Remote control

[Jeff 232]

Alright, with all these great minds out here. how could I make a remote control system for pressure washing multi-storied buildings. Theres a PW company that has a set up that is remote control for doing flat straight drops on buildings. He wont tell me how he's made it and Ive never seen it.

Alot of the hotel/condo high rises have just flat walls no obstruction. Im trying to figure how a motorized swing staging could be run remote and also how I could hook a pressure washer to it to apply chem then rinse with moderate pressure. I figure if I could get a long bar with several tips and set up on rig. Take rig up wetting building, apply chems on way down and then rinse

I havent time to research this yet, butIf I could come up with a totally remote system in the next year. I would start targeting the may tall buildings here. Must just have some dirt, mold and mildew on them and usually could do half a building or more remotely and then the rest we'd have to do with us on a rig

Just an idea, Ive been thinking about for a while, Any thoughts on this?

JL

[RyanH 14]

look into the remote starters for cars. they are simple and can be installed quickly.

[VanDiesel99 14]

I don't think ryan read the post :). It would be tough to get good pressure/flow out of all the nozzles if you were to span the whole swing stage. The one I talked to a guy about using was 24 feet. You would have a lot of nozzles cutting into your cleaning capacity. It probably wouldn't be very effective cleaning. Unless you have a 60gpm 20000 psi hydro demolition machine. :) I don't know what the highest gpm machine around is. I know 60gpm would be a little tough to hold ;).

[Jeff 232]

I don't think ryan read the post :). It would be tough to get good pressure/flow out of all the nozzles if you were to span the whole swing stage. The one I talked to a guy about using was 24 feet. You would have a lot of nozzles cutting into your cleaning capacity. It probably wouldn't be very effective cleaning. Unless you have a 60gpm 20000 psi hydro demolition machine. :) I don't know what the highest gpm machine around is. I know 60gpm would be a little tough to hold ;).

On alot of the buildings Im thinking of, you dont need hardly any pressure at all, just apply and rinse low pressure even if I used 2 machines.

I did a wall on a 17 story building from the top. I wet it from top and then applied chem same way and rinsed all from the top. The wall was about 20' wide. all that was on it was black mildew and a little green mold. Many of the buildings are like that

[VanDiesel99 14]

What did you do just low pressure volume application of high concentration SH? Then let it dwell and do a high volume rinse from the parapet? I guess if the concentrations were high enough the mold would just "melt" off. :lgmoneyey

[RyanH 14]

Oh yeah, a remote control *cleaner*. Guess I didn't read it Van :)

Well, if you can get access to the top of the building, I can imagine a unit with a bank of nozzles perpindicular to the building. It would have four wheels (for contact against the building), a counterweight balance (adjustable length via a screw or plug design), an arm branch for your nozzles, and a QC tip to connect to your hose. It would have a cable (or rope) tied at two ends on the top (for balance) and the rope would extend upwards to the top of the building and connect to a motor/pulley setup. Motor will be on a timed basis and you can either use a frequency control VFD (a little pricey) or a gear reducer. The motor will mount on a platform with another motor connected to wheels to allow the entire contraption to move laterally along the wall.

The counterbalance lever/arm is there to balance the force on the cleaning unit. As the nozzles are blasting water onto the building, you get a thrust force that will want to push the unit away from the building. The counterbalance lever is there to provide a vector force back onto the outside of the unit. It is angled upwards so as to keep the bottom of the unit (and wheels) contacting the wall. It needs to be adjustable to you can adjust for the different pressures you will be putting through your unit (higher pressure = higher thrust = more force required to keep it against the building.....having a longer distance between your weight and your unit will increase the force / torque at that point).

You will also need to have your hose on a reel with slight resistance (torsion spring) to feed to the unit. The spring will also assist the hose back up as the unit returns to the top of the building.

Do you want this fully automated or do you want to babysit it? If you want to babysit it it will be very easy to set all of this up. If I get a chance over the weekend I'll throw together a model with the parts you'll need and dimensions.

One begs the question though....how will you get the machine and stuff to the top of the building? Is this just so you don't have to rappel or constantly move the rig up and down the wall?

Oohhh! Now I'm thinking in reverse....if you had your ropes fixed at the top of the wall/building with a good clamping system, you could use a tension system on your washing unit to pull itself up the wall so you won't have to haul all of that stuff up to the top. That wouldn't be very robust though for every building.

[Jeff 232]

What did you do just low pressure volume application of high concentration SH? Then let it dwell and do a high volume rinse from the parapet? I guess if the concentrations were high enough the mold would just "melt" off. :lgmoneyey

The mix wasnt much stronger than a house wash mix. It was a dryvit stucco building. As soon as the SH mix hit it, it was disappearing

This pic is an example of how easy the mildew came off. This wall you see is actually 2 walls, the one on the left sticks out about 6 feet more than the one on the right. In the middle of the 2 walls you can see the clean white strip on the left wall, thats where the chem rapped around the corner and cleaned that area. This stuff just melted off this building and its like that on many of the buildings around here. No real pressure is needed at all, just alot of rinsing.

Thats why I want to setup a remote system so on areas like this that are straight flat drops, I can just send rig up & down. Now of course if theres other contaminates , such as rust eyc. some one would have to be on swing staging rig, doing the work. This remote thing is just something Ive been thinking about for a long time. Like I said there is a guy that has a setup and I understand there really isnt much to it.

JL

[Jim Carroll 14]

jeff if you have the cash I got the time. I designed one about a year ago and have just never bought the parts to put it together.

[Christopher 102]

This is an interesting idea. For tall buildings, you could just pull the unit up from the top of the building or if there were pulleys at the top you could pull it up from on the ground. How would you keep it going straight up? It could be like a water broom but with 4 wheels and wider. Is this what you are talking about or am I off on a tangent? If this were possible, you would not need manlifts but you would have the problem with windows. Great idea.

[Jeff 232]

This is an interesting idea. For tall buildings, you could just pull the unit up from the top of the building or if there were pulleys at the top you could pull it up from on the ground. How would you keep it going straight up? It could be like a water broom but with 4 wheels and wider. Is this what you are talking about or am I off on a tangent? If this were possible, you would not need manlifts but you would have the problem with windows. Great idea.

Christopher, your right, it would be something just like a water broom. Im also thinking the lift itself be remote. I was hoping to try to figure stuff out this winter but just to darn busy with life

[PLD 14]

It probably wouldn't be very effective cleaning. Unless you have a 60gpm 20000 psi hydro demolition machine.

I've thought about this issue many times. I find it very silly that we keep a 15-20 hp motor on board just for turning the pump. Carpet cleaners on the other hand use a PTO from the engine. Seems pretty easy to do, and then your pump takes the same fuel as your vehicle (whatever that is) Why don't we do this as well? Does anyone know the specifics of how a carpet cleaning system draws it's power and regulates throttle?

For this application, I'll assume that you need 56gpm. That's 10-5.6 pumps drawing 18hp each. It's be even more efficient with 7-8gpm pumps. Either way, that's no problem for a most PW truck engines. Draw the power from the truck using a hydraulic pump and turn each pump with a hydraulic engine. For pumps that are not in service, bypass the hydraulic back into the supply tank. Feed all 10 pumps into a large manifold and run one large supply line to the washing rig. Presto! 56gpm @ 3000psi.

For soap, run a second set of nozzles and PVC piping in tandem with the HP stuff. Drive it with a roller pump.

[Steve Kiser 14]

I've thought about this issue many times. I find it very silly that we keep a 15-20 hp motor on board just for turning the pump. Carpet cleaners on the other hand use a PTO from the engine. Seems pretty easy to do, and then your pump takes the same fuel as your vehicle (whatever that is) Why don't we do this as well? Does anyone know the specifics of how a carpet cleaning system draws it's power and regulates throttle?

For this application, I'll assume that you need 56gpm. That's 10-5.6 pumps drawing 18hp each. It's be even more efficient with 7-8gpm pumps. Either way, that's no problem for a most PW truck engines. Draw the power from the truck using a hydraulic pump and turn each pump with a hydraulic engine. For pumps that are not in service, bypass the hydraulic back into the supply tank. Feed all 10 pumps into a large manifold and run one large supply line to the washing rig. Presto! 56gpm @ 3000psi.

For soap, run a second set of nozzles and PVC piping in tandem with the HP stuff. Drive it with a roller pump.

U could use a carpet cleaning van very easily, that is what I do during the day, and it is pto, I will take some pics of the cat pump and the pulleys. The truck is responsible for the vacum, heat, and pressure. The throttle is controled by vacum, I will take some pics of it also. I have been thinking of this same thing for a while.

[PLD 14]

U could use a carpet cleaning van very easily, that is what I do during the day, and it is pto, I will take some pics of the cat pump and the pulleys. The truck is responsible for the vacum, heat, and pressure. The throttle is controled by vacum, I will take some pics of it also. I have been thinking of this same thing for a while.

Please do. I'd love to see how it works. Is the PTO energy transfer hydraulic or physical? My mouth is already watering at the thought of only buying a pump and a belt to go from 5.6->11.2gpm.

I'm moving this thread now so as not to hijack Jeff's thread...