New Rig! Could use some help!

chrishartje

chrishartje

New member
Here she is fellas. 2005 Chevy Express. Found it in Phoenix, AZ and Drove it home last weekend. I would have like to just go with an open trailer but I live in a condo with a one car garage. Didn't want to take the chance of someone messing with the equipment! I also thought about an enclosed trailer, but with limited parking here it wouldn't have worked out too well.

Here's my question to you guy's. Any of you that have used box truck I would just like too see some pic's or some guidance on the placement of the equipment! or any of you that just want to throw in your 2 cents I will gladly take it. What has worked out well and what has not.

Thank's guys, any help will be appreciated.......
 

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chrishartje said:
Here she is fellas. 2005 Chevy Express. Found it in Phoenix, AZ and Drove it home last weekend. I would have like to just go with an open trailer but I live in a condo with a one car garage. Didn't want to take the chance of someone messing with the equipment! I also thought about an enclosed trailer, but with limited parking here it wouldn't have worked out too well.

Here's my question to you guy's. Any of you that have used box truck I would just like too see some pic's or some guidance on the placement of the equipment! or any of you that just want to throw in your 2 cents I will gladly take it. What has worked out well and what has not.

Thank's guys, any help will be appreciated.......
Click to expand...

Well my first advise to you would be to build the truck around accesibility to you P/W. Also make sure if you are running a hot box to have it properly vented.

Reels should be at the back of your truck for easy access, and make sure you have a drain in your tank that is easy to reach.

I do not work from a box truck, but have thought it out before going with a trailer, which for me is the only way to go.
 
Here's some pics of our chevy 3500.... It's a partial pic anyway. Basically theres a 250 gallon buffer tank up against the cab with gorilla racking flanking the walls on either side and a tuff box for tools. Chem pump and tanks are on the passenger wall along with a rapid reel with 250' of 3/8" chem line and a delavan. The drivers wall has three stacked reels on the rear with two cold water washer sitting next to the reels. Another reel hangs off the gorilla racking for extension cords. We could easily substitute a hot water 8gpm skid where to cold water units are if needed. Our box is a 16' long dually. We have a fiberglass translucent roof on ours which is great for lighting the box but I'm not sure about running a stack through it.

One thing I would without a doubt do before setting the truck up is to permantly waterproof the floor. Rhinoline it or use the hercules kit from the DIY store. I didn't on this one and one year of water and chems pretty much trashed the upper layer of wood and broke down all the glues in the flooring. I finally coated it end of season last year the best I could but it needs cleared out and Rhinolined IMO.
 

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I am fairly new to this site and I am looking to start a pressure washing business. I have currently been looking at an Alkota 5355 JB that someone is selling. I would like some advise on whether this unit is sufficent to do job and a good investment to last my company for several years. If someone could give some feedback it would be greatly appreciated and some advise to someone new to the industy. I have learned a lot over the past few week and look forward to being a part of this industry. Thanks
 
Before you go and buy anything, it would be a very good idea to go and work with a few companies for a day or two to get an idea of what goes on, what kind of work they do, what you might like to do, etc...

You never know, you might decide that you do not like this kind of work.

Not trying to discourage you but each year people join the boards, are all pumped up to start a business and go and start buying equipment but are not sure of what kind of work they want to do.

The work will help decide what kind of equipment to purchase, how big and how many tanks, hose reels needed, etc....

Sometimes people decide this business is not for them after they bought equipment and then they feel bad that they can't get a good price on their barely used equipment when they sell it.

A lot of times people give this advice to people that are thinking of getting into the business and most just go and start buying equipment to later regret checking to see which aspects of the business they like or want to do.

It is up to you, it is your money, we will help you out but first do some investigating.

Good luck.


<O:p</O:p
___________
Superior Power Washing<O:p</O:p
Chris Chappell<O:p</O:p
361-853-2513<O:p</O:p
prostaff@superiorpowerwashing.com
Low Pressure Roof Cleaning Corpus Christi Texas<O:p</O:p
Shingle Roof Washing and Tile Roof Washing Corpus Christi Texas
 
Thanks for the replies.
I am focusing on residential work as of now! I am running a 3500 5.5gal skid from Mark. I just picked up a 275 gal square poly tank today and was thinking of putting it up against the cab. I am also looking for a few smaller chem tanks. that will probably go up against the cab as well.

I sealed the floor a few days ago not with rhino but just water seal. Should I spend the money on the Rhino? Tomorrow I plan on building a shelf above the tanks along the cab wall for storage.
Stack the the hose reals on one side of the rear.
Surface cleaner is on caster wheels so was thinking of building a box on the floor out of 1x1's so it's not sliding around. Or is there something better I could do?
Is there a problem with having the skid against one of the side wall's running front to back to save room? with proper exhaust. or I could run it between the wheel wells. but would only have about 2 feet on each side to get through.
I sure I forgot a few things, but will update tomorrow as I start putting equipment in.
Thanks for the help. If you see anything I'm doing that does't make sense please let me know.
 
Here are some pics of a mini rig I'm building, this is an 89' toyota U-Haul one ton, 10'x6' box. I'm currently reconfiguring for more space, reels are going on top with the ladder rack.

Tank is being replace with a 300 Gal. doorway tank to gain about 2 feet of floorspace at rear door and get a better vent for the machine to breath, switches and guages are being relocated to a custom made control panel @ rear of truck.

Access doors are being installed for ease of fueling and service.

The way things are right now I'd be terrified to have my stuff on a trailer.

SORRY, PICS WON'T LOAD !!!!!!:mad:
 
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Hello Chris,

Using a blank paper make it to the scale of the box on the truck. Cut out smaller pieces of paper and label them for the items that you want to put inside the box. Make them as close to the size of the item scale as possible. Now you can move stuff around to your liking to see how it will fit your expectations.

Do you really need a 275-gallon tank? That is about 2300 pounds of water plus the weight of the tank!

Find a truck scale so you can weigh the truck. Be sure to fill up the fuel tank. Weigh each axle separately. Check the GVWR of the truck and the ratings of each axle. You may not be able to have that much water up front if the steering axle cannot handle the weight!

We vent our boiler and engine exhausts out through the roof.

If you’re going to put a lot of weight on one side make it the left side! Remember that 2 lane roads are crowned in the center for water runoff and slope to the right. If you load your truck heavy on the right it will tend to steer itself in that direction.
 

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