Friday, September 10, 2010

Pressure washing

This was done in Copenhagen too. Until the eighties, the city was pretty much grey/black. Then they had a big campaign over some years to pressure-wash the buildings, so the natural brick colors came out. Much nicer city.

8 comments:

Alex said...

And imagine what city smoke did for your lungs. The went in for "sandblasting" in Chester in the 80's, same deal there, years of smoke hiding the natural stone.

TC [Girl] said...

Wow! Fricken AMAZING...and DISGUSTING!

Alex said...
"And imagine what city smoke did for your lungs."

And how about the water pollution, as well, after a clean-up like this?! Amazing to think that no one has worked more diligently, YEARS ago, to come up w/a way to keep the air cleaner, after having seen stuff like this! :-(

Alex said...

Ah, they did way up an smell the coffee, or rather drop dead of killer smogs. In Britain we introduced the "Smokeless Fuels Act" in the late '60s. Then we started cleaning up.

With sand blasting there was no water run off.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/UWP3bRmqQ27rBWEpZBhVWg?feat=directlink

I spent a few weeks in the country after spending three years in Manchester. I remember sneezing and being surprised at the color of the mucus, it was light green, not greyish black.

TC [Girl] said...

Alex said...
"In Britain we introduced the "Smokeless Fuels Act" in the late '60s. Then we started cleaning up."

Well...that is good!

"With sand blasting there was no water run off."

Right but...what happens w/ALL the crud that is blasted off? Surely, it doesn't just vaporize into thin air?! I bet, eventually, it would settle on EVERYTHING and finally be rinsed into the ocean w/the next rain, yeah?

Sand-blasting seems like it would be quite messy...even though the end goal was probably achieved a LOT faster than pressure-washing; but...I could be wrong. And...how's about all the windows? Would the aberrant sand particles not damage the window glaze as well? :-(

"I spent a few weeks in the country after spending three years in Manchester. I remember sneezing and being surprised at the color of the mucus, it was light green, not greyish black."

WILD! (No DOUBT!) :-/

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Sandblasting without water creates a *lot* of very fine dust though, it gets in everywhere.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Sandblasting is also very powerful, it strips off paint and rust and all. So yes, it will matte glass in a split-second.

hercules rockefeller said...

In Britain we introduced the "Smokeless Fuels Act" in the late '60s. Then we started cleaning up.

Unfortunately that means the new show Sherlock doesn't have the fabled London "fog" that the original stories had.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Maybe new generations won't understand the nickname The Big Smoke.