Looking for best setup with limitations?

I'm an employee at a national fish hatchery; and as such (being an employee with only recommendation power), I am very limited on the equipment I can push for with respect to dollars, and the setup that we are constrained to work within. There are lots of details that I could get in to about our constraints if anyone would like for me to get in to all of that, but what it boils down to is that our set up right has to be 100% mobile with a forklift as the normal means of moving our equipment around including water. We have two 330-gallon, reconditioned IBC totes that I had to beg for. Previously, we used our distribution trucks (which have a primary use other than PWing) and/or smaller water tanks that had to be constantly refilled, and/or insufficient, 350-gallon water tanks with only a 1/2" discharge valve to do the work. Previously, we used two smaller, direct-drive units (2.4 GPM/3000 PSI) that would not hold up with our insufficient gravity fed system (we did not know about cavitation, benefits of belt drive, sufficient GPM supply; no air leaks, and all that stuff back then). Previously, it would take us 3.5-4 hrs to complete one concrete fish rearing unit with one pressure washer and around 2.5 hrs using two. Now it takes us roughly 1.5-2 hrs using a much better, 3.7 GPM/3500 PSI, belt drive unit.

The first thing I know you guys will ask is why we don't run plumbing lines down closer to our work sites, but suffice it to say, that's not something I can get done right now with the current leadership. I'm already pushing the limits with what we've got now. I've recently built a platform out of treated lumber that houses the water tote, pressure washer, hose reel that I carefully talked the boss in to letting us purchase, and other equipment (like a water blocking screen). This allows us to move everything in one trip which is beneficial when the forklift is being used for other purposes at the same time. I built this platform over a period of four weeks; mostly during my lunch time and coming in early, because, the bosses would not have been able to give me the time to build it otherwise. I'm not really a construction-minded person, so this was a real struggle for me to execute, but it turned out decent. It's 92 inches long and 43 inches wide and when the water tote is empty, it can be lifted from the pressure washer end to lift up and put in a 3/4-ton pickup when we need to. The hose reel is wonderful. I should have talked the boss in to one of those a long time ago. I had to build a secondary level deck on my platform to house the hose reel, but the effort was worth it.

I've been shopping and researching extensively for a second pressure washer, which we'll get a little money for this Spring, and I've come up with something that's going to cost our field station $1762 delivered. I think is the best value I've found with the minimum capability and feature wise that we need to do the work efficiently. However, the last pressure washer we got cost us $1650, and that was really pushing the limits with what the bosses feel like we should spend on a pressure washer set up. The new one I have in mind offers a few things our first one doesn't. (1) a place to mount a hose reel without building a deck to put it on; (2) a roll cage, steel frame to protect the unit from the blocker screen or anything else that might fall on it. I had to build a rail on my current platform to protect our existing unit; a framed unit would simplify constructing my next platform. (3) Unlike the picture below, the unit I have a quote on is skid mount, which would simplify mounting to my next platform. (4) The new one, if they let us have it, is slightly more capable @ 4GPM/4000PSI, which should speed us up even more, but yet not so high a GPM that we couldn't complete one fish rearing unit w/o running out of water. And (5) most importantly, this unit has a 6-gallon tank. This would give us roughly two days worth of work w/o filling up. My current platform had to be designed to house a 5 gallon gas can. A unit with a 6-gallon tank would allow me to build a simpler; not so long platform, which, since it's not going to be all that long, it won't have to be quite so strong.



In addition, we need at least 75' of pressure hose (this unit comes with 50'), and we need a hose reel, which does not come with the unit as pictured. A turbo tip would be something that I'd like to try as well. Electric start would be nice, but that'd probably being pushing it a little too much. I'd like to one day look in to a sweeper and/or a trolley to speed us up even more, and if we had access to spigots, I'd like to upgrade to an 8 GPM unit, but all of that is just wishful thinking at this point.

My strategy: I think my best strategy is to ask for this $1762 unit; suggest that we can get elec. start for $300 more (but don't expect that they'd say yes); and then sort of piece mill request a 100' pressure hose, then a hose reel, and then a turbo tip, sort of one at a time.

If you expert folks made it through most of my convoluted post, you've probably got lots of questions and confused about alot of things, and I don't care to answer any questions. I've got pictures of my current set up, but the camera is at work, so I'll have to get that if anyone wants to see what I've got. The odd thing about all of this is that every time that I've talked the supervisors into an upgrade, they see the value of it on productivity. The problem I'm having (at least the way I perceive it) is that, since we're gov't, productivity isn't always seen with the same value as in the real world, and that's why it's been such a struggle to get them to cough up money for things that make us so much more productive.

Any suggestions or feedback about positive or negative about the equipment choices I have in mind would be helpful. I think the brand of unit from above is Pressure Pro, however, I've not seen a single unit sold by anyone else other than the one seller I found it from, and so I'm not sure exactly where they are sourcing the frame.

Here is an aerial view of our facility; spigots located front and back of main building; over 1/4-mile to farthest fish raceway:

Fish Raceways

Russ will chime in soon


Ron Musgraves
www.uamcc.org
"Sidewalk cleaning"

I would suggest a small 12"-14" surface cleaner it will clean those walls faster than a turbo tip but will leave a small line at the corner that you will have to clean with a regular tip http://shop.pressurewasherky.us/Whirl-A-Way-12-Surface-Cleaner-BE1200WAWY.htm

Check this out!!

Thanks for the feed back. I've got to do multiple post, cause I'm losing my text before I can get a picture in. Here is my setup I hope.

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I know the hose is long, but it cold weather, it wouldn't droop as much without kinking just a tad, and the blocker screen (not in the picture), which will usually be loaded in between the tank and the washer, has to go over the hose in my simple set up. I've got ideas to make it shorter and not sticking out, but it would require elbowing a down, back, and the over; not sure if that's a good idea. Y'all tell me. Keep the suggestions coming. Thanks.

Looks like someone made that out of wood, if it is wood then plan on rebuilding it every year or other year, there will be water getting the wood wet one way or another, especially if it is out when it rains.

I would put the hose reel over the engine/pump, that is kind of back and going to be hard to roll up without stretching out and possibly hurting someone's back (safety issue there) especially when the tailgate is open. You could mount the hose reel to the tailgate or side of the truck so you can reach it easy or turn it sideways so you are facing it when on the side of the truck but mount it closer to the side of the truck so it is easy to roll up, might need a larger hose reel so you can reach further when washing.

If that is garden hose from the tank to the pump I would change it out to 3/4" or 1" hose and use a couple of 90 elbows so they are facing each other and support it with the hose reel support like use a loop or something, with elbows it will not droop much if any with the shorter hose, the garden hose is not large enough in diameter to do a good job if the pump is more than 4 gallons per minute, larger the better so you don't starve the pump or risk the hose collapsing.

You could get another helper to use another square tote tank to get more water and use a small pump like 5 gallons per minute to pump into the main tank as needed, he will just be getting water all day long if you don't want to use hoses.

I have stretched out over 700' of garden hoses (2 of them for 2 machines on a trailer) numerous times to get jobs done, the water flow slows down a lot but at least it is flowing some, sometimes you have to stop and take a break to let the water catch up but it is doable or use the tank in another truck idea to have someone fetch water throughout the day to supply the main tank.

As for the skid, the great vendors here like Paul at the powerwashstore.com or Russ at Powerwasherky.com or hotwaterwizard can get you setup with a professional skid that is both durable and user-friendly

Christopher said:

Looks like someone made that out of wood, if it is wood then plan on rebuilding it every year or other year, there will be water getting the wood wet one way or another, especially if it is out when it rains.

I would put the hose reel over the engine/pump, that is kind of back and going to be hard to roll up without stretching out and possibly hurting someone's back (safety issue there) especially when the tailgate is open. You could mount the hose reel to the tailgate or side of the truck so you can reach it easy or turn it sideways so you are facing it when on the side of the truck but mount it closer to the side of the truck so it is easy to roll up, might need a larger hose reel so you can reach further when washing.

If that is garden hose from the tank to the pump I would change it out to 3/4" or 1" hose and use a couple of 90 elbows so they are facing each other and support it with the hose reel support like use a loop or something, with elbows it will not droop much if any with the shorter hose, the garden hose is not large enough in diameter to do a good job if the pump is more than 4 gallons per minute, larger the better so you don't starve the pump or risk the hose collapsing.

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I know it won't be durable; may be less than what I expect based on your comments. I'm hoping that it will last long enough to have been worth the effort. At this time, I've got to be careful asking for pressure washing money. I used alot of material that was already on station, and it cost around $100. If I had asked for money for a proper skid, I could risk turning the boss against any further upgrades, so I'm taking it kind of easy on my efforts. My effort trying to gradually upgrade the process is a work in progress. If anyone has worked in gov't before, he or she will understand that productivity is not always looked at with a high priority. Labor is sort of set, so sometimes our value (or time) spent doing things is undervalued, and so there are times they'd rather just let us spend double the time doing something than to spend some money on equipment that will save labor hours. We're way ahead of where we used to be; I hope to upgrade even more with spigots and 8 GPM units, but it'll have to be gradual.

I know my initial post was long, but what I stated was that the platform will usually be a stand alone; carried and then set down with a forklift, so the platform will be sitting at ground level on pavement 99% of the time, and then stored in a garage when not in use. The reel is facing long, straight stretches of pavement in between our raceways; the hose can be stretched out and rolled up easily at our work sites. On the few occasions that the platform is set in a truck, I agree, it will be very high and hard to reach; probably two people will have to roll it up; or we could just grab another hose and disconnect the jumper hose and just not use it. The hose we're using could then be just rolled up and thrown in the bed like the good ole days.

Your elbow comments are very helpful. My PW'er manual states not to elbow when gravity feeding. That didn't make sense to me since my hose if over sized; and I've even built in a tilt towards the valve side of the tank, so the valve is always downhill. I've got ideas about elbowing and getting the hose tucked away; it would make it shorter and less likely to snag or get crushed on something, but was wanting to check with the experts.

As for the inlet hose, I'm not sure what you're seeing, but it is 1" i.d. It's the big black hose that loops out and around. The other looping hose is the pressure jumper hose.

Hotwaterwizard said:

View attachment 29473
Check this out!!

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I had actually found the Hosty Equipment website, but I found nothing with a large enough water tank to keep us going long enough to do one 8X3X100 foot section without refilling. I'm assuming with a turbo tip, or sweeper as has been suggested; maybe we won't need as much water or as much GPM machine, cause we'll be faster.

Christopher said:

You could get another helper to use another square tote tank to get more water and use a small pump like 5 gallons per minute to pump into the main tank as needed, he will just be getting water all day long if you don't want to use hoses.

I have stretched out over 700' of garden hoses (2 of them for 2 machines on a trailer) numerous times to get jobs done, the water flow slows down a lot but at least it is flowing some, sometimes you have to stop and take a break to let the water catch up but it is doable or use the tank in another truck idea to have someone fetch water throughout the day to supply the main tank.

As for the skid, the great vendors here like Paul at the powerwashstore.com or Russ at Powerwasherky.com or hotwaterwizard can get you setup with a professional skid that is both durable and user-friendly

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Thanks for the links. I'll look at them and put them in my wish list.

This will be hard to visualize without a video, but I'll try...We've got two totes; we fill one up near our main building while we're pressure washing with the other (that is when we're cleaning more than one raceway in one day). My platform causes a limitation that we didn't have before. Used to, we'd move the pressure washer to the work area, come back, get a filled tote, take it to the work area, come back, park the forklift, load other equipment in a pickup truck, take it down to the work area and start work. All of this while the second tote is being filled, which doesn't take quite as long as it takes to empty one pressure washing. Nowawadays with the platform, (if we're going to do more than two raceways in one day), we'll have to either unstrap and remove the tote and swap totes, which is a hassle, or remove the pressure washer from the platform when switching totes, which will probably make more sense. Then we'll take the platform minus the pressure washer; take it back and refill it. We have extra pressure hoses and inlet hoses, so we're good on that. Conversely, we could make a few platforms units complete with everything except the pressure washer, but none of these ideas work really well.

Once we get a second pressure washer and a second platform, then both our tanks will have complete setups. If we get a couple of extra tanks, then we could keep everything going pretty well.

Yes we could stretch out garden hoses to our buildings 700'. Nobody is going to want and do that, but some of our work areas are nearly 500 yards away; not feet, but there are some places that we could stretch out hose, but the effort to set up that kind of system maybe futile if we can't do it all the time, depending on the distance.

Christopher said:

You could get another helper to use another square tote tank to get more water and use a small pump like 5 gallons per minute to pump into the main tank as needed, he will just be getting water all day long if you don't want to use hoses.

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I don't fully understand the "helper" concept, but I think I've got a vague understanding. From what I understand this would mean running a hose from a spigot to my first tote (which we do have) and then pump from that tote to my tote being drawn from by our machine. We could leave the first tote filling all day; maybe with a float to stop when it's full. This would work, but it would also mean over 1/4 mile of hose that would have to be strewn all around our facility, and I'm not sure the difference between doing that and just running over 1/4 mile of hose from the spigot directly to our main tank. I guess I don't understand fully the setup you're referring to.

Further in your post, you stated "to get the job done", but understand, these are not special-case kind of jobs that we have to do something out of the ordinary to get done. We'll be moving an average of 600 feet from our spigot every time we pressure wash a unit; sometimes a little closer and just as often, farther away. That's alot of rolling out and rerolling supply hose; alot of hose; and alot of hose reel capacity. Sometimes we'll pressure wash ten units in one week; all in different locations throughout the hatchery. Before I worked at the hatchery, they actually did roll out garden hose using hose reels, but back then, they didn't pressure wash raceways past the half-way-down point in the serials, and even less over on the farthest side horizontally, because it was just too much hose to deal with.

Don't misunderstand my reactions to your suggestions. I really appreciate everything you're suggesting. They are helping me think and helping me rethink how to best set up.

We have a huge water flow through our hatchery (12,000 GPM); very close to where we are working. That flow is distributed out to each of the blue packed columns shown in one of my pictures via 6" pipes that jut out from under ground up about 7' high and then connect to those packed columns. That water comes from 95 feet below the surface, and it gets dirty only a couple of months out of the year, just before the reservoir stratifies in late Fall.

I've always felt like the best way to get "forever" water is to tap in to these pipes via spigots, which would require no more than 150' of garden hose anywhere on the hatchery if we had, say, six spigots in line along the serial downstream in a couple of lines. But this method means we'd be using reservoir water as our source water. It's not very dirty, at least not until it gets to our raceways where our fish are. I've been told this would be a bad idea, but I don't see why a 50 mesh strainer ahead of a tank and a second mesh strainer before entering the pressure washing pump, would not protect the pump, and the tank from settle-able solids.

In the setup I visualize above, I have found 4000 lb capacity platform trucks. We would need two. These platform trucks can house 8 GPM PW'ers; a 220 gallon bottom valve tank; all the plumbing and hoses and hose reels; and other equipment that we need when pressure washing. The platform cart could then be pushed or carried via the forklift with the tank empty, and then once placed at the work site, we could hook up and start filling the tank. This setup requires no machine or powered truck to move it, and that's good, because sometimes all that power equipment is being used for other purposes.

But that's only my dreamworld, and I can't even get started on that idea, because folks are stating that they wouldn't use lake water; but I understand that if it's filtered; why that's not a good idea for an ongoing operation?

Christopher said:

Looks like someone made that out of wood...

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That someone was me. I'm very proud of my design only because I know my own limitations in that regard and how much effort it took for someone like me to pull off something that works like I envisioned. I'm more of a flow or system specialist in my thinking. I'm good at thinking about what we need to do things better, faster, and easier but designing the actual tool is not my thing. Building things is even harder for me, and it shows in my construction. I had to do most of this on my own time, because the bosses can't see the value of speeding up pressure washing like I do. They don't mind that I did it, but wouldn't have given me the time to do it.

The reason I'm proud it houses everything where we need only make one trip to start work. If you go back and look, it's got that mid deck; that will house items 6-8 feet long fish screens, blocker screens, valve keys, and water shutoff keys. Those long items will be loaded and will sit cross ways on the platform jutting out each side and are normally put on a pickup truck for a third trip down to the work site. There is a place for a gas can, the hose reel and small tools, yet it's compact enough so the whole contraption can be lifted from the end with 41" forks. It can also be lifted from the PW'er end when the tank is empty. I do not see those kind of ready-made skids for sell that will haul everything we need plus have enough water to do the job.

I'm not so proud of my build quality or the appearance of the "contraption" I call it. I'm just not good at construction techniques.

Of course a tubed steel platform or a angle-iron platform would be much better with a similar set up; but I can't do that for sure; but I see my platform as a rough draft for later with someone who knows how to build things out of metal. A skid mounted PW'er with a roll cage frame, like the one I asked about above from Pressure Washers Unlimited, would make a second platform much more simple construction. No need for a secondary platform for a hose reel and no need to chock wheels. And no need for a gas can carrier, since it has a six gallon tank built in.

Sounds like your hands are tied every which way possible and the upper management just does not care enough for you or your job and you are just spinning your wheels trying to do a great job and do the right thing.

That stress is building up in you and is not a good thing long term.

Maybe it is time to find another job where you and your passion are really appreciated, just saying.

Christopher said:

Sounds like your hands are tied every which way possible and the upper management just does not care enough for you or your job and you are just spinning your wheels trying to do a great job and do the right thing.

That stress is building up in you and is not a good thing long term.

Maybe it is time to find another job where you and your passion are really appreciated, just saying.

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Oh no! Please don't mistake my struggles with me giving up, or that I hate working there, or think that they don't respect me as a person or a worker. It's just a weird sort of culture there that normally doesn't allow for someone in my position to make changes, and show initiative, and the fact that I've been able to eek out a few, positive moves, very slowly, under this culture, is rewarding to some degree; a little frustrating; but I've not had any job with no frustrations.

They do value me. They've been working within the bureaucracy to try and promote me over the last six months. Every year I gain a little more autonomy in trying things a different way looking for a better way and am given a little more say in things. It's just never been this way before; someone that's not a supervisor trying to make things better, so I have to take care not to make it look like they don't know what they're doing. For a long time, they've just done things the way they've always been done.

As for pressure washing, it didn't used to happen. It used to be three or four guys get in raceways and scrub them with wire brushes; very tiring but quicker, yet not very effective at removing algae. The current boss got a couple of consumer-grade pressure washers about 10 years ago; they hooked up water hoses at spigots when the work was close by and pressure washed those raceways. It took longer, but was easier physically and did a much better job. Someone at another hatchery suggested gravity feeding off distribution truck tanks, so that we could pressure wash everywhere on the hatchery. We started having cavitation issues and other pump problems, because we didn't really know what we were doing. We would sometimes starve the pumps because hoses were hooked up before priming; or leaks in the hoses, etc. We couldn't pressure wash on the days when the trucks were gone was another problem. I started studying those problems with my own initiative. I learned there were machines out there and setups that could make the work as quick as using the wire brush. We're not up to that speed yet, but it's possible. It's been very slow trying to learn, because I don't have any support or contacts with anyone who has done this on a professional level. That's where a forum like this can help me understand what's out there and how things are stet up, etc.

We have budgetary constraints and a lot of things to fix and alot of things needing upgrading. I'm trying to work w/i these constraints and show the value of upgrading this PW'ing process. Once I've got us where we need to be, I'll move on to other areas that are extremely non productive. I like doing it and having the challenge.

I wanted you guys to look at my setup and give some advice. You've already helped. Keep it coming, but don't ask that I quit trying. It's much better than the old days. We've got a guy that builds things for us as a contractor; sometimes out of steel or aluminum. He does welding for us and other things. When the time is right, I'll ask for a steel platform. Building the one I've got lets me perfect a design. Design tips is really what I'm after. I'm aware of the weaknesses of using wood, but we'll deal with those.