Dual-Gun with Comet Pump?

gregsfc

New member
Dual Gun capability, 24-HP Honda, Comet Pump, 4.0 GPM-4.3 GPM using two guns at once. Or can be set up for single gun use found listed in the range between 8.0-8.7 gpm; all at 3000 PSI?

http://www.atlanticpressurewashers....lt_Drive_A3087_Dual_Gun_3000_PSI_8.7_GPM.html

Dual%20Gun%20Med-01.jpg


Or found here for around $1200 less but with no accessories and lesser specs...
http://www.ultimatewasher.com/comet-pump-pressure-washer.htm#CD3024HTEBCOM

CD-3024HTEBCOM_sm.jpg


Shopping for and trying to create a wish list for the future at my place of employment that would best meet our needs (that is if and when we ever upgrade where we can have a continuous water supply provided to our feed tank). I've stumbled on to a pressure washing unit that I've found sold at a couple of online stores. There seems to be variations in these unit model numbers and specs, so I don't know if I''m looking at different set ups or just variations in how the retailers are marketing these units. There also seems to be considerable variations in the price, which again, could be different Comet pumps or could be that the higher-priced one has the accessory equipment, while the lower priced one does not. Not sure.

Anyway, any experience with any of these two-gun, Comet pump setups with Honda 24 HP? Is it good value? Any known reliability issues beyond the industry normal expectations?

We often put two workers on pressure washing a single cleaning unit to speed the process, but many other times, we'll let one person handle the load while others are doing other fish work. Just seemed like to me, if this is a reliable system and easy-to-use system, and if the unit can actually provide 8.0-8.7 GPM to one gun, and optionally, can provide 4.3 to two guns at once, it might be just the right model for our team to put on my wish list.

Wondering also if 8.7 GPM and 3000 PSI would be too much for an average man to handle over a 100' stretch of somewhat slick surface using a standard gun?
 
One man with 8.7 GPM could fly,..GPM equals speed! One man doing the work with 8.7 GPM would free up another guy for other projects. As far as handling the wand,..you can use bigger nozzles to reduce the pressure somewhat,..making it not so un-manageable. Also,..I think the slick surface may be handled using felt bottom shoes,..as I'm sure you know,..felt soled waders are a must on algae covered rocks in a stream,..and they work very well. Depending on water source,..you will need a buffer tank,..I'd say at least 100 gallon. Also the buffer tank allows for the worker to take a break while the machine is running,...the by-pass will go back to the tank and keep cool water flowing through the pump,...whereas,..without tank by-pass, the pump will rely on a thermal release.

*Sorry,..I can't comment on the Comet pump,..never owned one.

**Pressure-Tek sells a nice single gun unit, Honda engine, 8 GPM@ with a General Pump 3000 PSI for $3305.70

Jeff
 
I would not use that brand of pump.
 
Chris you talking about the comet or Udor? Comets are a throw away pump with one in a hundred chance you get lucky and it lasts awhile. There is a reason they are on almost every home depot washer sold.

In saying that and seeing your desire for dual wands, you could easily ask one of the disturbers on this board to include and even install a dual wand setup on a machine you buy from them. The parts that you see on the two machines you listed above that make it a dual wand setup run $180 plus your time (an hour or two) to put it all together.
 
I have used and sold Comet Pumps for 23 years. I don't care what anyone else said! Comet pumps are good!
 
Thanks for the advice and feedback everyone. Differing opinions about Comet brand, but I'm getting a pretty broad consensus that one man, working with an 8+ GPM machine and enough PSI to scrub the algae off the concrete could really fly and make quick work, and therefore, we may not have many occasions to want or need two guns going at once?

Now that I ponder on it some more...most of the time in our situation, even though we might need to wash up to six raceways in a short span of time, the concrete raceways that we need to clean are not in close proximity to each other, and if we have two guys working at once, they'd be working on the same raceway at the same time. In the past, we used two, 2.4 GPM, 3000 PSI, consumer-level machines working in the same raceway and that's probably why I've still got it stuck in my head that we need two gun capability. In those days, it would take around 2-2/12 hours per raceway with two guys spraying. One guy would be on the upper end and cover two 3 feet high walls and an 8 foot floor for 50' of length. The guy on the lower end would cover the same area on the lower end. But this was not super efficient, because the guy on the lower end would have trouble seeing his end of the floor with all that crap coming down towards him from the guy above. Sometimes, the guy on the lower end would work through break and get the lowest 15 feet or so while the guy on the upper end was on break just so he could see what he was cleaning. The running water that still gets around or under our blocker screen of the drained raceways gets deeper and harder to see and scrub as one moves towards the lowest part of the floor. Often times, the water may be up to 3" high down towards the end and one has to blast through that water and wash the floor. Also, as one gets close to the lower end, the water will tend to swirl as it hits the lower wall and one gets sesh back towards the washer.

Right now, we have only one good-working machine. It is a 3.7 GPM/3500 PSI, Mi-TM, belt drive, with a Honda GX390 and AR pump. We can clean a raceway with one person and this new machine in about the same amount of time that we did previously with two machines and two persons. We are using this one, specific, amazing 40 degree white tip that way outperforms any other tip we've got and is the only tip we've been using for months. We can't figure this tip thing out, because I've bought some new, 3.0 orifices and 4.0 orifices, worried that this good tip will wear out and then we'll lose productivity, and I've tried every green and white tip we've got and none of them perform like the one we've been washing with; some of the are even the same brand and orifice size as the super tip we're using. The only thing I haven't tried is a 3.5 orifice (the boss won't let us get any fancy tips right now like turbos or sweepers or trolleys).

There are a few occasions, where we will wash 8 nursery raceways in one setting, and the boss wants them done fast. The nurseries are also 100' long and the same height, but they are about 42" wide. With two guys going, they can each spray a nursery raceway on his set of four; set the screens for fish while the water is drained; spray a second, while the first is filling back up; set that screen. And after the first raceway is full of water and flowing over the dam boards to provide water to the fish below, then a third can be started. The guy washing the other set of four is doing the same thing.

But really, it might make more sense to line up equipment for a really good 8 GPM machine and then maybe a 5.5 GPM machine both stand alone units, tanks, and vehicles to move it. That way we can separate our work as we need to, but then also have the capability to put the two guys with machines close together when necessary.

So really what I think I should do is lobby for a line of spigots down our raceway serial; maybe even two lines. And then once that is accomplished, what I've envisioned is a 4,000 lb platform cart that can be pushed or optionally, carried with a forklift with lockable wheels. It will contain a 210-gallon, bottom valve water tank; a 150' garden hose rolled-up on a reel, with a 50 mesh strainer mounted somewhere near the tank for the incoming feed tank water; a float mounted in the top of the tank to stop the water prior to overfill; plumb over to an 8 GPM/3000-3500PSI, skid-mount machine and a hose reel and 75' of pressure hose; mount racks and storage bins for other equipment like blocker screens, hammer, wedges, etc. The cart and equipment would be moved by hand or with forklift only when the tank is empty or near empty, but the advantage to having a cart as opposed to a vehicle that will be a multi-purposed vehicle is that, while the cart can and will usually be moved with a forklift, those times when the forklift is being used for other tasks, a man can load up the equipment, drain the tank, unlock the wheels and move it wherever he wants to; drain the next raceway, begin filling the tank, and go back to work. No waiting around for the forklift to be freed up. No need to have a dedicated pickup or trailer.
 
Only skimmed through your post,..but one thing I seen was the boss wants the work done fast,..well then he/she shouldn't have any problem purchasing the needed equipment to the the job at hand. And not letting you purchase the proper nozzles is counter productive,...and I'm not sure your gonna convince him to buy a $3000-$4000 machine,Ha,Ha,... I also noticed the mention of 75' of hose,..that isn't very much,..minimum should be 200' and some on here might even say 300'. Especially if you have to move your equipment with a forklift.

Jeff
 
8 gpm is extreme for one person! You better be a weight lifter with strong arms. Your'e gonna get real tired real quick! 5 gpm is enough to get the job done.
 
I wash commercial with a 5.5 and a 4 GPM combined using Russ Johnsons Siamese kit. That much GPM has speeded up my jobs a whole bunch. Your arms will acclimate in a short time! Once you wash with 8 GPM you'll never want to go back to any less GPM.
 
Only skimmed through your post,..but one thing I seen was the boss wants the work done fast,..well then he/she shouldn't have any problem purchasing the needed equipment to the the job at hand. And not letting you purchase the proper nozzles is counter productive,...and I'm not sure your gonna convince him to buy a $3000-$4000 machine,Ha,Ha,... I also noticed the mention of 75' of hose,..that isn't very much,..minimum should be 200' and some on here might even say 300'. Especially if you have to move your equipment with a forklift.

Jeff

Please expound on the tips. I don't know if they'll allow me to get a turbo tip, but I've not really pushed for one, because I don't really know if that's what we need. I need a large spray pattern with an acceptable PSI. If a turbo tip does not give a 40 degree pattern, I don't see how it will make us faster. We've got a 3.7GPM/3000PSI machine with a white tip. If I go to a green tip, I'm a little slower. If I use one of my other white tips, I have to make multiple swaths or slow down my movement; so, other than this one exceptional white tip, the speed of work is slower than what we're doing right now. Our machine is fairly new, and so this is the only tip we've used so far; though we've tried all our others.

First for the hose length issue:
We park equipment 1/2 down a raceway, which is 100', when we prep to clean one. That means that we've got 50' up and 50' down to clean with our equipment centered. Seventy-five feet gives us just enough hose, plus a little more to wash a raceway, and if necessary, the raceway adjacent to the one we start on. More hose would mean a larger reel, more winding, more expense for equipment, and anything over 100' would probably be overkill in most circumstances. I've been using a reel with 75' for a couple of months. We have used 100' of hose (two 50's hooked together); but I've not had a situation where I wished I had more hose the whole time I've been using this 75' length. Our raceways are cleaned when they're emptied and when we need them for splitting other raceways of fish that have grown and become too dense in the raceway that they're in. Basically, a split is dividing a raceway of fish into two or more raceways of fish, which happens five or six times with a specific shipment of eggs at our hatchery. It's part of intense fish culture to do this. It's how hatcheries keep fish growing intensely and cost effectively. We keep them dense enough to compete for food and to keep raceways relatively clean, but not so dense that the water quality can't support them. We ship by longest first. It would cause much more work to keep them organized by length geographically around our hatchery, and so when we're pressure washing, we're often moving from one raceway to another raceway that would be an average distance of 300 yards washing one raceway and then going to the next raceway that needs cleaning. Even if we have two raceways close together empty, it sometimes makes more sense to go far away and clean the next one if the next raceway of fish to split are closer to another empty raceway.


Now for the boss:

There is more than one boss...My immediate supervisor is tasked with managing the growth and raising fish to meet a set distribution calendar and keep a good conversion rate (1.25 lbs of fish for every 1 lb of fish growth or better); produce uniform-size fish; and to keep them alive by controlling predators and parasite control through chemical treatment; and water flow management and control. He supervises the crew to help him accomplish these production standards and tasks. He has much more on his mind that pressure washing, but he needs to keep algae growth under control, because it stops up our screens that contain them if it gets out of control. The only time the raceways can be cleaned is when they are empty. When we're really pushed for time to get one cleaned and filled back up with fish, we'll get in a raceway and clean it with brushes and then put fish back in it from other raceways that needed splitting. This supervisor prefers the quality of job pressure washing versus brushing, but he does not control the money, and even if he did, he doesn't really realize like I have come to learn that we could pressure wash a raceway as quickly as we could brush clean one, and it would be easier on our bodies, if we upgraded even further. This is something I'm still getting educated about myself, and so I've not really come up with a infrastructure and equipment plan to show them. But when I do and funds become available, I'll push for it.

My bosses boss is tasked with more than trout production. He needs us to stay caught up but does not worry that much about how we do it. He helps us out alot by doing many of the non-production work himself and that lets us focus on production tasks. He too does not really know how fast pressure washing can be. I'll work on him as well, but they have to see the value of it, and I have to get something specific laid out and planned for, and then even after that, I may have to just ease a little upgrade at a time.

These supervisors do care, and they're good guys, but they've only worked in gov't service. They do respect me and my opinions, but they have many things that they're juggling, and they are not really in tune to the pressure washing industry and the amount of work that can be done quickly with the right equipment. They don't even know what equipment is available. I have just started learning myself about how fast and efficient pressure washing can be. I have shown them the difference between a 2.4 GPM/3000 PSI direct-drive consumer unit, and a 3.7 GPM/3500 PSI, belt-drive unit, and they have seen the speed we have gained so far; but there was a sticker shock to that, since that one belt-drive unit cost more than two of the consumer-level units; and it is still faster to brush than to pressure washer. You have to understand that people outside your industry or who are not normal customers of your services do not know much about commercial pressure washing equipment; how expensive it is; or even how much fast the work is. Most regular folks think of the consumer-level machine and operator. They know that professionals exist, but they don't really know how much different it is than the guy who uses his TaskForce 5 HP. So it's a work in progress to educate myself and then put together the best plan that we'll result in no more brushing to clean a raceway, which is the ultimate goal.
 
I wash commercial with a 5.5 and a 4 GPM combined using Russ Johnsons Siamese kit. That much GPM has speeded up my jobs a whole bunch. Your arms will acclimate in a short time! Once you wash with 8 GPM you'll never want to go back to any less GPM.

Thanks... Yeah I get that. When we went from our 2.4 to our 3.7; although we loved the way the water seemed to just blast through everything and move the crap away quickly and more completely, it was sort of an adjustment on our gripping hand and holding the wand steady and now we think nothing about it.

But recently, I got one of our old 2.4 GPMs going so that our new guy could work with me in the same raceway in order to get him trained pressure washing. I couldn't stand it to go back to that little toy. Reminds me of trying to use a household mop head after using a commercial mop head. You feel like you might as well just use an old rag and get down on the floor.

But the new guy didn't like the big machine. He wasn't accustomed to that kind of power, and he said it hurt his hand. It's a weird phenomenon.

During the summer, we have YCC high school students working for us; often pressure washing...maybe it would be worth considering a 5.5 or two versus an 8.0; this is something to ponder on. But I figure, if we had an 8.0, we could finish a raceway in 15-20 minutes after setting up, and we wouldn't be spraying for long spans of time and the YCCs could be doing other things, so I'll have to keep pondering.
 
Not trying to steal where this post was originally headed, but I am curious about something. Lets say you are running a single machine with an output of 8.0+ gpm, and you split it into two wands each receiving +/- 4.0 gpm...wouldn't that be pretty dangerous if operator #1 lets go of the trigger, and operator #2 is not ready for twice the flow coming at him? Maybe I am missing something in the way that you could rig this up, but it just sounds like a hazard to me.
 
You could order the siamese kit and nozzles from Russ at Southside equipment so you can connect 2 of your machines together and have better flow to move the debris away faster. Call him and talk to him.
 
Not trying to steal where this post was originally headed, but I am curious about something. Lets say you are running a single machine with an output of 8.0+ gpm, and you split it into two wands each receiving +/- 4.0 gpm...wouldn't that be pretty dangerous if operator #1 lets go of the trigger, and operator #2 is not ready for twice the flow coming at him? Maybe I am missing something in the way that you could rig this up, but it just sounds like a hazard to me.

If you have your nozzles setup correctly in each gun you will feel a slight increase in pressure, but it is no where near dangerous.

Unloader set for 3000 psi @ 8 gpm, each gun has the proper nozzle to run 3000 psi at 4 gpm then everything should go fine. When one guy stops his extra 4 gpm goes through the unloader. You do feel it as a slight power can, but eventually you get used it and keep going.
 
I feel like if someone is starting out or has a two man operation at first, such as one truck & one rig. Then maybe the 8 gpm dual gun split to 4 gpm might have some advantages. If you get where I'm coming from.
 
Back
Top