Thank you for your support

Thank You

It's Thanksgiving week and we want to say thanks for liking our page and supporting us here at Cleaned by Pete pressure & power washing. It is also "small business Saturday"! A chance to support your local small business men and women who own or operate in you area. Now let's thankful for family and friends!

What a power washer does

Power washing

Sometimes being a power washer takes us away from home for a time, We have been out on a job for about a week and have not had time to make an entry in the blog. I made it home last night. Just to let you know we were working here is a short video that was taken while working at the job. Yes this is proof that I was working not on vacation or sunning in the tropics. I have to catch up on work here at home this week and will hope to do some more blogging soon. Thank you for your support and visiting us here at Cleaned by Pete please bookmark us and return.

You may want to turn down the volume a bit since who took the video is standing close to the pressure washer and it may be a bit loud.

Just click on the video and watch Cleaned by Pete at work. Cosmetic cleaning on this concrete wall, watch as years of dirt are being erased with one or our washers.



Update:

Have a bit of time today after the house washing I did this morning. I thought I would post up a few pictures of work in progress also taken on this project.

Cleaned by Pete working the way up cleaning this concrete corner. Years of dirt and grime are power washed away.

Cleaned by Pete working his way down cleaning this concrete wall. Years of dirt and grime are power washed away.

Cleaned by Pete working on cleaning this concrete sill under the windows. Years of dirt. grime and pollutants are being power washed away.

Cleaned by Pete cleaning concrete walls removing years of crud.

Cleaned by Pete cleaning concrete walls removing years of crud.

Cleaned by Pete is cleaning a pavilion you can see just where we stopped while moving equipment.

Cleaned by Pete is cleaning a pavilion you can see just where we need to start cleaning once again after moving equipment.

Cleaned by Pete is cleaning the second pavilion you can see just where I stopped to take a picture and a quick break.

Pictures are after drying overnight

Nice, bright, cleaned and looking good Cleaned by Pete.

 

Nice, bright, cleaned and looking good Cleaned by Pete.

Nice, bright, cleaned and looking good Cleaned by Pete.

Nice, bright, cleaned and looking good Cleaned by Pete.

Nice, bright, cleaned and looking good Cleaned by Pete.

Thanking all the Veterans and their families

I would like to share and thank our Veterans for your support of this country! Many friends and family members have served in the protection of this great country. I might add a special word of thanks to the families or all these heroes for letting them serve we honor you also. I would like to say thank you to all the Veterans on this day for your service.   

"Thank you all for your service!"

Nozzling the Power Washer: explain to me why & how it works

Nozzling the Power Washer:
explaining why & how it works


I have been a bit under the weather here lately so to keep busy I thought I would put in a bonus entry.  The busier the week the less time I have to write here. I have written about nozzles if you need to review please refer to the entry: http://cleanedbypete.blogspot.com/2012/12/nozzles.html

I was asked to try to explain nozzling a power wash again. Had a question that need to be clarified. Since they did not follow what I was trying to convey on a few points. I'll try it again hopefully this time I can explain it better. Sometimes you can say something that makes all the scene in the world to you but others may not follow the point because of the writing.

We know that a pressure pump is employed to do two functions in the standard power washer. The first is to pump water the second is to put that water under pressure. We then get our ratings of psi and gpm. If for the sake of argument we are pushing out 4 gpm @ 4000 psi we can change one thing here that would be the pressure. If we have a constant water supply we will be putting out the 4 gallons a minute no matter what we do. We can take out the nozzle it will put out 4 gpm, we can put in a zero degree nozzle the same 4 gpm. This remains the same what ever the pump is capable of, it will remain the same as far as output, as long as the water supply that feeds it is up to the output level or greater. We can try to put in 8 gallons of water into the pump but it will still only pump out the rated gallons.

I would like to mention you can and are able to change this output on a pump by over-driving or under-driving it. This is achieved by changing the pulleys on the motor and or pump. Over-driving it we will turn the pump faster thus moving more water through the pump, under-driving the pump it will produce less speed thus less water will move through it. If this seems to interest anyone let me know I'll try to put together an entry on it.

Now that we have the constant water volume or the gallons per minute is static. By changing the nozzle we can change our pressure. Someone out there right now is saying I can change the pressure by screwing out the unloader that is all it takes. While this is true to a certain point once your unloader is set for maxim output it should not be touched!!!!! Let me repeat this once your undoader is set to the maxim output it should not be touched. I have most of my unloaders  set to the maxim output and then I will lock them down, inside the knob with a nilock locking nut, being able to turn the knob at maybe a half turn to free up the unloader if it sticks. This way it is non-tamperable if someone walking by turns the knob. 

This leaves us only one way to now change the pressure that is being developed in the pump is "nozzling". Our pump should be using a certain size of nozzle let just say for this case we are using a #5 nozzle this is the size of the hole in the nozzle. If we use this #5 nozzle we will be putting out our recommended pressure. No matter if we use a 0 degree tip or a 40 degree tip we will be changing the fan pattern but the pressure will remain the same if we use that #5 tip size. Use your nozzle chart and find what size tip you need to use and you will have your maxim pressure.

Now for us "house washers" we would like to have less pressure sometimes like when we wash vinyl or soft woods as well as paint. How? you are asking well we use an over sized tip we can use say a #40 or #50 we can have the advantage of changing the fan pattern to. Getting the cleaning power of a larger stream of water moving that dirt off. We are always cleaning with friction water moving over the dirt partials the force of the moving water is what really cleans. The fan pattern will not change your pressure but it makes you able to contain the stream for a further reach or to widen it for a larger rinse area. Let us look at it this way on your garden hose if we block off part of the end of the hose you can make the water squirt out further the smaller we make end of the hose the more pressure it has. A fire nozzle has a relative small hole in comparison to the size of the hose. If we use just the end of the hose the water comes gushing out but with out alot behind it. Any time we move up in the nozzle size by enlarging the hole will allows us to still have the cleaning power of the volume of water at a lower pressure.

When I first started there were not all the shops and supply houses out there and it was more of trial and error to find out what worked to lower the pressure. I  would used worn out nozzles or would go in and buy a fist full of correct size nozzles and start to drill them a bit larger with a numbered set of drills. Drill it out try it see if it was what we needed. On a side note, you notice these nozzles wear out sometimes you think you're loosing pressure in you machine but it could be the water has bored out the hole in the nozzle larger. The higher the flow the more the pressure the quicker the wear on the nozzle. Now as we drilled and tested we would find the hole size "oversized nozzle" that worked for what we were doing. You know when big is too big because it will have reduce the pressure enough to draw soap or cleaner. Now this is nozzling in it simplest form. Simply letting more water flow out the nozzle by making it bigger in diameter and in the process we also soften up its' cleaning effect on the surface we need to be more careful with. Surfaces as vinyl, wood, plastic, soft rock or any other substrate that cannot take high pressure. We here at Cleaned by Pete  smaller washers for certain jobs that will require less pressure. In using less pressure and gallon flow we also we not be able to reach and clean higher areas as two and three story houses. Nozzling the large units is what works for us.

Play around with larger sized nozzles and find what works for your washer and how you wash. Always go bigger the bigger you go the less pressure your washer will develop. You will want the greatest flow with out drawing soap. You are fine tuning your machine what works for another may not be optimal for you. Never go smaller than your recommended size unless you have a gauge and a special gun with pressure pop-offs to check things out. If you do not you may need to see your power washing repair shop to set the unloader and find the  approbate size nozzle. Please let me know if I need to try again of it this now make more sense. The power washer creates the pressure the nozzle just controls it.

Just a tip if you would like to try to see what may work for you to help to quickly get a range of what size tip you would like and what works, pick up a #30, #40 and a #50 all in a 0 degree and give them a try. If you draw soap or cleaner "downstreaming" you can use that tip shoot soap but you know what range your in for rinsing. Once you find the best size you then can get in to the fan pattern from 5 degrees to 25 degrees again what works for you.

Cleaned by Pete @ 417-459-7869 in Springfield MO, wants to thank you for reading and supporting our blog if you have a free moment please share it with your friends or other people feel free to post a link to the blog. As always thank you for your support.

Total Cleaning Units: what do you need to get the job done?

Total Cleaning Units:
 what do you need to get the job done?

I have made mention the term cleaning units in this blog before, when I discussed how a power washer works. It is all of a sudden becoming a big selling point and a "key phase" in the power washing world. Though it has always been there to describe the over all effectiveness of the power washer it is taking on a whole new look. To recap total cleaning units is how effective a power washer works. A "CU" or cleaning unit is made up from how much power, psi and volume, gpm multiplying them together, that is pressure per square inch,   psi times the gallons per minute, gpm. In a mathematical statement or sentence it would be psi x gpm = cu. 

As of late I have seen more and more contractors and professionals using the idea of size to rank their washer and describing their how powerful the big rigs are. It is not how big or powerful a power washer is. It is having the right washer for the right job, it is just that simple. Increasing psi is not an option sometimes as we clean homes with alot of vinyl and wood siding we do not need more pressure which could cause damage. How do we get more "cu" to help us clean and work then? We can add more water or can we?

Also as discussed before the gallons of water being pumped thru the power washer make more difference in the total cleaning units than anything else. Lets look at this with and example.

pressure output is 3000 psi  our gallon out put is 3 gpm 

3000 x  3 = 9000 cleaning units

now let's change the gallons to 4

3000 psi x 4 gpm = 12000 cu

Now one of the most popular pumps in the market is a 6 gallon and an up and comer is the 8 gallon pump. let's just plug these numbers in and see what happens.

3000 psi x 6 gpm = 18000 cu

3000 psi x 8 gpm = 24000 cu

Just by adding more gallons thru the pump you can see that you have achieved a greater cleaning effect. This statement or mathematical sentence works the same with raising the psi. Let's have a look,

4000 psi x 3 gpm = 12000 cu
the same effective cleaning as a 3000 psi @ 4 gallon unit

4000 psi x 4 = 16000 cu
 
You can start to see that raising up the psi does not have as dramatic effect on the clean units. For us in the residential "house washing" field we don't want more pressure safe lower pressure is better for what we do. This is why we as power washers want to have more water running through the hose instead of more pressure. When you have a large pile of dirt what will move it better and faster? If you're throwing a cup of water on it at a time or a bucket of water at a time. We are using the same force to throw the water but the greater volume is moving the pile quicker, more water volume is better.

This now is the same with us the residential power washer we are using a safer lower pressure getting the job done faster, more effective, using less water and fuel for the motors. We are saving natural resources. Now comes in the big question if this is such a great thing why does not everyone use a large gallon output pumps? There are more factors that have to be added in. 

1. Some residential areas have a smaller gallon output from there water supply.

2. Your house may be on a well system and the reserve tank is not that large.

3. The water supply has a flow problem when others use it too.
4. You will need a bigger motor to drive the larger volume pumps, and larger heater to heat that volume of water.
5. You will have a bigger footprint you rig will have to be larger.

We at Cleaned by Pete have run up against these problem in shared wells or in out laying areas. If you want to put out 6 to 8 gallons a minute you have to have that much water going in, simple physics.

Cleaned by Pete's biggest pump puts out 4.7 gallons per minute and we have found this works best for us and our cleaning methods and area needs. We found out that anything larger may be starved for water. This area's location and water supply, limits us from using anything larger in our residential cleaning. You can achieve using a larger gallon out put pump by adding in a buffer tank. A buffer tank is filled up before you start and holds the water in reserve. The tank holds the water waiting be used, so with the flow received from the hose tap or bib  and your reserve water in in the storage tank,you can now use larger volume pumps. We will use a 35 gallon reserve tank in a situation with a older well or slow flow but we no longer haul a large water tank around. We ran into several situation where the pump could not keep up or run more than 50 feet of supply house the well pump could not push that much water even though it could fill a five gallon bucket in less than a minute, it could not deliver it any distance. We will use our little 35 gallon tank which will help us in this situation. If it takes more water than this we have a one 180 gallon tank that is fitted to one of our service trucks which we can use.

You have seen those big trailers carrying 100s of gallons of water on them. You fill them up and with the water supply and the reserve you now can run the bigger pumps with out a problem. Are you saying money I ran the numbers and found out no in our case we were using more gas hauling that tank around. We were using more gas pulling that trailer around. We had to pay out more to insure the trailer. We were not as manoeuvrable around in some areas. We had more ware and tear on our pump motors. We also were able to cut the cost of wear and tear on the outfit we had to pull the trailer around, and lastly you can not pull some trailers on certain roadways and areas in the Qzarks. It would be costing us more to use a bigger pump with the higher gallon output. It was costing us more to pull a trailer. We have chosen to use a bit smaller pump but it is in our case saving more gas and water helping the environment which we always try to do. It may take us a bit longer to do but with what we do it works better for us.

Should everyone use smaller units no should everyone stop pulling a trailer no. You need to know and to way-out all your options when finding what you're looking to wash and clean. The area Cleaned by Pete services water flow and water pressure dictates what we use. We do a lot of rural areas where the well and the home-owners pump also dictates what we can use. These remote areas also dictates what we can drive in and move about the property. Now would I use my units to clean the downtown parking garage? No I would want the largest pump, biggest motor, highest output unit I could find. Do I now want to use that same unit to wash my vinyl home? You will have to decide that call.  Don't let others tell you they can do better than someone else just because they have the biggest baddest pressure washer that puts more psi and more gpm than anyone else. It dose help in certain situations but it is not the end to end all. Then do you want someone showing up with a too small pressure washer. Again having the right equipment and the right washer for each job, this is what we here at Cleaned by Pete try to do.