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Keth

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Posts posted by Keth

  1. Posted · Report reply

    Sorry, forgot to answer this part. As for chems I am using citrus housewash mix from Sunbrite but SH I am now looking for a new supplier as the local pool company just jacked up their prices. Energen is a great company south of the city near the Citadel Mall but he doesn't deliver. Guys name is Lance and he can make anything you need though. Does a lot of work for car washes and others. I give him biz just because there isn't anything he doesn't know how to clean and his experience is worthwhile. There is a chem company that I called recently that might be the one you talk about off Dorchester. The do SH for $116 for 55 gals delivered. I have to call them back and work out a deal as I work out of my garage and don't have a loading dock obviously. If they can deliver with a lift gate and I can roll it into the garage they have a new customer for sure. We are coming up on the fall cleaning season and I need to be ready.

    Since taking the step to the serious big time I am a bit behind on keeping up with the chems but am confident I can have an ordering schedule in place soon that is more reliable. I keep changing methods trying to find the best way and it is hard to estimate usage. Soon it wll all smooth out.

    Cheers,

    Keth

  2. Posted · Report reply

    keth where are you at in Mt. P., up until June I was Chucktown about every day. Met a few cleaners down there. the window cleaner/washer/painter dude thats on 17 in Mt p. Met Nevergreen and one other guy can't remember name right now. Got a bud that lives in Mallard Lake in Mt. P. I will be back down there in a few weeks on a job maybe we could have lunch at dog and duck and talk about biz. who are you buying chems from down there. I bought some from a company over near Montague or Dorchester one time.

    Hey Jim! I am off 17 at a subdivision called Charleston National just north of the dude on 17. His biz is called "The Pressures On" and he has five rigs rolling right now I think. He does lots of PW and painting from what I can see but I don't know him personally. I don't think he even knows me as I started out as the guy with the Lowes gear and am now just getting going with some real gear, insurance and marketing. He will know who I am in a year or two. ;)

    Mallard Lake rings a bell. A friend of mine is a real estate agent and asked me last year to do a quick landscape job on a place they were going to sell in Mallard Lakes. I made it look real pretty and the owner died before they could sell it and it is now all tied up with the kids and the will. Place is all overgrown, kinda sad.

    Love to have a hot dog with you. Jacks Comic Dogs is great and is right down the street. If your job in this area needs some backup I have a hot/cold rig, tons of enthusiasm and a little experience so let me know if you need some help.

    Cheers,

    Keth

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I think I would fel a little uncomfortable having my guys use a #10 nozzle. I think with that nozzle you could get into "signing" the siding.

    I can see what you mean. Just fired up the beast and tried the 0010 nozzle. Not something you want to get lazy with at ground level as it can likely add a new "window" into a house! It does go real far though! Might need clearance from the FAA for that one.

    Cheers

  4. Posted · Report reply

    I can get almost 50 feet with a 0030. I switch to an 0020 to rinse down to top of the first floor (to the tops of the first floor window) then switch to a 6515 for the remainder of the house and rewetting the plants.

    Thanks Ken. Just got the OO40 and a test it made it to the peak of our 2.5 story house which is about as high as anything around here except the full story elevated houses. I will get a 0030 as you suggest for some tests as well.

    I was too busy testing the new surface cleaner on the driveway and forgot to try the 0010 tip for rinsing. I will order a 0020 as well for the extra volume it may provide without soap draw.

    Cheers

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Make sure you get a shooter tip from bob as well. The $10 is well worth it, get two incase you lose it. The shooter tip lets me shoot chems up 35 feet and with a breeze you can use the breeze to get some extra hieght - takes some trial and error.

    dont' retire the x-jet all together. I use my M5 to rinse before and after - without the hose and chems of course.

    Thanks. Bob did send me the shooter tip for soap which is the 0040. I will try a tip or two on either side of this as well to make sure I am getting the height I need.

    M5 will still be used for oxalic sprays of driveways and dumpster pad work which require a real heavy dose. I think, with the right proportion downstreamer I can get up to 2% SH to the wall on a house so downstreaming shouldn't hurt me by having to do things twice very often. I think the M5 will always have a place.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Why do you want to run chem through your hose reel? You will lose draw and corrode the shieeet out of your reel.

    Well, I find X-jetting to work fine but I work without a helper and it is a bit of a pain to haul that jug around etc. I don't want the start a "x-jet vs downstream" debate as that is covered in other threads. Just that a few of the people I respect the opinion of greatly have suggested trying downstreaming.

    My Titan reel has a stainless core which should last a bit and I think replacing a reel now and then to be a small price to pay for the convenience.

    Also, I intend to put a 50 gallon tank in the back of my truck with a wax/rinse aid in it as a differentiator from all the straight bleach guys around here. Wash and rinse, hit the truck and flip the Y valve to draw wax/rinse aid and do a quick spin around the house. Virtually spot free windows and shiny vinyl. I think it will be a nice way to make my company stand out from the competition.

  7. Posted · Report reply

    Thanks guys. So is there an accepted psi or gpm cutoff that determines when soap will draw and when it won't like 500 psi for a particular machine? I guess I could just order handfuls of different nozzles and test but was hoping to learn a bit about how to determine where the cutoff is and how to read the nozzle chart. Just work left from the spec for your machine (which for mine is 5.5 nozzles) and then staying in the same row just go to the left till the PSI is at desired level (500 psi = #20 nozzle = soap draw)??

  8. Posted · Report reply

    After reading some posts regarding downstreaming I have decided to set up my rig to allow me to downstream and retire the X-jet to driveway and other speciality uses. Have an Adams 20% injector and just need to get some fittings to install it just before the swivel on my hose reel.

    As you all know I am a bit of a newbie and appreciate the help everyone has given me while I get started. Instead of pestering Bob at PressureTek I thought it might be good if I learned a little nozzle theory.

    Machine is 3300 psi/ 4.8 gpm. Tips are all 5.5 for standard HP nozzles but I have gotten a few new nozzles for my downstream experiment.

    Here is the current nozzles I have for high and low soap and rinse applications for downstreaming.

    High soap = 0040

    High rinse = 0010

    Low soap = "standard" soap nozzle (black)

    Low rinse = ????

    Question is how do I determine what low rinse nozzle will give me good rinsing without drawing soap? Do you just slide to the left on a typical nozzle chart to a certain pressure limit? What determines what nozzle will not draw versus one that will draw? I imagine that hose length and height plays some role right?

    If I use my current 4055 nozzle for rinsing it seems to put out a column of air that makes the vinyl shudder and personally doesn't feel like a "low pressure" housewash even if I stand pretty far back. I am guessing I need to get a bigger orifice to dump some pressure but want to learn how far I can go before it will start sucking soap.

    Thanks all for my theory lesson. Teach me to fish........

    :bandplay:

  9. Posted · Report reply

    I have to agree with Ken and Mike on this. I just picked up a hot/cold Hydrotek rig with a 225 gal tank and a 35 gallon shurfo roof setup with a Titan reel and 300 feet of HP hose on a heavy duty trailer with a 6000lb axle and trailer brakes for 3k. It had less than 100 hours on it. Yes, I got a great deal but used equipment is very common and you have to take the hit if you are bailing out IMHO. Best of luck.

  11. Posted · Report reply

    Well Jeff unless you find that your head isnt fuzzy and your memory is good you are using one of the Dawn brands, of which there are many, that is okay. Tough to figure out.

    Ken, it is odd regarding their product line. They have so many products labeled under the Dawn brand it is hard to tell what is what. This Dawn Ultra says on the label in one place it is a hand cleaner and in another place it says dish soap. Too confusing. If you go to their site they have like 40 different versions of Dawn so I imagine the Original is OK but you have to be careful with all the new formulations in case they added something odd to "boost" it. Good luck finding the Original anymore as the American consumer typically goes for the "improved" or "Ultra" version.

    I will let the Ultra Antibacterial Dish/Hand soap sit for other uses for now. Original Joy should work fine!

    Cheers

  12. Posted · Report reply

    While at Costco today I saw Dawn Ultra Apple Blossom and had a little chuckle cause I have read about you guys adding squirts of this to your housewash and roof wash so I bought a big bottle of it. Was mixing up some housewash when I got home for a job on Monday and read the label for kicks before adding some Dawn for it's flowery scent and it says "DO NOT ADD BLEACH". Couldn't see any ammonia in the contents so I was wondering what's up with that? Are you guys poisoning yourselves slowly or is it just exteme caution on the part of the makers of DAWN?

    ultra_antibac_bottle_new.jpg

  16. Posted · Report reply

    My garden hose puts out 6.8 GPM and works fine for most rinsing but to get the peaks of the high spots (40 ft) it is nice to have the pressure. Getting the chems up that high with a shurflo is not possible without a ladder that I am aware of so I am sure someone will chime in if they can do it.

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Most boatyards have a guy pressure wash off the barnacles when the boat is hauled in the fall for winter storage in northern climes. There is a small ring of calcium deposits left where the barnacle was attached to the hull but for a cruising sailboat it usually isn't an issue and they just paint over it the next spring. In Palm Beach, being year round, I imagine you could approach boatyards to offer it but typically they do this themselves with slave labor and most likely wouldn't want you to get a slice of their pie.

    Racing sailboats are a whole nother story. Scuba divers every week sponging down before race weekends.

  20. Posted · Report reply

    The tank serves a few purposes but let's take one example. If I have a 5GPM machine and the house supplies only 3 GPM I am net negative 2 GPM so, assuming someone was washing the whole time my 250 gallon tank would last 125 minutes before I had to take a break to let the house inlet catch up. If I had a 50 gallon tank I would get 25 minutes before I had to pause and let it catch up. Just a matter of how often you want to stop I guess.

    If you are confident that the locations you do always have a GPM outlet rating higher than what your machine can put out then you don't even need a tank theoretically. The few times I have been in the UK the hotels I stayed at had terrible water pressure. That may have just been a local issue and you may have plenty of water at the faucet where you live and work.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Tim,

    Typically a float tank means that is has a valve on the input which will shut the incoming water off if the tank fills up. Not sure if you could put one on a wheelie bin though I imagine anything is possible. I am kinda surprised that they don't sell poly tanks in the UK. Is there a reason why you guys use the wheelie bins? Poly tanks here typically have baffles in them to buffer the shifting of water when braking and turning.

    Typical tanks on most rigs I see in this area are in the 225 gallon (851 liter) size with just a few of the big commercial cleaners having tanks up to 600 gallons.

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