Some New Products

[Pro Clean Exteriors]

Just got back from UAMCC Convention in Charleston last night. Good event. A couple of new products that may favorably help some of us.

First is Paul at the Powerwash Store had the new proportioning kit available. Ray Burke has been talking about this coming, was developed by one of the other softwashers in Tallahassee and this has been all he's used for 3 years. Has been waiting on patent. Licensed Paul to manufacture and distribute.

What this does is eliminate having to have a mix tank. Unit has 3 intakes with dials that you adjust to get your mix like you want. Picture shows units w/o the markings for the dials. Paul has now, just didn't get on before show. So you have your water intake, chem intake and soap. Gets blended and output to pump in very precise measurements. Cool thing about it is, can do roof, turn your chem dial down a notch to say 2%, do siding, etc. Need to crank back up for say a brick patio, just adjust knob. Want to rinse, just cut off chem and soap knobs. Simple and looks pretty bullet proof. Price was $995 at the show, Paul said price probably going to be $1200 after. They only had about 9 or 10 and I think they all got sold. It works with 12V and I believe air systems. Doesn't work with the Udor type systems because they have a return line on them.

Next was from Xterior, the guys that make the Xjet. It's called the M5DS. Here's link to their page on it - http://www.xteriorsales.com/index.php/downstreamers/m5ds.html It doesn't have the internal ball and spring like you need to downstream with a high pressure PW. From their add, looks like it'll work with a PW soap injector. But basically makes a jrod and changing tips obsolete. I bought one so spent an hour playing with it today with my FB.

Here's my review: Gives you infinite variety of spray patterns. Opened up gives you same distance as your 0 tip in jrod. In less than 1 full turn you can encompass every pattern you'll get off your JROD and then some. Can get down to the nicest flat and wide pattern as you want and since I was testing mine with the on-off it gives you truly infinite capabilities. The only negative I saw was it does seem to give a tad more mist on the long range setting, probably from just brushing the 2 flat surfaces on the adjuster flanges. But it was very minor and maybe not worse than usual, I may just have been more aware of it. But if you're shooting from the ground, you may want to make sure everything watered well between you and target, which you'd do anyway. From the ladder or the roof absolutely no problem. Distance wise, it shoots a few less feet than my Master. Notice they make for different outputs. I got the 3-7GPM since I'm using the FB and it works like a charm

Southside had them on sale at the show for $55. Think normal price is around $75-$80.

[Jeff]

Chris Tucker was talking about something like this years ago,..I think he called it a vari-flow system.  Was the same idea, had separate tanks with proportioning valves to dial in an exact mix. 

Jeff

 

[Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777]

Thanks for the review, and information Pro Clean!  As Jeff said, I was using a set up like this many years ago. I called it The Apple Vari Flow System.  Many of the threads about it are long gone from the Internet, but are still in the Internet Archives.

Check out post 6 in this thread. http://community.thegrimescene.com/topic/12020-ok-you-burnt-some-plants-now-what/

Chemical Delivery and proportioning systems are nothing new, and are not w/o problems. They can be quite tricky to get working right, and then the question is, what about all that chemical in 300 feet of hose ?   Lets say you are cleaning a tile roof at 50 percent chemical strength, then you switch down to 5 percent chemical strength, to clean a house, how do you KNOW when you are  at  5 percent chemical strength.  LOL, IF something goes wrong, you are now spraying the whole freaking house with a 50 percent (or more) chemical solution  

Also, to use a proportioning system like this, you must have flooded suction vs pulling from the tops of the tanks. Flooded suction means having a bulkhead on your tanks, an invitation for having leaks

Then, there is the proportioning valve itself, unless it is made from Kynar or Hastelloy (very expensive) the SH will soon eat it up, and then what ?

Back when I was fooling with this system, I was unable to find a PVC Valve

 

 

Edited September 14, 2015 by Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777

[Pro Clean Exteriors]

Could be a huge time and product saver . Think how much time it takes to do mixes everyday, plus I always end up with some product left over or if I convert roof mix to say a house mix and then next day have to re-calculate how much to add to get back to a roof mixture, etc. List goes on. I'm just a little guy and I can easily burn up an hour a day doing mixes. Of course i do have the nicest looking concrete driveway around (guess where any excess roof mix goes), lol. 

[Pro Clean Exteriors]

Chris, I don't know the answer about whether it can pull from top or not. I defer to your expertise on that. I do know he said they were using, or at least in his, they were using Hastelloy for certain parts and they were machining the PVC out of a solid block. I do know it was pretty heavy for it's size. 

The way the inventor said he used it, was when they got ready to change mix, he'd adjust his bleach level, then they would open soap wide open for about 5 seconds, then when the operator on the wand saw glob of soap come out, he knew he had the new mix ratio coming out.

 

Edited September 14, 2015 by Pro Clean Exteriors

[Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777]

Could be a huge time and product saver . Think how much time it takes to do mixes everyday, plus I always end up with some product left over or if I convert roof mix to say a house mix and then next day have to re-calculate how much to add to get back to a roof mixture, etc. List goes on. I'm just a little guy and I can easily burn up an hour a day doing mixes. Of course i do have the nicest looking concrete driveway around (guess where any excess roof mix goes), lol. 

Yes, you are preaching to the Choir   I wish them luck getting it to operate correctly.  A very simple way to always have the right strength chemical is to have a 2 tank system, with one tank mounted above the other, and the top tank filled with pure SH. The bottom tank is the mix tank. U pull up to the job, and simply open the valve on the top tank, to let out the amount of SH you need to make your mix in the bottom tank. Of course, u will still have to add water and soap to the bottom tank.

90 percent of my business is cleaning tile and shingle roofs. We travel with 2 - 300 gallon tanks on our flatbeds, one with shingle strength mix, and one with tile roof cleaning strength mix. There is no better system then what we have, for what we do.

[Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777]

Chris, I don't know the answer about whether it can pull from top or not. I defer to your expertise on that. I do know he said they were using, or at least in his, they were using Hastelloy for certain parts and they were machining the PVC out of a solid block. I do know it was pretty heavy for it's size. 

The way the inventor said he used it, was when they got ready to change mix, he'd adjust his bleach level, then they would open soap wide open for about 5 seconds, then when the operator on the wand saw glob of soap come out, he knew he had the new mix ratio coming out.

 

Like I said, I wish them luck, but to play Devils Advocate, there is still the problem of all that wasted chemical in 300 feet of hose, and the problems in communication between your ground man, and the roof man. When my Men are up on a slippery ass tile or metal roof, we have better things to pay attention to, then a Glob Of Soap coming out of our nozzles, not to mention how slippery that glob of soap will make a tile or metal roof     Plus, when and if it goes wrong, you could easily be cleaning with PURE SH

I would sure like to see a picture of it, all of it. I highly doubt they will be able to get a patent on it though.  

 

[Pro Clean Exteriors]

Supposedly he's gotten his patent pending notice and that's part of reason they've waited so long to release. I'm sure you know Ray Burke at Spray Wash up in Tallahassee. He's used it some and knows a lot more about it than I do. Maybe talk with him. I can't remember the guy's name that actually has it. He's up there too. Jim something I think. He's the one that's been using it for 3 years. I'm relatively new, so I have a lot of other equipment that I need more. Figure by the time I get around to it, we'll know if it works. But can see a lot of advantages to those of us that do multiple things if it does. I'm happy with my $55 nozzle.

[Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777]

Supposedly he's gotten his patent pending notice and that's part of reason they've waited so long to release. I'm sure you know Ray Burke at Spray Wash up in Tallahassee. He's used it some and knows a lot more about it than I do. Maybe talk with him. I can't remember the guy's name that actually has it. He's up there too. Jim something I think. He's the one that's been using it for 3 years. I'm relatively new, so I have a lot of other equipment that I need more. Figure by the time I get around to it, we'll know if it works. But can see a lot of advantages to those of us that do multiple things if it does. I'm happy with my $55 nozzle.

Yes, IF it works correctly, it could be a time saver for some, but not for My Roof Cleaning Company. In fact, my Son and my employees took the truck I was using for the development of the  Apple Vari Flow Chemical Delivery System, and converted it back to our tried and true roof cleaning system, because we needed it. 

Development stopped then on it, as far as I was concerned.  I am glad someone has taken my idea, and run with it. 

[Roof Cleaning Jacksonville FL 904-304-0810]

It sounds neat, but I have that same feeling. With SH I want as simple as possible. The least amount of chances for leaks, the least amount of chances for something to fail, and the least amount of moving parts. I saw the softwash systems type thing they have, and felt the same way. Too much monkeying with valves and tanks and pumps. Too expensive to be worth it. When I can get a $200 12v pump, some hose and a gun and make thousands, I'm not too stoked on spending $1000 just to meter soap. Even a cheap setup like that needs maintenance and parts replaced frequently. I truly feel that in this business simplicity and reliability are key.

[Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777]

It sounds neat, but I have that same feeling. With SH I want as simple as possible. The least amount of chances for leaks, the least amount of chances for something to fail, and the least amount of moving parts. I saw the softwash systems type thing they have, and felt the same way. Too much monkeying with valves and tanks and pumps. Too expensive to be worth it. When I can get a $200 12v pump, some hose and a gun and make thousands, I'm not too stoked on spending $1000 just to meter soap. Even a cheap setup like that needs maintenance and parts replaced frequently. I truly feel that in this business simplicity and reliability are key.

Here is another, more better way to do it Adam, you run dual pumps feeding a dual chemical hose, with a mixing valve at the OPERATOR end.  This way, you never have to run back to the rig to adjust SHIT. LOL, one man can clean with my newest variation of the Apple Vari Flow system.  

You can easily run 2 - 3/8 (or larger with a larger air compressor) air pumps off a single compressor. One pump sucks from a tank filled with pure 12.5% Sodium Hypochloritte, and the second pump sucks from a water/surfactant tank.  Each air pump feeds one side of the twin hose. 

You can have a total change of chemical strength INSTANTLY with my latest system, just by twisting the mix valve, compared to earlier version of the Apple Vari Flow system, where even if you did adjust your mix, you still had the problem of WTF do you do with all that different strength chemical, trapped in the hose   

I was never able to COMPLETELY work out all the BUGS in my earlier, suction based systems. Any suction based chemical combining system IMHO is going to be quite "TWEAKY".   Think about it for a minute, a pump only has so much suction, and when you try to divide this suction 3 ways, it gets tricky.

If you are trying to prime 3 suction hoses at the same time, what can happen is one or 2 hoses can prime, and not leave enough suction to prime the 3rd hose   

 

 

[Roof Cleaning Jacksonville FL 904-304-0810]

That is a very interesting idea. You could be going from chemical to rinse in one shot this way if it's set up right.