PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 1, 2014 Okay guys...time to step up to the plate. Enough with all the Girly Man Pumps. Time to get You a REAL Man's Pump. I just made a deal to buy a quantity of these 1" Air Diaphragm pumps, big boys. Best of off, all wetted surfaces are Hastelloy, meaning they are EXTREMELY chemical resistant. In the realm of AODD pumps...Kynar, and Hastelloy are pretty much IT for pumping Chlorine. You won't find a 1" Kynar Pump...even used, for much under a Grand. New...try $2K. And Hastelly? Hastelloy pumps are like Unicorns...mythical, very rare and expensive. The biggest advantage to a Hastelloy Pump is that unlike Kynar, you can step on this or use it as a weapon to beat somebody into submission, put it back onto the truck and it won't care. It is metal...but metal that won't corrode. These have Teflon diaphragms and are brand new in the box. I am offering them to the forum since I know there are a lot of guys here who are ready for the next step...or guys building their first rig who could use something that...well, should last them for years and years and years and will never be a limiting factor. These pump are made by Crane, who makes the Rolls Royce of pumps. Designed for extreme operations in Pharmaceutical and Chemical manufacturing plants, they are highly overbuilt. New, a 1" Hastelloy Pump with PTFE Diaphragms of this quality can run you north of $6000, and these ARE brand new in the crate. They do have flanged input and outputs, so you will need to adapt over to a flanged fitting...but that is no big deal. Kynar and PVC Flanges are easy to get. Don't bother with a Hastelloy Flange...it will cost you as much as this pump (that stuff is EXPENSIVE!) Use one as your main pump. Use it as a transfer pump. Scare the competition. Do like Gary does and spray from a Lawn Chair, sipping a Mai Tai. I have five available for sale...after keeping a couple of them for myself. They should arrive next week and will be ready to ship out. I am also trying to get a good deal on a diaphragm replacement set and will post once that information is available. Oh...and yeah, my 3/4" All Flo will become my new Transfer pump...this will be the new Main pump on my rig. Shipping will be from Bellingham WA...figure somewhere in the $75 range or so via Ground. Post you want one in this thread or call me and I will put one...or two (hint hint Chris) aside. 1 Josh Brown reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 1, 2014 Now Four of them left. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777 Report post Posted April 1, 2014 Instead of flanges, the pumps intake/exit manifolds may be drilled and tapped for NPT Thread. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 1, 2014 Instead of flanges, the pumps intake/exit manifolds may be drilled and tapped for NPT Thread. True...but when this cost you $8-$9 on Amazon... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ReNew Roof & Exterior cleaning Report post Posted April 2, 2014 Too rich for my blood, at least fr now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dwelltech Report post Posted April 3, 2014 I'm interested, I may send you a private message or give you a call . Might be over the weekend if that's cool. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 3, 2014 I'm interested, I may send you a private message or give you a call . Might be over the weekend if that's cool. Sounds good to me....though I may be cleaning this weekend....supposed to rain tomorrow and we are absolutely BURIED with projects between my two companies. I actually have started turning some work away. Best to call in the evening or PM me. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 4, 2014 Okay...the pumps are on the way. Should arrive on the 10th of April. I will try to unbox, hook up and post a video of one of them running. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 4, 2014 Too rich for my blood, at least fr now.It is always good to be frugal when starting out, I know I was. Just don't make the mistake I made and unnecessarily delay upgrading to bigger, better equipment, especially when you deal with tall, steep pitched roofs. A smaller setup may work fine where most homes have low pitched roofs. But if you face the near vertical wall ô' roof on a weekly basis in rain and snow country, or you are pitching larger projects, you want reach and efficiency. It makes your work easier, faster and more productive....ultimately making you more money. Say you book a two building apartment complex. With an entry level setup, you might be able to do one large building in a day. With a big air setup, you can do two, halfing your labor costs plus giving you one extra day to clean another couple roofs. I know I just did two 12/12 3500 square foot two story moss covered homes in a day where as before, it would have been one. Booked two more in the same neighborhood for next week. Don't take this wrong. I am not trying to push you to buy one of my monster pumps. You have to go with what your budget and comfort level dictates. Get the gear you can afford when starting out until you get some clean shingles in under your belt. But a piece of advice, spend some of the earnings to upgrade your starter rig as soon as practical once the business starts to flow. If I had built the rig I have from the get go, I would have made so much more money over the past couple of years and had so many fewer hassles that I am now kicking myself for not doing it sooner. The reality is, it really didn't cost me THAT much more on an absolute basis for my big pump setup over the FB2 setup I had before...about $2000, which I did in two days this week. Had I found these pumps...would have knocked that down to about $1500. I can now clean twice as much. Why I didn't do it sooner? There was the devil I knew. Electric was familiar...so why change it? Plus there was that expense. Heck, I have two brand new FB2s sitting in the box in my office I bought with the intent of doing a twin electric setup....for more reach. And reach equals money because reach equals efficiency. Fewer ladder moves, more area covered in harness without having to reposition. Faster coverage, faster rinsing. Why do I now have a big Air Pump setup? It really came down to necessity. When an employee destroys your rig in the offseason, you have no choice but to get new gear. After reevaluating how I was doing things, I realized how inefficient we were with all the steeper two story homes in my area plus some of the larger projects we did last year. The twin FB2 setup would have given me a bit more but ultimately it will never do what a big air pump can, plus I would still had the same relay/accumulator, etc. issues that I had to deal with with electric. I needed to go bigger and more reliable. Thus...AODD. Now I GET IT. Why Chris and Gary use what they use. I realize how much easier and productive the jobs are with a bigger, better, badder AODD setup. No worrying about relays or choosing too small of a nozzle, or batteries running down on a larger job. Just put gas in, hit start, set the ladder in the middle, choose any nozzle I want from ridiculous down to the finest trickle and go. And rinsing? If you rinse....we have MOSS by the ton so we rinse....rinsing is fast and ridiculously easy with a big pump. And if you say just use the hose...doesn't always work. Today was THE perfect example of how a larger AODD pump can make you money. I was called in to bid a job for a 32 Unit 55+ condo complex. I suggested we do a test patch on the Association President's home free of charge so they could see the difference. They agreed as long as we could make it reasonably quick. Test patches are a GREAT selling tool to add to your arsenal by the way, the side by side before and after is a stark demonstration. I Always go top to bottom as it is more dramatic. Now this place has BAD water pressure....absolutely terrible. Can barely rinse your car terrible. The Roofs were black and absolutely caked with GM and light moss. After I hit the roof from the ladder with what was now a small crowd watching, time to rinse. The Roof after the mix went on was incredibly nasty, foamey brown with all the dead GM and white chunks of moss. If I took a hose up, it would have been pure futility with a trickle. With my old electric setup, it wouldn't have reached to the top and I would have had to take the time to harness and rig up, set a temp anchor, pay a ground man for safety, and get into position. Instead I just climbed down the ladder, quickly switched the valve to the fresh water tank, pumped the hot stuff in the hose into the mix tank until fresh water came out. 45 seconds later I climbed back up the ladder, popped the nozzle off and firehosed it all the way to the top revealing a nice clean roof underneath. I made it look easy and smooth and safe and had practically no interruption in my pitch and ability to answer questions. I got the job. That one job pays for the pump, generator, tanks, pump, hoses, plumbing AND the truck. Take it for what it is worth. 2 JetBlueRacer and Josh Brown reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 4, 2014 One other thing to think about. The big air pump setups, you might look at them, see their rated ability to pump truly massive amounts of fluid and assume they must waste a lot of mix. I am finding just the opposite is true. Because you can throttle an air setup down to a mere trickle and run superfine nozzles to get very precise, I find I am using LESS material than with the FB2 electric setup I had before. In addition, the ability to hit more areas from one spot (reach is good) means less duplication of areas sprayed. And that reach has other advantages. Before, when a patch of moss on the other end of a pitch was stubborn and remained green....get down...move the ladder....respray. Now it is just change to a finer pencil tip and quickly boosh it from 50' away. 1 JetBlueRacer reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 6, 2014 I now have these pumps also posted on the PWI forum and have had some questions about Them and air pumps in general...so I am posting some answers. Copied and Cross posted from PWI so there is probably some duplication above. What the Heck is Hastelloy? In Pumps designed for industrial pumping and transfer of corrosive acids and Chlorine, you have two choices for Pump fluid bodies: PVDF, also known as Kynar, a Plastic, and Hastelloy, a Nickel Alloy. Both are highly resistant to corrosion. Hastelloy is super expensive and typically only used in cost no object applications or applications where mechanical strength and chemical resistance of the pump is crucial. Cost wise, to give you an idea...a 1.5" Kynar Tee is $50. A 1.5" Hastelloy Tee is $350...seven times the price. That is why Hastelly pumps are rare. Why go to a bigger air pump? My current 3/8" or 1/2" air pump setup works fine. One word....Reach. Big pumps setups offer reach. Reach equals money. The further your pump can reach, the more efficient you become. Less moving of ladders, less on roof repositioning to get that high peak or other section. Every time you need to reposition to reach a section, it is time wasted. Add distance and you become more efficient. You also add more options for solving common treatment issues on larger projects. The ability to stick a pinpoint nozzle on and hit that one stubborn green patch of moss or that one annoying black GM patch again from 75' away without moving is invaluable. Plus on larger walkable roof projects, like big multi family complexes, you can crank out volume, covering way more roof per hour. This equals lower labor costs, more profit. That thing will pump a LOT of material, won't I be wasting chem? No. Even though air pumps are rated to deliver massive amounts of flow, they are also capable of being extremely material efficient since you can throttle them down to a much finer mist. I found that my material use per job has gone DOWN since upgrading to a big air setup, averaging about 10 gal per job less. And that big flow does come in handy. Need to rinse a big moss covered slab of shingles with water? Crank the flow up and get up to the peak. Are Air Pumps Reliable? Big Air pumps like these are designed to be run reliably in high volume manufacturing environments. In roof and building cleaning operations, Air Pumps are most importantly immune to the problems electric pumps have with restricted flow/high pressure. Electric pumps don't like and are not designed to be throttled down. They are designed to operate at a set pressure and flow. Deviate from that and they switch on and off and on and off, lowering the lifespan and leading to extremely common relay failures. If you run Electric pumps and don't have a bunch of spare relays, you are nuts. That is why accumulators are used to buffer things...but ultimately, electric pumps work in a very narrow set of flow and pressure ranges. We learn to live within those limitations. Not the case with air pumps. Once you go air, an entire world of flows and pressures and capabilities opens up. Crank the flow way down at the nozzle and you don't need to worry about blowing relays or using an accumulator like on an electric. Crank the flow up to ridiculous and they don't care. Need a super fine mist? No problem. In addition, Pumps like the FB2 and Pentaflex are built with Polypropylene (FB) or Fiber Reinforced Nylon fluid sections. Neither material is rated for chlorine which is why you MUST rinse them. If you forget to rinse a Kynar or Hastelloy air pump....meh. I am used to electric, isn't air difficult to set up or use? No. I ran FB electric pumps for several years and only after an ex employee went out drinking after work and totally destroyed my rig was I forced to redesign, reevaluate and get a new setup. I decided to go air after a lot of research. Now I am seriously kicking myself for waiting. It sickens me to think of how much more money I would have made over the past few years had I built my current bigger air setup from the beginning....and that is with a 3/4" pump. My upgrade from electric to AODD was painless and very much eye opening. Compressors are loud, isn't it obnoxious? No more so than a Lawnmower. Plus, an air pump makes a very unique sound that draws attention. You want neighbors looking out their window and walking out their door to see what the heck is happening across the street. Bigger compressors also tend to be quieter. Those don't look look like normal fluid outputs, how do I hook them up? These pumps use flanged outlets. Adapting them over to NPT threaded is super easy with a PVC Sch 80 flange adapter available at any plumbing supply house or on Amazon plus some bolts, washers and Nylocks. You can also go with Kynar if you want it super chem and UV resistant. Personally, I will go PVC and PlastiDip the flanges, bolt and nut heads for UV and chem resistance. Don't those Big Pumps need a big compressor? Yes and No. You want a big compressor to take full *advantage* of the flow and distance capability a 1" pump has. But you CAN start with a smaller contractor grade compressor then upgrade compressors as cash flow allows giving you even more distance. If you are upgrading from a smaller Air pump, a bigger pump will likely give you more flow and reach with the same air setup you have now due to it's higher Volumetric efficiency. Just compare the performance curves between a 1/2" and a 1" pump with the same CFM and notice the pressure drop needed to reach the same fluid volume. How much more does it really flow compared to a Fatboy or Pentaflex setup? I've seen the YouTube video comparing the FB2 to the All Flo Kynar Pump. That All-Flo is a 3/8" pump, that was a comparison on the ground and not 30' up on a roof, with some head pressure built up and that was with a small compressor. Honestly, a 3/8" pump doesn't flow that much more in that circumstance,about 5 GPM...but still does offer all the other advantages of an air pump setup. A 1" pump is a whole different ball o' wax. Even with a small contractor grade compressor, a typical 1" pump will flow well over double what a FB2 electric or 3/8" Air pump will...around 12GPM vs 5GPM for a FB2 set at 60 PSI (that 7GPM spec they tout is at 100PSI and nobody runs their FB turned up that high if they want it and their battery to live). The reality is, the FB2 in roof cleaning form is a 5 GPM pump. That flow is at static input and output with a fully charged 12 volt battery and a flooded input... i.e no draw tube. Add in 250' of 5/8" hose, a draw tube and pull it 3 stories up and the FB2 is is going to be closer to 3.5 or 4 GPM...and that is with a fully charged battery. The 1" pump I am selling will be about triple the flow capability and the only thing you need to do for a 12 hour long project is add more gas to your compressor and your crew. The pump will put out the same volume all day long. That is with a small compressor. Get a big one and it isn't even in the same universe. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777 Report post Posted April 7, 2014 You also forgot to mention that a Metal Pump is immune to stress cracks from the shock and vibration of being bolted to a trailer or flatbed truck. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 7, 2014 You also forgot to mention that a Metal Pump is immune to stress cracks from the shock and vibration of being bolted to a trailer or flatbed truck. Yeah..,I have been trying to figure out a good way to isolate my Kynar pump on the flatbed. I see a lot of them posted online with cracked mounting flanges. Not really worried about the Hastelloy pump,when it gets bolted on. I am thinking some type of neoprene or rubber isolation washers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 7, 2014 Okay...I am down to two unreserved pumps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 8, 2014 And then there was One. One Left Guys! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
garyw Report post Posted April 8, 2014 Now there is none. I just bought the last one. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 8, 2014 Thanks Gary! SOLD OUT! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ReNew Roof & Exterior cleaning Report post Posted April 8, 2014 Peak, can you post a link for the bolt on plastic flange? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 9, 2014 I would call your local plumbing supply house first. You want a flange to 1" FNPT adapter in Schedule 80 PVC. If they don't have it, then U can buy it on Amazon at...http://www.amazon.com/Spears-Series-Fitting-Flange-Schedule/dp/B00ALMLNBC/ref=sr_1_sc_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397011946&sr=8-2-spell&keywords=1%22+Flange+to+FNPT+Pvc I am on the search for a flange to Camlock adapter in PVC or Stainless. Will post if I find one. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 9, 2014 Okay...found a 1" stainless flange to Camlock adapter as well as 1.5" if you are running a larger draw tube. http://www.jmesales.com/product/stainless-steel-150-raised-face-flange-x-male-adaptor,10878,5931.htm Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
garyw Report post Posted April 10, 2014 Peak, can you post a link for the bolt on plastic flange? Amazon wants $26.00 each. Found the same thing on ebay for $6.20.http://www.ebay.com/itm/GF-PIPING-SYSTEMS-852-010-Flange-1-In-FNPT-PVC-/331133813688?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4d191d03b8 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 10, 2014 Very weird...those things were $9 each when I posted the link up. I got a reply from my local plumbing supply house. They have them for about $7 each. Those with the pumps on order, let me know if you want them included and I will run down, grab them and put them into the box. Saves you on shipping costs. Just specify if you want 1"' or 3/4" FNPT. I am going to put a male Camlock on mine and took Gary's suggestion and went with two 125' lengths of 3/4" Kuriyama with CamLocks. I am now actually thinking of doing two pumps....keeping the 3/4" All-Flo AND mounting the 1" Hastelloy pump side by side so we can spray bigger projects two roofs at a time. Just not sure if my compressor has the air output to handle two large AODD pumps. Plumbing will be a bit more complicated....,but productivity will soar and I will have redundancy up the Wazoo. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 10, 2014 You will also need gaskets for the Flange adapter. I will get pricing on those...my supply guy forgot to put them on the quote. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Stay Clean Report post Posted April 10, 2014 Sorry to interrupt here but where do you source you camlocks and what material are they made of? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PeakOfPerfection Report post Posted April 10, 2014 Sorry to interrupt here but where do you source you camlocks and what material are they made of? CamLocks are not that uncommon. Most industrial supply houses that do fluid handling will have them. I got the CamLocks from Parker Hose for my static feed hoses on my rig. They are PVC, but also available in Poly and Stainless Steel. If costs no object, they make Hastelloy CamLocks too. I know there is also a company who makes them from Kynar. I am going with Stainless on the spray hose connectors. You want 316 Stainless, not 304 Stainless and you want Viton or Teflon gaskets...Not Buna which is what a lot of them come with. Stainless isn't the most ideal material from a chemical standpoint, but it is most suited to withstand the mechanical stresses the spray hose and connector on the pump is subjected to. The last thing you want is a plastic Cam-lock breaking at the output of a 1" AODD pump pointed at somebody's lawn when someone pulls the hose at the end of it's length. It is for that reason I may be changing my mind as to what flange adapter to use. I may go Stainless since I know that a stainless flange with a Stainless male Cam-lock won't break if pulled hard. Most guys will either use reels or strain relief the hose, but my layout calls for the hose direct off the pump and detachable for transport and I have to take the possible strain on the flange into account with a 3/4" hose. Here is a place which sells Stainless Flange adapters for reasonable...http://www.new-line.com/fittings/flanges/class/316-stainless-150-ansi-npt-raised-face-flange I will also be checking with Parker. 1 Apple Roof Cleaning (813) 655-8777 reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
