Cold Weather and your Chemicals
how cold weather affects chemicals
With Winter comes colder temperatures for most contractors and with the cold additional considerations and allowances must be made to keep your chemicals cleaning to their best capabilities.
First no mater the weather when you first mix up a chemical solution you should be sure to use warm tepid water. What is tepid? That is water that is at least body temp or roughly 96 – 98 degrees F.
You need warm water to properly dissolve chemical ingredients into solution, even when mixing a liquid with water. But saying dissolve, although used in its most technical sense, may not actually be correct, as some ingredients such as those containing certain fat and oils will not actually dissolve in water but they can made small enough to be put into suspension to be considered dissolved since you will not be able to see them separate from the rest of the mixture.
Dissolving depends on the molecules of the substance that is doing the dissolving, called the solvent, which for the most part will only be water. The substance being dissolved is called a solute, which for you will be a soap concentrate or the separate chemical ingredients you are putting together with water to make your cleaning solution.
The extent to which a substance is able to dissolve is called solubility. Water is a good dissolver because of its large area of positive and negatively charged particles. This mutual attraction between water molecules and other substances with equal positive and negatively charged particles cause dissolution.
If you try to mix many ingredients in cold water it will greatly increase the mixing time needed and may never completely get you results you need. Think of trying to dissolve a packet of hot cocoa in a cup of cold tap water vs. hot water. The powder just sits on top and no matter how long you stir the powder in the cup you can still find small clumps of undissolved powder when you try to drink it. Same thing with chemical solutions. If not properly dissolved and mixed you will be losing a certain amount of the chemicals needed to properly give you the cleaning reaction you want and need.
Also, in colder temperatures you also have to think about the temperature of the water you will be mixing with your cleaning solution at the time of cleaning and the water temperature of the solution when it comes in contact with the surface and dirt you are trying to remove.
When mixing two liquids together, as you are doing when using a pressure washer, the plain water running through the machine and your chemical mix have different densities and these densities change based on temperature. So, your mixture ratios will vary slightly when using the same cleaning mixture if you are using a cold water washer vs. if using a hot water machine. Using hot water reduces the amount of chemical you will need.
Reducing the amount of cleaner needed will happen also because of the fact that the warmer solution will increase chemicals cleaning reaction of the ingredients in the solution and the warmer water will allow the dissolved dirt’s to be rinsed off of the surface you are cleaning faster as well.
In the Winter another problem situation would be if you allow your cleaning solutions sit out in the cold or to freeze. If you read your SDS’s for your chemicals for many you will see the warning to not allow them to freeze but to what does this really mean. Should you just throw out any mixture that freezes, should you let it thaw and then be able to use it without issue? Unfortunately, I cannot tell you for sure one way or the other. Each product will be different so if it was bought as a made product call the manufacture or the dealer you purchased that product from.
But I can say you should never use a product that is in a partially frozen state. In part because some ingredients may have a lower freezing temp than others in the same mixture and if you used it with some frozen slush in it you will not get the same cleaning results, maybe the active ingredients are what is frozen and you are only applying the inert and building parts of the product and will see little to no results. You can even have a product separate out of solution due to cold above freezing so if you can see striations or different color levels in your product you should warm it up and mix it thoroughly before use.
Many water-based cleaners will be ruined by freezing due to the fact that the normal chemical bonds of the product are destroyed or broken apart by freezing and even when thawed will not go back together. Other times a product may continue to work after thawing but at a lower capacity. In other words, you have to use more of it to get the results of the original solution. Products with a lot of polymers will never be the same and should be discarded according to the product label. These would be items like sealers, protective coating products, oil-based stains etc.
If you have been told a product can be used again after it has frozen and has completely thawed you should still warm the solution up to a tepid temperature and thoroughly mix it again before trying to use.
Some tips on how to keep your cleaners from freezing; bring them or your entire rig inside a heated (above 40 degrees) area when not being used. Not allowing your chemicals to be chilled by air while driving, remember a wind chill will be colder then the air temperature and I have heard of containers starting to freeze above 32 degrees, so have them in a enclosed lock box or behind a wind screen on an open rig. You can use insulation under and around containers to help to keep them from freezing but you should not put direct heating units like heating pads, heat sticks or heat lamps in or on containers as prolonged heat can also damage cleaning solutions.
how cold weather affects chemicalsI hope all of you that have to work during the winter will keep all these facts in mind so your cleaners will get you the results you need.
