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Post by OziRiS on Jul 16, 2013 15:47:19 GMT
This is where ideas differ then.... I am talking about a truck 60ft long trailer and cab unit with up to a weeks worth of road dirt, salt spray during winter, mud, all kids of krud, crud, qurd and the rest of it.... sometimes so thick you cant see the writing on the side.... Sometimes an inch thick of road salt deposit on Mud-flaps.... If that kind of crud will simply rinse off, it saves Chemicals. Why dissolve crud into chemical when it will simply drop off with water?... Because the bottom layer (the first day's worth) is usually stuck in there pretty well and won't come off with just water. Laying a film of water over that by first rinsing off "the worst crap" on the outside of it will leave you with more work getting that initial layer of crud off. Spray on enough diluted soap to begin with and you get it all in one fell swoop. That's my experience anyway... |
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Post by the light works on Jul 16, 2013 17:02:00 GMT
This is where ideas differ then.... I am talking about a truck 60ft long trailer and cab unit with up to a weeks worth of road dirt, salt spray during winter, mud, all kids of krud, crud, qurd and the rest of it.... sometimes so thick you cant see the writing on the side.... Sometimes an inch thick of road salt deposit on Mud-flaps.... If that kind of crud will simply rinse off, it saves Chemicals. Why dissolve crud into chemical when it will simply drop off with water?... Because the bottom layer (the first day's worth) is usually stuck in there pretty well and won't come off with just water. Laying a film of water over that by first rinsing off "the worst crap" on the outside of it will leave you with more work getting that initial layer of crud off. Spray on enough diluted soap to begin with and you get it all in one fell swoop. That's my experience anyway... so you are saying you are going to spray on enough soap to dissolve this:  when we wash our fire engines, we use about a tablespoon of soap. how much soap does your method use? |
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 16, 2013 17:29:47 GMT
That's exactly what I'm saying.
The difference between you washing your fire engines and me washing something like that is that you don't have to turn a profit doing it (and I'm guessing it's more than one guy on that job?). I did.
Washing something like that would typically cost the customer about $90. My hourly pay was about $28, so the longer it took for me to get it done, the less profit for the company. If I had to wash that by rinsing off the worst of it with water and then do the rest with a bucket of soapy water and a brush (which was how it was done when I started the job), it would take me about an hour and a half, not including the time it took for the driver to get the truck into and out of the truck wash. With the special soap/chemical we used, it took me 30 minutes. 45 if you include getting the truck in and out.
The "spray most of the gunk off first" method also uses considerably more water than the soap/chemical way, so that's an added cost. We did the math on it once and came up with a monthly saving of about $100 in water even though we factored in the cost of the soap/chemical.
See how that works? Doing it my way allowed me to get 2 trucks through the wash in the same amount of time your way would get one through. Simple economics.
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Post by the light works on Jul 16, 2013 18:01:39 GMT
It takes me about 10 minutes to do a fire engine by the hose and bucket method. it takes me 20 to 30 by doing the presoak method on my truck. the difference is that my truck has about 3 months of road grime, bugs, and diesel exhaust by the time I get around to washing it. the fire engine has ordinary dirt, which is essentially water soluble - the soap just keeps it from readhering as it is scrubbed off.
one size does not fit all.
and yes, I use my privileges at my wife's car wash when I need to wash my truck, so I have access to the prewash solvents, in the proper concentrations.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 18, 2013 7:41:11 GMT
Question... did your wash area have under-floor scavenging drains that filtered out the mud and reclaimed the water/Soap?...
I know of one local truck wash that does that.
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 18, 2013 9:12:40 GMT
No it didn't. I asked the same question when I started the job. At the time the place was built nobody had thought of that option and the profit of retrofitting a system like that would've never outweighed the cost.
Anyway, we've veered off a little from what my original intent was. Whether you want to use this technique for washing your vehicle or not is up to you, but the basic concept works everywhere. I use it on pretty much anything that I deem too dirty to get clean the classic way, like dishes with burnt food on them, clothes with nasty stains, stains on carpets and so on. A little soap dissolved in a little water, applied to the affected area without making it wet with regular water first. Let it sit for a while and the stain comes off easier, because the soap actually has time to do its job.
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Post by the light works on Jul 18, 2013 13:36:49 GMT
No it didn't. I asked the same question when I started the job. At the time the place was built nobody had thought of that option and the profit of retrofitting a system like that would've never outweighed the cost. Anyway, we've veered off a little from what my original intent was. Whether you want to use this technique for washing your vehicle or not is up to you, but the basic concept works everywhere. I use it on pretty much anything that I deem too dirty to get clean the classic way, like dishes with burnt food on them, clothes with nasty stains, stains on carpets and so on. A little soap dissolved in a little water, applied to the affected area without making it wet with regular water first. Let it sit for a while and the stain comes off easier, because the soap actually has time to do its job. and certainly, we do that when it is appropriate. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 19, 2013 6:16:09 GMT
The truck was I regularly use has scavengers and filters, first blast is recycled water, then detergent, then spinning brush and water, then rinse in clean water, there us a jet-wash area for heavy ingrained dirt as well.
Yes, the pre-soak method can work, but I would never use a brush on it until I had washed the surface dirt off...
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 19, 2013 9:42:24 GMT
Yes, the pre-soak method can work, but I would never use a brush on it until I had washed the surface dirt off... And with what I was doing, no brush was ever needed. Only a preassure cleaner. |
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Post by the light works on Jul 19, 2013 13:27:35 GMT
Yes, the pre-soak method can work, but I would never use a brush on it until I had washed the surface dirt off... And with what I was doing, no brush was ever needed. Only a preassure cleaner. you must have better solvents than we do in the car wash. my normal was cycle for the work truck is prewash, high pressure soap bath, brush, high pressure rinse, brush, high pressure rinse, (continue repeating until the lather is pink instead of brown) wax, superfiltered rinse. there was a while the department hired out for a guy with a pressure washer to clean the apparatus, and they stopped, because the paint was all coming off. |
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Post by OziRiS on Jul 19, 2013 19:44:13 GMT
Oh, it was some pretty serious stuff!
If you had calluses on your hands - and I'm talking mechanic or carpenter type calluses that have built up over time to be a couple of millimeters thick and tough like elephant skin - and you soaked your hand in that stuff for about 3-5 minutes, you could almost effortlesly scrape that dead skin right off your hand with a fingernail.
As I said earlier: Give this stuff enough time to work and it could dissolve weeks old caked up tar or fuel oil.
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Post by the light works on Jul 20, 2013 0:52:51 GMT
Oh, it was some pretty serious stuff! If you had calluses on your hands - and I'm talking mechanic or carpenter type calluses that have built up over time to be a couple of millimeters thick and tough like elephant skin - and you soaked your hand in that stuff for about 3-5 minutes, you could almost effortlesly scrape that dead skin right off your hand with a fingernail. As I said earlier: Give this stuff enough time to work and it could dissolve weeks old caked up tar or fuel oil. all this stuff does is erode our stainless steel metering orifices. - but then, we don't put it directly on our hands. |
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 25, 2013 9:03:05 GMT
If that stuff is more caustic than ITFR, and that fades paintwork, I would be cautious in its use..........{smile}
I can quite happily refer you to good old English MUD.
You aint gettin' THAT off with no pre-soak, unless you actually sink the thing up to the windows in it?...
We have mud we can make Houses out of in England, look up wattle-and-daub, some of those houses have been standing for centuries already.....
Your telling me that this stuff will eat Houses?....
Now that is powerful stuff is that....
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Post by Cybermortis on Jul 25, 2013 13:03:39 GMT
{The thread is meant to be about hand, not truck washing - CM}
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Post by craighudson on Jul 25, 2013 14:08:28 GMT
Then it should have a title specifying washing HANDS, as opposed to washing things BY hand.
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 28, 2013 10:15:33 GMT
Thats what I thought... the thread was about washing by Hand rather than washing by Machine....?... was I wrong?...
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Post by the light works on Jul 28, 2013 15:32:16 GMT
Thats what I thought... the thread was about washing by Hand rather than washing by Machine....?... was I wrong?... I think we have a hand vs. machine thread as well; but yes, this one is about washing your hands. and on that note, has anyone found a better agent for cleaning stubborn marks off their hands than fried chicken? related, and silverdragon might like this - one of the stories my grandfather told of his youth, when he drove a truck more often than a desk: my grandmother always packed his lunches for him, and always included a peeled hard boiled egg. one day she decided that since he was an adult, and could peel his own eggs at home, she did not need to peel the eggs for his lunch. the second day of this, he came home from work, walked directly into the kitchen, pulled the egg out of his lunch box, peeled it, and handed her the resulting greasy black ball. his eggs were peeled, from then on. sometimes an example avoids a million arguments. |
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Post by craighudson on Jul 28, 2013 18:33:52 GMT
...when he drove a truck more often than a desk... How DO you drive a desk? |
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Post by silverdragon on Jul 29, 2013 8:35:55 GMT
Ask any Driver.........
Driving a desk is known as "Retirement", its being taken off the road, its not nice.
Driving a desk means either you are too OLD to drive a truck, too injured, or you lost your licence...
Driving a desk means being taken off active duty.
Military terms, being away from the front line, it can be seen as a form of promotion for those that deserve a quiet period after a HARD deployment somewhere active....
But civilian terms, unless you choose to take the desk job, it means you are a has-been.....
And as an Active driver, its common slang, "My desk does 55" kind of way, that we dont get to sit and stare out of a window at a boring scene all day long.........
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Post by the light works on Jul 29, 2013 15:37:05 GMT
Ask any Driver......... Driving a desk is known as "Retirement", its being taken off the road, its not nice. Driving a desk means either you are too OLD to drive a truck, too injured, or you lost your licence... Driving a desk means being taken off active duty. Military terms, being away from the front line, it can be seen as a form of promotion for those that deserve a quiet period after a HARD deployment somewhere active.... But civilian terms, unless you choose to take the desk job, it means you are a has-been..... And as an Active driver, its common slang, "My desk does 55" kind of way, that we dont get to sit and stare out of a window at a boring scene all day long......... or it means you have made the transition from an "us" to a "them" as in he couldn't go out and get behind the wheel until all the drivers were out behind the wheel, any broken down trucks were towed in, all the customers' calls had been dealt with, and any other business was squared away. we didn't know it until later - after he WAS too old - but after he sold his company, he did a lot of contract driving for his friends, just because he liked doing it. |
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