Pedestrian Bridge Cleaning in Downtown Atlanta, GA

The property

The Nelson Street pedestrian bridge is a walkway in downtown Atlanta. Its deck is painted in large blocks of green and blue, lined with planters and benches and edged with mesh railings, with Mercedes-Benz Stadium in view.

The job

A painted deck limits how hard you can clean it. The scope we worked to on this bridge was written around the paint:

• a TSP cleaning solution at a 1:2 ratio to loosen stains
• a surface cleaner to lift the dirt, then a medium-high pressure rinse
• no more than 1,000 PSI anywhere on the deck

The bid required the cleaning to take place at night. We photographed the stains on the deck after dark beforehand, and the crew did the first cleaning in the early morning of April 2, 2023, starting before sunrise. The property brought us back for a second cleaning on June 18, 2023, again starting in the dark.

The result

The photos above show the deck before and after both visits. Dirt and the orange-brown stains around the planters came up, and the painted blocks read as clean, even color again.

The spec itself says that not every stain, such as tire marks or rust, will come out under these pressure, chemical and heat limits. After the first visit a few dirt stains had not come up. On a coated surface like this one, protecting the paint comes first, and we say so in the scope before the work starts.