Watching all of the following videos before you apply the Silox on your adobe or rammed earth home will save you many headaches. These videos represent literally decades of professional tips Adobe Masters has collected in order to make this tough job a little easier. The two videos directly below, titled “Flood Coat” and “Mist Coat,” show the Silox being sprayed on a burnt adobe wall:
The video directly above ↑ (video #1) is the application of the all important “flood coat” being applied to a burnt adobe wall in Tucson, AZ.
The video directly above ↑ (video #2) is the second “mist coat,” applied almost immediately after the first “flood coat.” Notice it is a light dusting coat that is nothing like the critical first flood coat. This mist coat is done more for insurance than anything else. In case we missed something on the first flood coat, we always put on this mist coat for all of our customers. Is this second coat critical? If you are careful and correctly apply the flood coat, this second coat, though not mandatory, is highly recommended.
At the link below are found detailed instructions on how to correctly apply the Silox. Please familiarize yourself with these helpful instructions before you apply the Silox:
Scroll down the page until you find this heading:
Technical Data and General Information Sheet
The instructions begin after this.
In the first video above, notice the drenching “flood coat,” the first coat that is applied. Some homeowners have marveled at the amount of the Silox that we put on their homes, but this is critical to the overall success of the procedure. If you don’t put the correct amount of product on your walls, you are simply wasting your money and will not get the long term, desired protection your walls need.
The adobe shown in each of these videos is burnt or fired adobe, easily identified by their characteristic orange and red colors mixed together in various hues. They are fired in kilns to increase their strength and water-resistant properties.
If you have asphalt or cement stabilized mud adobe or raw, regular sun-dried adobe or rammed earth, you may not achieve this “flood coat” because of the water-thirsty nature of these earthen materials. Therefore, I recommend you mark off on your walls 250 s.f. (or 50 s.f. per gallon) and, in one section of these walls you just marked off, insure that you apply one full bucket on that 250 s.f.
How to properly seal your cement/asphalt stabilized mud adobe or rammed earth home ↓ (video #3):
Different types of adobe homes require different application rates when applying a protective coating to them like the Silox Adobe and Rammed Earth Water Repellent. The first two videos above (titled “Flood Coat” and “Mist Coat”) show the proper way to seal a burnt adobe wall, a much different adobe than many of the newer kinds of adobe commonly used today: cement or asphalt stabilized mud adobe.
This particular video (video #3) shows the proper application method for protecting your cement/asphalt stabilized mud adobe or rammed earth home. It is important that you first determine what kind of adobe your home is built out of in order to correctly calculate the amount of the Silox you will need to treat it. If you are unsure, text me a photo (520-331-4004) of your walls and I can help you in making the proper identification.
These type of earth walls are usually very thirsty and porous, some more so than others. If your adobe or rammed earth is particularly thirsty, it is possible that you will need to apply the Silox at an even heavier rate, perhaps 40 s.f. per gallon.
Whatever rate you find you need to apply the Silox, if you need to recoat a wall or area to achieve the required square foot rate, make certain you apply any subsequent coats following a “wet on damp” procedure. In other words, never allow the first coat to dry before putting on a second or third coat. If the first coat dries, the second and subsequent coats may not absorb because the first coat will repel it. The key is: “wet on damp” coats.
Recently (as of April, 2024), I’ve updated the application procedures for sun-dried adobe and rammed earth. This updated information is important and I urge all purchasers of the Silox for these kind of adobes and rammed earth to read and follow these new procedures. Please note in the videos #3 above and #4 below that these updated procedures should be followed and not what is shown in the videos. If you have any questions, please call or text Roy Spears at (520) 331-4004.
Burnt or fired adobe receives a saturation rate of 350-400 s.f. per five gallons of the Silox, or 70-100 s.f. per gallon. If your burnt adobe is particularly porous (some are), you will need to apply more product. When in doubt, observe the “flood coat” method, which is applying the Silox in a drenching coat where the water repellent runs freely down the walls. This is the method I used to determine how much of the Silox I sprayed on my customer’s walls. If you can achieve this “flood coat,” you can rest assured you are putting on the proper amount. Please watch the videos for an example of this.
Because you might not be able to achieve the flood coat because the walls are so thirsty and they absorb so much of the water repellent, you will have to have some idea of how much to put on the walls; the only way to do this is to mark off the walls as described above.
The video below ↓ (video #4) was made specifically to address this issue of properly applying the Silox to an asphalt or cement stabilized mud adobe home. It is also applicable for rammed earth homes:
Depending on how “heavy” or “light” you spray the Silox on these walls, you may have to put multiple coats over one 250 s.f. section to achieve this recommended coverage until you get the feel of how much you will need. Do not allow the prior coats to dry before spraying on another coat, otherwise the prior coat will repel the subsequent coats. Depending on the temperature and humidity, you might only have a few minutes between coats.
If these earth walls were properly treated within the last five years, you may be able to achieve a square foot coverage rate of 80 s.f. per gallon. But to be safe, always calculate a square foot figure of no more than 50 s.f. per gallon, or 250 s.f. per five gallon bucket for previously untreated walls.
The clip below shows a higher quality video of the flood coat on burnt adobe:
Below, a short clip of the “mist coat”:
Below, a short clip on some helpful masking techniques:
Below is a short clip of the top of a burnt adobe wall that had been treated with the Silox Adobe Water Repellent and then was rained upon:
You don’t want to leave the Silox puddling on top of your walls. If you do, it will leave an unsightly and permanent spot:
Watch the short video below for some helpful tips on properly rinsing off the Silox from your plants and concrete and/or brick patio areas. Pro-tip: when sealing a house, we typically work in teams of at least two. One man is the “spray man” and the other is the “water man.”
The water man has his work cut out for him. His responsibility is to run around behind the spray man and insure that the Silox is not ponding or pooling on any horizontal surface where it will dry in its undiluted, full-strength state. This is something do-it-yourselfers must watch out for: you never want full-strength Silox to pond or pool in any area where it will dry out in the sun without having a chance to be diluted by water to thin it out. Watching the video below will help explain what I mean.
I can’t stress enough how important it is to work in teams of at least two when spraying your house with the Silox. A trained team of three is even better. A third man on the team can be the “masker” and “runner”: he can be putting on and removing the masking from the windows, doors and other items that need to be protected from the Silox overspray, as well as resupplying the spray man when he runs out of Silox.
“Spray days” are the most stressful because so much happens at one time and things must flow together on the job site for a successful outcome. For example, in spraying large houses, one has to make sure that the spray man has sufficient Silox on hand to finish whatever wall he is currently spraying. Running out of sealer halfway down a wall on a hot, sunny day can be a disaster: the drips and runs from spraying the wall, if left to dry and not making sure you complete each “pass” on the walls, will be virtually impossible to remove if you fail to complete each section.
This is just one reason why working in a team of at least two men is crucial: the man not spraying is indispensable to the man doing the actual spraying, insuring the spray man is always supplied with sealer before he runs out, that the excess Silox that has run down the walls is being diluted with water before drying in the sun, that all windows and doors are properly masked and that this same masking is timely removed, etc.
This being said, if you find you are unable to have someone help you, pace yourself, go slow, and plan on stopping your spraying of the Silox and picking up your hose to spray down whenever area where the water repellent ran down the walls and pooled at the bottom. If it is dirt at the bottom of your walls, this is no big deal and you can keep spraying, but if you have flagstone, concrete, brick pavers, etc., you want to make sure you dilute the Silox before it dries.
Undiluted Silox
It is not rocket science to successfully spray your house, but there are tricks of the trade that, if followed, will make this tough job easier. I cannot stress enough the importance of having at least two people on spray days working together as a team. And watching these videos before you start spraying your walls will save you potential headaches and make your job easier with reduced stress.
What kind of sprayer should I use to apply the Silox to my house walls? This video shows what Adobe Masters uses:
In the video below, I give some additional tips on how to make the job of applying the Silox on your roof easier:
A five gallon bucket of the premium “Silox Adobe Water Repellent.”