johnmurrell
New Member
I'm John, I'm based in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and have been in the exterior cleaning business for about 2 1/2 years.
I mostly do residential work; walls & windows - hand wash, and rooves/driveways - high pressure, with some commercial - driveway/path, out door eating area, shop front, loading bay, bin area etc.
My equipment is fairly basic - 13hp Honda 2:1 reduction gearbox, 3600psi 15 litres/min mobile unit, twin lance & turbo nozzle, 20" surface cleaner. Waste water issues are the same over here - regulations but no enforcement.
Chemicals are sprayed with a handheld garden sprayer (had an electric pump but can't get internals to cope with chemicals), I use chlorine (liquid from pool supplies ~ 100g/l) and cheap detergent mostly.
My biggest challenge is water restrictions- our area hasn't a new water storage/supply built in 30 years, but has more than tripled in size in that time - plus we are having the worst drought in 100 years. The restrictions don't allow any surface cleaning (which was about half my business) and the campaign to reduce water consumption has worked very well - as very few houses are being washed. The dams are about 32% capacity and when thet get to 30% the next level of restrictions apply.
I've had quite a bit of time lately to peruse the BB and I'm constantly impressed with everyones willingness to share tips and experiences - I wish I had found this BB when I was starting up! (I've met a couple of locals who do exerior cleaning, one had no secrets and was very helpful and the other would ask lots of question expecting an answer but not give anything away "I couln't tell you that, it would be giving away trade secrets").
Cheers
John
Westside-Waterblasting
ALL EXTERIOR CLEANING
I mostly do residential work; walls & windows - hand wash, and rooves/driveways - high pressure, with some commercial - driveway/path, out door eating area, shop front, loading bay, bin area etc.
My equipment is fairly basic - 13hp Honda 2:1 reduction gearbox, 3600psi 15 litres/min mobile unit, twin lance & turbo nozzle, 20" surface cleaner. Waste water issues are the same over here - regulations but no enforcement.
Chemicals are sprayed with a handheld garden sprayer (had an electric pump but can't get internals to cope with chemicals), I use chlorine (liquid from pool supplies ~ 100g/l) and cheap detergent mostly.
My biggest challenge is water restrictions- our area hasn't a new water storage/supply built in 30 years, but has more than tripled in size in that time - plus we are having the worst drought in 100 years. The restrictions don't allow any surface cleaning (which was about half my business) and the campaign to reduce water consumption has worked very well - as very few houses are being washed. The dams are about 32% capacity and when thet get to 30% the next level of restrictions apply.
I've had quite a bit of time lately to peruse the BB and I'm constantly impressed with everyones willingness to share tips and experiences - I wish I had found this BB when I was starting up! (I've met a couple of locals who do exerior cleaning, one had no secrets and was very helpful and the other would ask lots of question expecting an answer but not give anything away "I couln't tell you that, it would be giving away trade secrets").
Cheers
John
Westside-Waterblasting
ALL EXTERIOR CLEANING
