Show me your Reclaim system

I am curious to know how many of you, and what kind of reclaim systems you guys have?
Is it possible to be put together on a trailer or it needs a professional knowledge and installation? What is the average price on a decent setup?
I see some nice looking setups on youtube and also talked to Hydro-Tek rep about their complete recovery system. What I understand, we are talking about at least $20k. Any pictures would be appreciated.

Thanks,

D.

I built mine in 1992 for $72,000 which included the trailer. It is on a trailer and can filter 40 GPM's. She weighs in at 9,000 LBS and some change. Though I may have some photo's, I do not post them on the web.

I have thought about building them in the future. For 20k, you need to ask these questions...

1) what am I going to use it for ( shopping centers, fast food rest. garbage bins etc)

2) what size of a unit is best for me? GPM's?

3) How big of a trailer is needed?

4) Power requirements? Mine takes 15 KW diesel generator to run it.

5) Elements need to recharge the unit. ( Example... clay, polymers, cartridges etc.) Know how to discharge of them legally and the costs. Also how easy to replace them.

6) Know that a filter is designed to take particles out from the liquid. Know how much storage of these particles can the filter hold before it gets clog. If the filter says " Under ideal conditions" it will filter "up to" 20 GPM's, know that in a garage situation, that will last about 2 to 4 floors more or less before your GPM's will be cut in 1/2 to 3/4 of the flow volume. Meaning 20 GPM"S down to 15 GPM'S down to 10 GPM's down to 5 GPM's. THIS IS A REAL Possibility if the garage has allot of particles, brake dust, dirt, oil, etc.

7) When we do a garage, we can get UP TO 30 to 300 gallons of sludge. If your filter cannot hold that much, then where are you going to store it while on the job?

8) Trailer design is needed with a cad program for trailer fatigue. ( This is an option, but is well worth it ) we balance our trailer with all 4 wheels off the ground suspended by 4 corner 18k jacks. This way we can level the filter for proper filtration. Our trailer was designed to handle 6,250 lbs every 4 feet while suspended off the ground meaning that the trailer will not bend or sag while the wheels are off the ground. Our suspension though cannot handle that kind of weight. Our suspension is only 14 KW.

So I guess what I am saying, if you are planning on doing a Mc Donald's Drive Thru, get a Hydro Tek. Trailer design is not a big thing.

If you plan on a 40 GPM+ filtration unit and are thinking of doing 500,000 sq ft in 6 days, get some help.

we have a system that silver eagle built for us to do what we needed we have a vac system with 800cfm an you can run two surface cleaners at the same time it is a 30 hsp koler roots blower b54 blower and gen an a control panel think about the jobs you are going to be doing an go from there we do a lot of gas station and shopping centers with our set up we can pull two guys at 600 ft from the trailer with out lossing vacume and not have to spend time on moving hoses all over the job site and we use the surface cleaners from steel eagle 27 inc i beleave it coast us around 30.000 for our set up check our site out and you can see what we use www.anrpressurewashing.com if you have questions feel free to give me a call thanks lonnie we have ours in a 24 ft inclosed trailer to protect it from the weather eliments i want have another one though not practical i want to put every thing on a flat bed truck or a open trailer

FoxSweeping said:

I am curious to know how many of you, and what kind of reclaim systems you guys have?
Is it possible to be put together on a trailer or it needs a professional knowledge and installation? What is the average price on a decent setup?
I see some nice looking setups on youtube and also talked to Hydro-Tek rep about their complete recovery system. What I understand, we are talking about at least $20k. Any pictures would be appreciated.

Thanks,

D.

Click to expand...

It matters on what kind of work you are going to be doing. You can effectively reclaim and be legal for a few hundred dollars but depending on the situation, where you are working, what the city/stormwater/wastewater departments say, that also has consideration in what you are allowed to do and what kind of maching you will need.

First, decide on what kind of work you are going to pursue then talk to the appropriate departments to see what you can send down the sanitary sewer and stormwater systems some will let you separate the oil/sediment and send the rest down the stormwater system, some will only let you send it through the sanitary sewer system.

Then after talking to them to see what you will need to do, then you can start thinking and talking about a system to buy/build/have built.

You don't want to blindly buy a system and find out later on that you can do this for a few hundred dollars and your system is aging, getting rusty, not being used and if you sell it, you will not get 3/4 of what you paid for it, just a fact of life.

Let us know what you find out so we can help you more.

What Chris said. Make sure that you know what type of work you are going to do. Jim's rig would be a bit of overkill for just about every type of pressure washing people do on these boards, and according to their local regulations. It would be cool though if you are into cool tools.
If you are doing a McDonalds, or storefront, often you don't need any major type of filtration because the oils, and solids you are removing are not as hazardous.

Scott Stone said:

What Chris said. Make sure that you know what type of work you are going to do. Jim's rig would be a bit of overkill for just about every type of pressure washing people do on these boards, and according to their local regulations. It would be cool though if you are into cool tools.
If you are doing a McDonalds, or storefront, often you don't need any major type of filtration because the oils, and solids you are removing are not as hazardous.

Click to expand...

We do mainly Power Sweeping and Property maintenance and porter service on daily basis. As far as pressure washing, we do the sidewalks on some of the plazas on call where we sweep, so not big jobs. Last month we bid on a brand new 5 story garage for striping which didn't have any drainage. We needed to subcontract the power washing prior striping to another company. Now we had another two covered garages who wanted pressure washing. That's how that kind of equipment got to my attention. I am not buying it any soon, but wanted to learn more about it.

Thanks for your posts. Again very helpful. I wish if we (power sweepers) had such big and informative forum.

Regards,

D.

If you are going to start pressure washing parking garages and they are enforcing reclaim, you will need a large capacity system like what Scott or Jim has.

Jim's system will cost probably $50k or more depending on what kind of filters and system you go with.

Scott Stone said:

If you are doing a McDonalds, or storefront, often you don't need any major type of filtration because the oils, and solids you are removing are not as hazardous.

Click to expand...

At least here in California, a filtration is needed to handle any hydrocarbons from a oily drive thru. This filter has to be inspected by the local environmental agencies here in N. California of were the cleaning is to be done. A permit is needed to dump into the sewer system. YOU CANNOT dump into the storm drain / storm sewer, even with a filter. I know, I requested it in 1992. The soap was the issue for us even though it was bio degradable. At the time, the emulsified bio degradable detergent was only being filtered out to a ratio of 1 to 4 which was unacceptable.

no pics yet?

Mine is small and I needed it for simple stuff, the bulk of our business is sidewalks (flatwork) and building ect...... I will post mine when I get a chance

Here are some pics of one I built. The trailer wasn't quite finished yet.

What do you have there, 100, 20 and 5 micron polishing filters?

Do you have a pre-filter to catch trash before it gets into the drum? If not, I can give you a good idea for that.

That is similar to how I have my drum setup. It looks like your pump is on the floor, I would raise it up a few inches or more for the sludge buildup, so it does not clog or bind up in your pump. Raising it will keep the sludge out.

Do you have an opening in the bottom so you can flush out the dirt/sludge? If not, you might think about it so you don't have to disconnect everything and tip it over to wash it out. I have a 2" ball valve on mine so I can just open the valve and wash it out where it sits.

Just some ideas.

The rig does look great.

Christopher said:

What do you have there, 100, 20 and 5 micron polishing filters?

Do you have a pre-filter to catch trash before it gets into the drum? If not, I can give you a good idea for that.

That is similar to how I have my drum setup. It looks like your pump is on the floor, I would raise it up a few inches or more for the sludge buildup, so it does not clog or bind up in your pump. Raising it will keep the sludge out.

Do you have an opening in the bottom so you can flush out the dirt/sludge? If not, you might think about it so you don't have to disconnect everything and tip it over to wash it out. I have a 2" ball valve on mine so I can just open the valve and wash it out where it sits.

Just some ideas.

The rig does look great.

Click to expand...

Yeah you got the filters right. The pre-filter is in one of the pics. It's a 400 micron sock filter. The sump pump is 3 inches off the floor. I do have the 2 inch valve on it now. It wasn't there yet in the pics. I guess I should take some more pics now that it's finished.

I would put baffles in that drum, and have both the entry and exit out of it, and use a jet pump to push water from a static tank. Think of it as having three compartments, with a passage on the top of the first wall, and then another passage for water half way up the second wall. That way it acts as a prefilter for the larger solids, and also has a method of seperating the free oils. The baffles do not even need to be water tight. You could also put a drain out the bottom. It works well. Your filters are still going to get plugged quicker than you would believe, but it does slow it down some.

Jim@Garagecleaning said:

At least here in California, a filtration is needed to handle any hydrocarbons from a oily drive thru. This filter has to be inspected by the local environmental agencies here in N. California of were the cleaning is to be done. A permit is needed to dump into the sewer system. YOU CANNOT dump into the storm drain / storm sewer, even with a filter. I know, I requested it in 1992. The soap was the issue for us even though it was bio degradable. At the time, the emulsified bio degradable detergent was only being filtered out to a ratio of 1 to 4 which was unacceptable.

Click to expand...

It may be required, but there are some that consider themselves on the cutting edge that don't do it.

Just my observation.

Lightning Gene said:

Mine is just a small reclaimer but big enuff for what I need....

Click to expand...

My Sub has this one... it is a good filter for what it is.

Danny Bates said:

Here are some pics of one I built. The trailer wasn't quite finished yet.

Click to expand...

Nice Danny.