Christopher

This are funny. hahahahaha

The more you read, the more you will learn. A lot of the older house wash recipe's had everything separate so you mixed up everthing as you needed it. With great soaps for house washing like Simple Cherry and Green Wash, you just add some to your SH and get to work. Most of the questions you ask, will ask or want to ask have been asked here many times over and over and over just like on the other bbs's out there. As time goes on, things evolve, things get streamlined, productivity goes up, etc.... If you want to learn a lot on how to get started in the business, there are a lot of guys that will teach you or you can attend some of the training at the yearly events which cuts down drastically on the learning curve. Until you learn a lot about chemicals, have a lot of years' experience with them, I would not go messing around and become the home-brew-mad scientist because that will waste a lot of time, money and possibly get you or people around you hurt by trying to save a few bucks or believing what you read on the bbs, there is a lot of mis-information being given out there, don't believe everything you see or hear on that internet.

Muriatic Acid is very dangerous and it does not matter how much it cost, there is not much use for it in pressure washing unless you have exact, specific uses which 98% of the time you have no need in most pressure washing jobs. Price on chemicals should not matter, what the chemical is, how dangerous it is and what it does should be what matters to you. Like Russ Mentioned, unless you want to etch concrete (like melting it) for applying specific coatings in heavy duty settings or industrial applications, I would stay away from that stuff. You can almost always see in the Home Depot, Lowes, and other hardware stores where someone spilled it on the concrete floor where it ate through some of the concrete. Most customers don't want this happening on their concrete and I am sure that they would get really pissed off and/or take legal action if you tried it for some unknown reason. This is one of those chemicals that there are not a lot of uses for, is dangerous and can easily cause permanent damage to most surfaces and/or yourself. Hope this helps.

Hello Everyone, I am not sure if this goes into this area or not. I am looking for a ShopVac or similar brand that has the pump out capability. My Pressure Washer machine is 5.6gpm and 3000 psi. I am looking for something that I can leave on the low spots on big concrete areas to vacuum up the excess water. I did an 18,000sq. ft. parking lot yesterday and the low spot was a pain. The water would collect in an area that would continuously get bigger until I would stop cleaning and pump it out. I would like to have something vacuuming up the excess water and be able to pump it out when needed so I can continue pressure cleaning. I have looked but had no success finding one. If anyone knows of Brands and Model numbers Please let me know. Thanks.

Nice video Nigel. What sump pump did you use that fits into the bucket? Thanks.

With all the gear boxes out there it seems easy to just mount a pump to a gear box and mount the gea box to the engine and be done with it. I am amazed that I have not seen any vendors out there selling a belt drive kit for those people out there that want to run belts and pulleys. The biggest problem is drilling the holes for the engine and the pump brackets and making sure that everything is aligned up and then tightening the belts. I have seen some aftermarket belt tensioners but not sure if they would work. What would be nice is a paper, plastic or metal template to drill the holes so that everything should line up and a belt tensioner or a slide for the engine that you just drill holes onto the pump/engine base and have it rigged to where you just turn the bolt (like some skids have welded onto the base) and then tighten the bolts on the engine or pump and be done with it. I am sure that vendors out there have templates made already for making the pump bases for building them but the other issue here is tightening the belts. I don't think that a sliding device would be that hard to make and then have a company mass-produce them but then I am not on that side of the industry. On my Hotsy there are 2 bolts that you adjust to tighten the belts, just like on other rigs out there that are mass produced. I agree that the gear boxes are a good idea but it would also be nice to have an option for belts/pulleys and maybe even another larger template for adding a generator so when people want to make their own rigs or if the pump bases rust out but the components are still in working condition, they could just order this template, base and put it together and be up and running again. Not sure if vendors out there have ever been asked for something like this and it might worry some about not selling as many skid units or pre-built rigs but there will always be guys out there that don't have the skills or time or want to build the units but on the other hand there are a lot of guys out there building their businesses how they want with the gear boxes and only have so much room on the trailers and trucks or want to custom build rigs for their certain applications. I have wondered about this for a few years now and have not seen anything out there yet like what I described. What do you guys think? Thanks.

Thanks Adrian.

I did some heavy equipment washing for a contractor yesterday and found out that he has an Isuzu box truck that has the Diesel engine, tommy lift and the box is either 14' or 16'. It has been sitting for about 2 years as he does not use it anymore but he is interested in selling it at a good price. It has about 200k miles and I am worried about the engine. He told me that the engine runs great and he would take it out of town no problem but it has been sitting a while now. Not sure what transmission it has. Have any of you bought trucks that have been sitting for a while and got them running and used them? What kind of issues do you think I would have if I bought this truck? Thanks.

Thanks guys.

Got a call today about cleaning some concrete over in Beverly Hills, CA. Anyone work that area with the insurance, hot water, experience,etc.....pm me or give me a call.

Hello Everyone, I am putting in a bid to clean a building that has been vacant for several years and has had a lot of pigeons in it. I am posting this to the boards to get a lot of feedback so if you visit the boards you will see this and I am not sure what category to post this. I need to clean the metal walls, concrete floor and wash the metal beams, pipes up at the ceiling and do a very light rinse of the white plastic covered batt insulation. The insulation has chicken wire supporting it so I think a light rinse will not soak it. I will have to use a manlift for the high stuff but was wondering what type of respirator and chemicals would be good if anyone has done this type of cleanup before. I am thinking housewash for everything with extra bleach on the concrete floor for the large amounts of bird droppings. There are 7 huge metal roll up doors that I will open for air circulation and light as I will have to turn off the electricity. I just do not know what type of cartridges for the half face respirator. Thanks for any help.

Residential concrete cleaning work.

Double check the directional arrow, the fittings they put on the injector are opposite of what I use so I have to change them. Did you read the paper as to which orifice they put into the injector? They come with different orifices based on the gpm of your machine. I lost my paper so I am not sure what is in mine. It will not pull anything if it is in the wrong way. The hexagon head of the orifice will be toward the machine and the outlet (other side of the orifice) will be toward the pressure gun or hose. Did you put a soap nozzle in the end of the wand or other larger size nozzle so that the injector can pull chemical under the lower pressure? Check those out and tell us what you find.

I have a lot of the sodium percarbonate sitting there and it is just taking up space and I would like to use it for cleaning something. I don't do a lot of wood restoration but there should be other uses for Sodium Percarbonate besides wood cleaning. What else can you use it for? Thanks.

Since I have Red Oak floors in the house and only some area rugs, carpet cleaning is not an issue. I have the containers sealed tight, I am on the Gulf coast, right at the water and we have high humidity all year long but when you seal the containers good the powders do last a while so I am trying to find something to clean with this stuff, don't want to throw it away. I wonder if it would brighten concrete like acids do? I wonder if it will remove tannin stains like from leaves on concrete like bleach does? Just trying to find some practical uses for the stuff.

Just wanted to give a huge Thank You to Ron **********, ***, NCE and the great people here that have helped me learn what I needed to learn. I had to take the leap of faith, do what needs to be done, learn about contracts and bidding, learning about filling out the paperwork, learning about insurance and more to be even considered to try to get the bigger jobs and contracts. I was just awarded a great contract today (some of you know about it but I can't really talk about it here) and it is mostly because of what I learned here at ***, at the NCE Round Tables and from talking to Ron **********. This greatly shortened the learning curve and saved me a lot of headaches, hassles and money wasted doing the wrong thing. It just goes to show you that being a member here can help you earn more money, learn how to get the bigger jobs, learn how to do jobs better and more efficiently and how to be more professional. There is probably some things that I am leaving out but not trying to purposely, just cannot remember everything all right now, this minute. I know that there are a lot of people out there that say bad things about Ron but for those people out there that blindly believe that false information, you are walking away from over 25 years of knowledge, learning the hard way and great business sense. Do yourself the favor of learning about Ron, talking to him when you can and learn from him, he is doing a great thing by giving back to the industry with the ***, NCE and his personal time and money by making a lot of these Round Tables happen. Thanks Ron! _________________ Superior Power Washing Chris Chappell 361-853-2513 prostaff@superiorpowerwashing.com House Cleaning Driveway and Sidewalk Cleaning

Brian, did you find a downstream injector that will work with 10gpm? If so, what brand and where did you get them. Thanks.

I agree, give Jerry at Sirocco a call or pm or email him, he really knows his stuff and has some of the best recovery/reclaim equipment out there.

Wow. Just when Ron M. worked so hard to help get Houston straightened out so contractors could get back to work, not needing to haul wash water across town, pay bogus fees, fill out unnecessary manifests and be scared to death of getting fined while working, this stuff comes out. I am so glad that Ron M. got the city of Houston to start to understand what the Clean Water Act really means and that you don't have to haul away wash water, have reclaim equipment 90% of the time and be able to pressure wash and not worry about having to get a loan to buy reclaim equipment that is not needed most of the time from unscrupulous vendors trying to get contractors to buy equipment that is not needed and trying to promote reclaim equipment to cities that have no clue of what is really needed. Thanks for all you do Ron M., us contractors really appreciate what you do, have done for Houston and continue to do to help us contractors.

It was a great event, had a great time raising money for the kids and my son had a great time also!

Tampa the past 2 years was great! I know this year will be even better.

I have some of them and they seem to last a lot longer than the less expensive injectors. Seems like when you rebuild them, the rebuild lasts longer also.

Learn from a pro, use good chemicals, don't wait too long and do a good job. No Problem.

That is a good place for a ladder, kind of like how the U-Haul trucks store their ramps.

Wow, 6 weeks is a very long time to wait for a hose reel, or just about anything. I think you can order a hot water skid from just about any vendor out there, pay for it and it will be there within 2-2.5 weeks from the time you pay for it. I wonder why it takes them 6 weeks?