Steamatic of Sacramento (S.O.S.) offers more cleaning and restoration services.
- Dry Ice Blasting/Soda Blasting
- Power Washing
- Construction Dust Cleanup – Fine Dust Cleaning
- Graffiti Removal and Vandalism Cleanup
- Distressed Real Estate Cleanup
Dry Ice Blasting/Soda Blasting: Soot, Mold, Graffiti & Machinery
Steamatic of Sacramento (S.O.S.) uses dry ice blasting and soda blasting to help speed the cleanup of buildings contaminated by mold, smoke-damaged from a fire, or defaced with graffiti. Both technologies have industrial applications.
Dry ice blasting is a fast and effective method for removing mold or soot from wood and other building materials. It’s chemical-free and environmentally-friendly. Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide (CO2) that has the unusual property of sublimating – changing directly from a solid into a gas, leaving no residue. The process uses compressed air to shoot rice-sized pellets out of a nozzle at a high velocity.
When the pellets impact on wood or another building material contaminated with mold or soot, the dry ice creates extreme temperature differences between the underlying material and the surface layer at a microscopic level. The resulting contraction cracks the surface layer and allows the pellets to penetrate. Once between the surface layer and the much warmer substrate, the dry ice converts back into carbon dioxide gas that rapidly expands and blasts the surface layer into the air. The material being removed usually turns into a light dust that can easily be vacuumed.
Dry ice blasting is far more efficient for removing mold from plywood, studs and trusses than traditional sanding or scraping with a wire brush. The process is also far gentler on the underlying surface than sand blasting or even hand scraping. Nor does it alter the structural integrity of the wood in the contaminated area. It also improves access to attics, crawl spaces, and other areas that are difficult to reach with usual cleaning methods. To top it off, carbon dioxide is a natural biocide that disinfects the substrate.
Soda blasting often is the better choice for cleaning and deodorizing smoke damage and graffiti because it is more aggressive than dry ice but still environmentally friendly. The blasting media is sodium bicarbonate – baking soda. Soda is friable, which means it fractures into smaller particles and explodes the surface materials. In fire damage, soda blasting often negates the need for encapsulating soot with a shellac sealer. Soda blasting is far less aggressive than sand blasting because it cleans the surfaces without harming the underlying surface. While soda blasting leaves more residue than dry ice blasting, baking soda is non-toxic, it’s a natural deodorant, and it dissolves in water.
Dry ice blasting and soda blasting have many industrial applications for cleaning and degreasing a variety of surfaces including metals, plastics, glass, and masonry surfaces such as brick or concrete. The photo on this page shows S.O.S. use of dry ice blasting to remove soot from huge diesel engines by cleaning the piston heads and cylinder interiors. Dry ice blasting works well on electrical boards.
Power Washing Services
Steamatic of Sacramento’s industrial grade power washer often is the application of choice when cleaning large surface areas outside or inside buildings. Our capacity to pressure wash at high water temperatures makes short work of the grease and oil stains in large parking lots. The high-temperature pressure cleaning capacity also came in handy when S.O.S. and BMS Catastrophe cleaned dozens of stock trailers that had been contaminated by sewage. Steamatic also has the capacity to pressure wash with cold water or with live steam when the situation demands.
Local regulations require that power washing contractors keep the dirty wash water out of storm drains as did Steamatic on the trailer cleaning job. See the photos.
Construction Dust Cleanup and Fine Dust (Particulate) Cleaning
Excessive dust in the air and on flat surfaces can be problematic at construction sites or an issue in a home where a family member has health problems. The difference between Steamatic’s dust removal services and those of a janitorial or maid service is that our technicians understand source removal at the molecular level.
S.O.S. technicians became experts at this level of detail cleaning from years of mold remediation. That’s because mold spores that are too small to be seen with the naked eye show up just fine in mold testing. Removing pounds of dirt from a construction site or reducing the level of respirable particulates in a home requires setting up environmental controls and cleaning redundancy. The controls include polyethylene containments, air exchange through air filtration devices, and either negative or positive pressurization of the containment. Air sparging – blowing the particulates into the air, HEPA vacuuming and damp wiping with deionized water are repeated as needed
Graffiti Removal and Vandalism Cleanup
Steamatic of Sacramento provides graffiti removal and vandalism cleanup services. The damage can range from graffiti on school walls to spray-painted driveways to out-and-out destruction on foreclosed homes. Our dry ice and soda blasters and commercial grade power washer can speed up these cleanups. Click this link to read an excellent article about removing graffiti from the City of Burlington Vermont.
Distressed Real Estate Cleanup
Steamatic has handled dozens of distressed property cleanups in which a neglected house is filled with mountains of debris – stacks of newspapers, pet and human feces, and kitchen waste. These houses may also have extensive water, mold damage, or rodent damage. In addition to disposing of the debris, trained S.O.S. technicians will clean and decontaminate the house to help restore the property value.
Content Cleaning – Household item Cleaning
Also see the S.O.S. contents restoration page to learn about more standalone or specialized services for contents such as electronics cleaning, wet document recovery, and ultrasonic cleaning of smoke-damaged or grimy household items. |
