# Anyone have experience with Chlor-wash?



## MaizeandBluePainter (May 7, 2008)

Any industrial painters out there have experience using Chlor-wash? I work at a shipyard and we've been having trouble reducing the chloride levels on certain jobs where the client is very particular about chloride levels. 

Just wondering how much flash rusting I'll see and how far it will push down the chlorides. 


Any advice is appreciated.


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## NACE (May 16, 2008)

I believe that product has flash rusting inhibitors. What level chlorides are they looking for?

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## mustangmike3789 (Jun 11, 2011)

Most times it is not too difficult to remove soluble salts from the surface with clean water or water with detergent unless the surface is extremely pitted or configured with a lot of hard to reach areas such as lattice bracing or box beams and areas that tend to hold water or cause slow run off. Using salt removal solutions can be helpful with rough surfaces since they can reduce the surface tension of the water (like surfactants found in detergents) and allow it to reach deeper into the pitts and i believe some may also contain rust inhibitors. 

Since there is no written industry standard for acceptable levels of these salts, you must rely on what is written in the job specification for the amount of salts that can be left on the surface before painting. Most specs will give an allowable level for chlorides, sufates, nitrates and ferrous ions that can be left depending on the service enviroment of the structure and the type of coating system being used. Some specs will only test for chlorides since they are the most detrimental to steel.

What test method are you using to retrieve your samples and what levels are you getting ? If you are using "specific ion detection" then you will know the type and levels of each contaminate, if you are using "conductivity" you could be getting high results because salt water is more conductive than distilled water but this does not determine which type of salt is causing the high reading it only tells you that salts have been extracted from the surface. Some people assume that a high condutivity reading is an indication of chlorides on the surface and convert the conductive reading to a chloride level which is incorrect since it is not specific testing.

If it is determined that you are getting higher than acceptable levels of chlorides before painting due to the enviroment in a ship yard then you may have to prepare and paint smaller areas which will reduce the amount of time between cleaning and painting or set up a containment system with a controlled enviroment.


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## MaizeandBluePainter (May 7, 2008)

We only have to test for chlorides. We use conductivity, even though it doesn't indicate what specific contaminants are on the steel--we know that if we push the levels down far enough that chlorides have been mostly removed. 

Current customer asked for less than 70 uscm, and we had one area that went a bit over 200. 

I expect the levels to be that high again on the phase of the project that we started today. 

We always avoid washing with water again after the blast because most of our customers would want us to re-sweep to remove the flash-rust, which would cost way too much.

I don't have a lot of direct experience with Chlor-wash, so I'd like to know what kind of results people have gotten by adding it to the pressure wash water before sandblasting, versus applying to the steel after sandblasting.

Or if it's really necessary to apply after sandblasting, I'd like to know what kind of rust we're going to see.

Incidentally, this next area we're working on is aluminum, and the stuff arrived after blasting started, so if chlorides are elevated, I'll get to see how well the product lowers chlorides without worrying about rust. Then I guess later items will give us an opportunity to create some rust on sandblasted steel.


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## mustangmike3789 (Jun 11, 2011)

those are high numbers to be getting after the blast. how long after blasting / before painting are you taking your readings. i've never ran into a situation where i could'nt get salt levels reduced with a simple pressure wash so i've never had to use a salt remover. i have used vinegar (acid) mixed with dish soap (detergent to wet the water) to remove salt spray from my boat and it works great. 

after further research, you may want to look into this product too.

http://www.chlor-rid.com/ChlorRidvsHoldTight.pdf


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## OIPC (Feb 20, 2014)

mustangmike3789 said:


> those are high numbers to be getting after the blast. how long after blasting / before painting are you taking your readings. i've never ran into a situation where i could'nt get salt levels reduced with a simple pressure wash so i've never had to use a salt remover. i have used vinegar (acid) mixed with dish soap (detergent to wet the water) to remove salt spray from my boat and it works great.
> 
> after further research, you may want to look into this product too.
> 
> http://www.chlor-rid.com/ChlorRidvsHoldTight.pdf


We did a bridge this summer using ChlorRid and it went very well. It has a very strong smell so make sure anyone using it is wearing a resperator and has on protective clothing. We did have complaints from other trades downwind of us.
The consulting engineer on staff was very happy with the chloride readings once we were done the cleaning phase. The information provided by the manufacturer was very compelling and my customer insisted we use it as an upcharge.


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## mustangmike3789 (Jun 11, 2011)

Were you getting high salt readings before using chlorid and after a regular pressure wash ? I do bridges all over Florida and still haven't ran into a situation where I've had to use anything other than a regular wash. I guess that if you are in an industrial area with fertilizer plants or paper mills, then you could get some high readings that can become hard to control.


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## MaizeandBluePainter (May 7, 2008)

I work in a shipyard, so we get really high chloride readings all the time. This was on an exterior deck that is wet a lot of the time. 
We were not too happy with the results we got by high pressure wash or with the Chlor-Rid, because of the price. 
What ended up working for us, was de-ionized water. It-outperformed the HPW with city water, and also the Chlor-Rid followed by HPW. 
The other two methods were dropping our readings by ten or twenty points at a time, but the process was too time consuming, because we started out at around 200 uscm. We borrowed jugs of distilled water from our maintenance department (which they use to top off batteries in the manlifts), and we dumped them on the bare steel. After a 15-minute soak, the readings were cut in half, and after another application, they were acceptable. Some of them were under 30 uscm.
So we went from pressure washing an area all day to knocking the levels down in about 30 minutes. We have since used the method on a larger job. We did some ballast tanks on a ship that had been neglected a long time, and had high chloride readings after blasting. The project manager decided to rent a Culligan filtering system, which we hooked up to a fire hydrant and then into our pressure washer. We knocked the chloride levels down into the single digits, and the owner was really happy. (Of course we had to re-sweep the tanks to take care of flash rust.)
These were both projects where the coatings were beginning to fail and the steel was getting pitted, so the chloride levels were pretty outrageous.


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## MaizeandBluePainter (May 7, 2008)

I work in a shipyard, so we get really high chloride readings all the time. This was on an exterior deck that is wet a lot of the time. 
We were not too happy with the results we got by high pressure wash or with the Chlor-Rid, because of the price. 
What ended up working for us, was de-ionized water. It-outperformed the HPW with city water, and also the Chlor-Rid followed by HPW. 
The other two methods were dropping our readings by ten or twenty points at a time, but the process was too time consuming, because we started out at around 200 uscm. We borrowed jugs of distilled water from our maintenance department (which they use to top off batteries in the manlifts), and we dumped them on the bare steel. After a 15-minute soak, the readings were cut in half, and after another application, they were acceptable. Some of them were under 30 uscm.
So we went from pressure washing an area all day to knocking the levels down in about 30 minutes. We have since used the method on a larger job. We did some ballast tanks on a ship that had been neglected a long time, and had high chloride readings after blasting. The project manager decided to rent a Culligan filtering system, which we hooked up to a fire hydrant and then into our pressure washer. We knocked the chloride levels down into the single digits, and the owner was really happy. (Of course we had to re-sweep the tanks to take care of flash rust.)
These were both projects where the coatings were beginning to fail and the steel was getting pitted, so the chloride levels were pretty outrageous.


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