally good or better? Hate dealing with the water/mineral spirits blend when switching over. What do you do with the antifreeze when you switch back to paint?


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## RH (Sep 7, 2010)

Just a reminder about Pump Armor or RV Anti-Freeze. Both are very deadly to dogs. Stevie got into some last year by way of my sprayer and it cost $2300 to get her treated. I use mineral spirits now - dogs aren't attracted to it.


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## stelzerpaintinginc. (May 9, 2012)

RH said:


> Just a reminder about Pump Armor or RV Anti-Freeze. Both are very deadly to dogs. Stevie got into some last year by way of my sprayer and it cost $2300 to get her treated. I use mineral spirits now - dogs aren't attracted to it.


I'm sure glad your dog is ok, but are you certain the RV Anti-Freeze was the cause? RV Anti-freeze actually contains Propylene Glycol, rather than the much more toxic Ethylene Glycol, and Proplylene Glycol is used in a number of foods, sweeteners, it's even used in commercial dog foods to preserve moisture content. Oddly enough, it's actually used in veterinary medicine as an oral treatment. It's FDA approved for use in dog foods, (although it has been banned for use in cat foods).

From Wikipedia.com: "Propylene glycol is an approved food additive for dog food under the category of animal feed and is generally recognized as safe for dogs,[46] with an LD50 of 9 mL/kg."

Only reason I know this is because I've been studying and using glycols both as a boosting agent when stripping acrylic stains via pressure-washer, as well as using glycols as a retarder to prevent blushing when spraying lacquers.


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