Surface Cleaners Tips
Read these 6 Surface Cleaners Tips tips to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. Each tip is approved by our Editors and created by expert writers so great we call them Gurus. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Pressure Washers tips and hundreds of other topics.
Water Blasting Vs. Surface Cleaning
When you want to make an area free of dirt and grime, a surface cleaner is the way to go. When you need a surface "prepped" or completely stripped, water blasting is the best solution. A water blaster can be equipped with a hand-held "lance" or with an automated "crawler" that does high pressure water blasting in much the same way as a surface cleaner, but with a much more powerful spray. Water blasting equipment is routinely used to strip paint off of airplanes, to prep ships and strip chlorine out of concrete. Water blasters use water pressure around 48 thousand PSI, making them just as good as chemical abrasive strippers, but leaving much less residue behind. Water blasters are an excellent choice for environmentally-conscious businesses for that reason.
Do Surface Cleaners Use More Water Than Pressure Washer Wands?
Pressure washer surface cleaners spray the same amount of water as a pressure washer, but the time spent cleaning is reduced between 50 and 80 percent. This can mean a huge savings in water consumption. If you live in an area with drought problems, a surface cleaner is a major addition to your water conservation arsenal. The City of El Paso in Texas once mandated a 25 percent reduction in water use, making the faster cleaning times of surface cleaners a very attractive option. Some surface cleaner comparison tests had the nozzle-only method taking more than an hour for the same size job that takes a surface cleaner ten minutes to perform. The water savings are obvious.
How Does a Surface Cleaner Work?
Surface cleaners work like floor buffers. There is a rotating cleaning surface that you push across the area to be cleaned, but what makes a surface cleaner different is water and water pressure. A pressure washer surface cleaner forces pressurized water into a swiveling bar. The bar spins at a high speed, spraying water to clean the surface. You push the surface cleaner just like a lawn mower until the entire area is spotless. Cleaning a driveway, shop floor, or repair bay with a surface cleaner is much faster and more efficient than just using a pressure washer nozzle. Pressure washer surface cleaners are definitely worth the expense for those who need to save time with large cleaning operations.
Water Blaster Pressure Gauge
Did you know that a water blaster pressure gauge does not tell you how powerfully the water is flowing from the blaster? Water blasting equipment is equipped with a gauge to give you an accurate reading of the pressure output from the unit, not the pressure coming from the nozzle or tip of the water blaster. That pressure is less than the output of the water blaster unit itself and is affected by many factors, including the gallons-per-minute capacity of the unit, the length of the hose and how wide the hose is. If you need to calculate a specific amount of spray pressure, you will need to consult a "pressure drop chart."
Check Your PSI
When buying accessories for water blasters or surface cleaners, double check the PSI rating of the water blasting equipment or pressure surface cleaners you are about to purchase. Some gear, such as system valves, are offered in the same configurations for both water blasters and surface cleaners, which have different PSI ratings. It is never safe to use an accessory rated for a lower PSI on a higher-rated pressure system. It is easy to overwhelm a lower-rated accessory with too much pressure from a high-PSI water blaster system, causing the part to rupture, break, or explode.
Surface Cleaners & Your Business
Surface cleaners can come in at anywhere between 8 inches and 38 inches in diameter. The versatility alone is one of the most impressive aspects of these devices. The larger sizes being perfect for practically any contractor use. They are ideal for cleaning driveways and getting rid of irritating grease or oil stains in cement. But they can just as easily be used to remove algae and fuel residue from the hull of a boat, or clean both basketball courts and bathrooms alike.
The use of washer surface cleaners lowers the cost of labor substantially, since the jobs get done so much quicker than they would without surface cleaners. Whether you have a job that requires hot or cold water, surface cleaners can get it done.
So when starting a business, surface cleaners can help you keep costs down and profits high by limiting the labor costs and maximizing your efficiency. By being able to cover more ground in less time than you would with a traditional wand, you can double or even triple the jobs that you can take on.
From cleaning parking lots to saunas and restaurants, you'll be able to maintain a variety of business with time and energy to spare.
| Guru Spotlight |
| Alexis Niki |
