the_GUNN_man

If that many customers have wells I would suggest a on board water softener. It will help protect your pumps, coils, and you will get better results from your chemicals. Well water will also leave very spotty windows depending on how hard the water is.

I get it for $2.25 a gallon in throw away containers. It is 12.5%. It usually doesn't matter the price for it. If I wash a house I will use two gallons max(unless it is a big house). I also use two gallons of house wash. My total chem bill for washing a house is less then $7. I get on average per house of around $225. My chems are around 3% of my gross.

I have a couple machines I do not like putting antifreeze through. Actually one is where the engine doesn't run and the other is without a fuel tank. I just screwed off the caps on the pump and let the water drip out. Will this be enough? Is there more water trapped in there that could do damage?

I will do mobile home washes now for $50 a piece but I get them to have all theirs done in one day. The last mobile home I did this year I washed it in less then 30 minutes. I take a Shur Flo and spray on the chems and my other guy comes right behind me rinsing it off. No high pressure. Use soap tip to rinse. If they schedule a wash other then during my special time it is $85. I don't haggle with different prices for singles and doubles. Here is the way it works here. Typical single wide is 16 x 72 = 176 linear feet. Typical double wide is 28 x 56 = 168 linear feet. Most cases double wides will wash faster then singles. Very rare are doubles wides more then 56 feet long and if so 64 feet is max. Not many people have the 28 x 80 homes. charge one flat price and be done with it. The extra feet take me less then 5 minutes more to wash. Most houses now take me less then 2 hours to wash. I remember when I would take over 2 hours to wash a mobile home. I used to think you guys were full of it when you said you would do houses that fast(less then 2 hours). It is all in the chems and proper equipment. High Pressure? Save that for concrete or heavy equipment. I still hate decks though. It is hard to make fast time on decks. Spindals should be illegal. Especially since that new regulation about them being needed to be placed so close together.

I have been talking about it for awhile and I finally went ahead and did it. It cost me about $68 in parts and I needed a 5' piece of high pressure hose. the two check valves is what cost me close to $60. You could do it without the check valves but you would have to use ball valves to start both machines and then open them at the exact same time so you don't have one machine pushing water into the next machine. It just seems easier and safer to just install the check valves.I hooked my 5.2 gpm and 5.5 gpm machines together. Nearly 11 gpm's has some kick. I couldn't use anything smaller then a #12 nozzle. Heck the soap nozzle had some good power. I plan on using it on my surface cleaner. I have a 30" surface cleaner and 11 gpm's would be kickin. I can haul 550 gallons of water. I would burn through it in less then an hour. I could add my other smaller 4 gpm to it and get 15 gpm's but that would be getting a little silly. I have to change out the tips in my surface cleaner to two 5.5's or 6's. I have a two bar spinner. I may get a 3 or 4 bar spinner now. The down side to running the two machines together is double the fuel use. Running two 18 hp engines can get costly. Like I said the most practical use will be with my surface cleaner and when I need to rinse something down fast. Does anyone use high gpm's for cleaning other then concrete? I was wondering if anyone thinks there would be any problem washing a deck with 11 gpm's? I would need like a #24 tip. Do they make tips that big? The biggest I have bought are #15. I see they make 20's, 25's, 30's, etc. for soap nozzles. Maybe a 4025 would work.

What size engine did you have running that monster?

I do believe I am using the 607's.

I have a 30" steel eagle surface cleaner. Do you remember the little plastic guide they gave you that helps you adjust the angle of your spray tips? Does anyone have one of those the could photocopy and either fax it or email in actual size? I plan on making a guide out of some sheet metal or wood. I lost mine and I am just guessing on the angle right now.

That's ok. I played around with the image and all I really need is the angle. I found out the size can be slightly off.

I got it all figured out. Thanks for the help. I just kept messing with the reducer button on my copier and I got it close. I made a template out of card board and got it to work. Thanks again.

I went outside and measured the block on the end of the spinner where the nozzles screw in and it is 3/4''. I am assuming the template is 1 ''.

Are you able to send a fax? if so I would really apprecaite it. I have to use my surface cleaner tomorrow morning and my nozzles are out of whack. I printes the very first one you emailed me and the width on that a inch and a half. Maybe if you tell me how wide the space is cross wise on your I can mess with it and get it to print the actual size. When I view it on my screen it is one inch wide.

When I went to print it was a full page and I know that is way too big. If I measure the black bar on my copy the width is a inch and 3/8 ths. How wide is it on yours?

It didn't print out right. The bottom piece was chopped off.

Thanks, I'll be looking for it.

I use the Shur flo to spray chems on the house and have my employee right behind me rinsing it off with an X-Jet. One thing I have stopped doing is pre wetting. I have done that all year and it comes out fine. I never leave anything on the hose long enough. That is for vinyl only. I use a strong house wash let it set for maybe 2 minutes and rinse off. Been finishing houses in under 90 minutes. The biggest hassles are the gutters. They take up most of my time. About the pre wet thing I do do that when doing most of everything else. Just not with vinyl houses.

The whole thing with the check valves was better to be safe then sorry. I wasn't sure what kind of damage could be done if you sent water backwards through the pump. If you say you have done it and it causes no harm then I believe you. I had seen similar setups to what I made and they had check valves on them. I assumed that the reason behind it was to not force water back into the other machine. I made sure the gun I used could handle that much gpm. Mine actually can handle up to 13 gpm. I have a 30" Steel Eagle with a two bar spinner. I didn't see no problem putting two #6 tips on it. I do have a question about the high pressure filter. Is the whole reason behind a high pressure filter on a surface cleaner is to not plug the tips? Because if I go from #3's to #6's the orifice would be bigger and less likely for something to get lodged in there. Does debris cause any harm to the spinner? I know that in turbo's you are trying to protect the ceramic.

You will need two check valves. Right before you you tee off you need one on each side. A check valve lets water only flow one way. With only one you would be taking a chance. The whole purpose is if one machine stops running it doesn't push water backwards through the other pump.

I just got my first Shur Flo today. I noticed it says to use plastic or non metal fittings because of the damge that could happen to the threads. Does anyone still use metal fittings on both sides of the shur flo pump and on the inlet of the trigger gun? What is the smallest battery I can use for it and it still work fine? Any 12 volt battery?

I am going to use it for deck washing. I may experiment with it on soaping cars on my lots. It seems like it would be too slow to use on washing houses since I use an X-Jet already.

Another thing to consider with a hot box is that if you are only putting 2.5 gpm through it and the hot box is rated for higher you will heat the water too much. If the hot box is meant to heat at 5 gpm and you only put half that much water through it, it will boil it and can cause things to burst. You would have to make sure to reduce the fuel tips in the burner. The comparison would be to get a pot and put it on the stove. Pour 5 cups of water in it and see how long it takes to boil. Then dump that out and put in only 2.5 cups and see how long it takes to boil. With the same heat setting you will see the 2.5 cups boil much faster. You would have to reduce heat to get it to boil in the same amount of time as the 5 cups. Same would go for the hot box. For probably 90% of what you will be washing doubling your gpm will be more important then hot water. That is if you had to make a choice between the two. I know some people swear by hot water but I only turn mine on less then 2% of the time. I use 5.2 gpm and good chems and that works in most all cases. I only use hot water for degreasing, concrete, and really stubborn stains.

The whole issue with paying in cash isn't if it costs money to cash a check, it is so that you don't have to deposit that money and it won't show up for taxes. I ONLY deposit checks made out to my company name. If they write them to me personally I cash them without depositing them. You have to be careful with using a persoanl account as your business account. Any depsoits look as if it was your business who made money. It would be bad if you sold a car for $5000 and deposited it in your business account. If you are audited it may look as if you made that money pressure washing. I never ask people to make checks out to me. If they ask me I tell them they can wirte it to me. I guess it all depends on how honest you are and how bad you feel for our government being poor. Does anyones bank cash a check made out to someone's business name? My bank says that all checks made out to my business are deposit only and wait for the money to clear, usually just one day.

I was just wondering what size Shurflo pump you guys use. Basically of the 12 volt type I see they range from 1.2 gpm to 3.6 gpm and from 45 psi to 150 psi. Is the psi all that important or is it more the gpm's? I see that the Flojet's go from 1.2 gpm to 4.5 gpm and from 40 psi to 100 psi. Is Shurflo better then Flojet?

I am live in West Michigan and can get nowhere near those prices. For a strip and brighten you will be lucky to get 35 cents a sq ft. Anything more and you will be turned away every time. I only get 35 cents a sq ft to stain on top of it. I spell it out exactly what they get for the price. I don't do any sanding and the stain I use is from Home Depot. I give them the choice of a better quailty stain (such as Ready Seal or Wood Tux) but in 4 years only one wanted it. I cannot compete with all these guys around my area washing decks with bleach and water. That is all they use to strip most decks, they do not netrualize, and if all the previous sealer/stain doesn't come off they go right over the top of it. It is sad how crappy those decks look. I tried to stick to 50 cents for strip and brighten for about 6 months and did not get a single deck. At 35 cents I get about 1/3 of the decks I bid on. Sad to say but I have to cut corners to get a piece of the work. At 35 cents I can still make about $75 an hour. I know a lot of you would say you wouldn't touch a deck for those prices but it is take it at 35 cents or just don't do any. What can you do? You can explain til your blue in the face and these people don't care. I even put out DVD's of us working and they don't care. The guys around here will wash decks for under 25 a sq. ft. and use Thompsons water seal and call it good. I use good cleaning chems but have to skimp on the stain. On the other hand, car lots and new construction brick around here pays good. I get $2.50 to $4.00 per car on a lot to where as a lot of guys get $1 to $2. New construction brick I get anywhere from 35 cents a sq. ft to 55 cents a sq. ft. Mostly right around 40 cents thoough, any lift and brick acid is seperate(extra). Also guys around here wash mobile homes for $40. I am charge at least $85. I can do a mobile home though in under 40 minutes. I wish I got what you guys do for decks. The thing I hear all the time is people tell me they would just buy a new deck then to spend over a $1000 for a strip and stain. If I am asking $1000 and the next guy says he will do it for $200, how can you compete? They look at me like I am a rip off. I had one guy look at an estimate, look back at me and say in a rather pissed off voice, " Get out of here" turn and walk away. Not "get out of here" as in I was joking but as in leave.

Are you x-jetting the HD-80? I used to and got semi good results. Then I applied it one day by pump up and it made a ton of difference. When I x-jetted before it diluted it way too much. I neutralize right after I am done washing while the wood is still wet.