Maintenance, That's What Winter is For?
Well yes and no
While maintenance is need through-out the year I find winter is a good time to catch up on more major things or items needing attention. It's hard for me to clean when weather gets down in the 30's. I have been cleaning for years and when doing hood and kitchen cleaning we often worked in sub-freezing conditions. You could wash up the external parts of the fan and then wash the chute then back inside where it was warm, to do the hood and what else was needed. Being outside doing flat work and washing, with water and lower temps are rough on a old man. I read and see others posting they are working outside even in 28* temps with the chance of ice I do not take the customers safety lightly, if it might cause any icing I simply will not do it. Keeping my equipment up and safely winterized is another one of my biggest concerns. Slip and falls and broken equipment form due to freezing is not worth it. With this said it now brings me to the topic of this entry. Cleaning and washing take me longer in the colder temp I move slower and it take more effort, cleaners, gas and diesel for heat and time to do a job. Being younger these things did not effect me as much but the older I get it has more effect on me so what does get done during the Winter?
Temps the day before never made it above the freezing point. It was to be 41* and on a warming trend maybe almost reaching 45* today (however it never made it above the 41*), A new construction at a church needed a cleaning for the Christmas Season, as well as side walks cleaned to keep the dreaded "red clay" out of the buildings that had been tracked onto and around the sidewalks. I took out one of the portable heated units that was used about 2 months ago on a restaurant cleaning. It was heating and running great then but today had a slight miss and a lean pop to the motor. I finished the job just by chocking it down a bit and was able to get the clay and dirt off the new stone addition and concrete side-walk. However I may be using this unit the next day depending on the temp for a house washing, and did not want it running like that again.
Up early still a bit of frost and still quite cold from the night but I knew that carb needed cleaning. It could have been running bad due to the cooler temps, bad gas, junk in the gas or sticky governor. I just had a feeling the gas had plug up the jetting. In any case it had to be taken care of before I left for then house washing job latter that day. It turned out to be a bit of junk floating around plugging up the main jet. I also unwinterized the regular house washing unit on the service truck (our S10 flatbed pick-up) which if the conditions were right I could use it instead of the hot water. By the time I headed out we had reached 48* and when the sun finally came out it popped up there to 51* so I did not need the hotwater unit anyways. So did I waist my time cleaning the carb? No it had to be done though another time would have worked out better and could have been warmer but it is now done.
I bring this up for a reason if I had run some "Sta-bil" or other fuel additive in the gas tanks when winter was coming in this may not have happened. I hate being on a job and not having my equipment not running or preforming at 100%. It just is not good policy, I have seen some people just get by run it till it dies or when it breaks then fix it. Waiting for parts or having work on equipment when you could be washing or cleaning is not good business sense. Any down time does not feed the family. So some of those 40 hour weeks turn to 80 with jobs and keeping up equipment. Cleaned by Pete has been blessed with enough service trucks and equipment to have a back up for anything that may go down or break.
Always updating and buy better or more equipment is a blessing and a curse. Great to have but it does mean more maintenance. I have not sold off older or smaller machines or attachment instead I have kept them rebuilding them to new condition and specs for need in the future. Most of this reconditioning takes place when winter has set in. Waiting on parts or pieces is not a major ordeal during these times. I am in an area where this works for me. While others are working year round are not able to take advantage of the "Winter slowdown" and have to keep on keeping on it adds a bit of a change for me.
So if the day does come around where cleaning and washing is needed and the weather will agree with us to do it Cleaned by Pete will. If not I always can find some thing to help the equipment. Winterizing after each job, is what I do and maintenance while ongoing through out the year is really concentrated during this winter time.
