Hot water system?? Ionic? Grippamax

[Naomi]

something is wrong here naomi,what boiler are you using?,

It's called fast Star I think, now it's stopped even firing up. And yes we have gas [emoji23] I may be female but I'm not THAT simple [emoji23][emoji23]


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[kevinc250]

It's called fast Star I think, now it's stopped even firing up. And yes we have gas

I may be female but I'm not THAT simple

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never said you were simple naomie,infact i admire you for asking for help,i was trying to get to the bottom of the problem with the boiler not firing up,(i have experience with both gas and deisel heaters)

theres no need to spend 5k when you can actually buy a better stystem suited to your requirments for far less naomi

 

[kevinc250]

It's called fast Star I think, now it's stopped even firing up. And yes we have gas

I may be female but I'm not THAT simple

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i think you more have a flow issue naomi,the gas boilers comes on at a set flow (they can be tweaked if you use a very low flow)

if you can post your tank your van set up details and a photo that will give more insight because i think you have an underlying problem or issue somewhere to go through a few heaters 

 

[Pjj]

That's reassuring, I've just been reading on another forum people having a lot of costly breakdowns, how often do you service it? And can you set to put water back into tank when pole isn't running?


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To be fair I did have a couple of issues with it in the first 6 months but Oliver personally traveled all the way to Cornwall to sort it out that’s a long way from Cambridge, there customer service is excellent, I haven’t had it serviced since the issues were sorted out , genuinely it is running 8 hours a day 5 days a week we do do some seriously big jobs with up to 5 people working from the one van and I cannot fault it . When we are traveling between jobs or when the hose reels are not being used for windowcleaning we connect the hose to a tank return so the water is constantly returning to the tank which keeps the water nice and hot between jobs , these heaters are designed to run flat out they coke up if you constantly stop start with them . The only down side is running costs about 1.1 ltr per hour which sounds good but over 

40+ hours a week it is expensive , we use hot all year round contrary to what some people say it does clean better , quicker , particularly with costal conditions and salt we did a big job today the salt was that bad on the windows you couldn’t see through them that’s not exaggerating, we did 3 big houses in the time it took another company  with cold to do one . Hope this is helpful if you have any questions feel free to give me a ring 07855462204 

 

[Pjj]

You would need to consider your options very carefully and not be too taken in by salesmen and sales literature. As far as diesel heaters are concerned the suppliers usually use Webasto units. Ionics work slightly differently  so you have to very carefully weigh up the pros and cons of each system.

As with most 2 man systems the suppliers use Webasto ST90 diesel furnaces. If you do a search on the main boating forums you will see that there are numerous issues with boaters/live-a-boards using diesel heaters (Webasto are the most popular of the diesel heaters so take the most criticism.) The problem surrounds the use of red diesel.

There was a boater who threatened to take Webasto to court for selling a product not fit for purpose. I can’t remember the full details but he was complaining about regular heater failure and the cost of repairs.

Webasto took that same unit and ran it for 6 months on road diesel and found that the boiler was in perfect condition inside, where the same boiler, over the same period of time was completely chocked up with soot and carbon from using red diesel fuel causing it to fail. Webasto didn’t blame red diesel per say but blamed the quality of some of the fuel sold on boating marinas.  

Hurricane heaters were sold by Brodex at one time and they claimed their heaters worked fine on red diesel. However, an independent boat yard repairer said that they were just as bad – there weren’t many complaints about Hurricane due to the fact that there aren’t many out there to begin with.

We live on the North Coast and there is a supplier selling red diesel to the fishermen. One of the window cleaners I talk to uses red diesel in his window cleaning van. He uses a hot box with an exhaust through the roof. The top of his van is black with soot all around the vent from the boiler. No wonder it clogs the internal boiler with carbon.

(I have an Eberspacher Airtronic air heater in my van. It runs on road diesel from the van’s tank. It was nearly new when I bought it and it been in my van for 8 years. It’s never had a service and starts each time I want to use it in winter.) Webasto bought Eberspacher (Espar in the USA) out many years ago.

Tankless Gas heaters provide instant heat where a Webasto (or Eberspacher, Mukuni, Hurricane etc) doesn’t.

A Webasto is primary designed as a diesel preheater for vehicles used in cold countries and has been adapted for window cleaning. It was designed to be switched on about 30 minutes before a journey begins to heat the engine coolant up to just below normal engine running temperature. In the process it also had the electronics to switch the internal blower of the vehicles cabin on when the water got to 30 degrees C to defrost the windscreen and warm the vehicle up a bit inside.

Once the water in the engine reached a certain temperature the unit kicks into half heat mode and then when it reaches full temperature it starts its power down and switch off cycle which lasts 180 secs. Start up also takes time as the unit does lots of checks before it starts up. Diesels heaters need to work. If they stop and restart all the time they won’t work well for you. If you are working on a large commercial building where the cleaners are going from one window to the next then this is fine. If you have small residential jobs scattered all over then you are going to have issues. (Ionics have a different setup to some others with pros and cons to consider).

When a heater starts it draws up to 20+ amps of current in pulses over a few minutes before it settles down to about what a wfp pump draws. Window cleaners have issues with batteries failing as there aren’t many leisure batteries that will support these high power draws. (There are a few more now such as Numax who also quote CCA (cold cranking amps) on some of their leisure batteries as they have to accommodate caravan movers as well.)

You do need a separate battery for the heater IMHO and you can’t rely on a Split Charge Relay to keep it fully charged.

 These are things you need to know and understand before you decide diesel is the way to go.

The main complaints levied by window cleaners are how often the unit needs servicing, the cost of servicing and battery issues.

A diesel heater heats up an internal water core including a header tank. In that internal core is one or two water to water plate heat exchangers depending on if it’s a single or twin operator system. These heat exchangers are what draw heat from the internal core and transfer it to the water going to the brush head. Most of the suppliers incorporate a mixing valve onto the heat exchanger which is used to regulate to temperature of the water going to the brush.

If the window cleaners stop and talk, the furnace continues to heat the water until it gets to its full heat and starts the process of shutting the furnace down which takes 180 seconds. If the operators start to use the system just after it starts to power down, the furnace will still go through its cycle and after the cycle has finished will then start up again. By that time all the heat in the core will be used up and the operators will be using cold water. If they are doing small jobs then chances are this will be the norm – initial hot with cold ending.

Now Ionics use a different system. Their window cleaning pumps work 100% of the time, even when the operator switches his pole tap off. When the pole tap is switched off the pump increases the pressure in the line to above 65psi and a pressure relief valve operates and diverts that hot water back to the storage tank. What this does is keeps the furnace running and reduces stop start. The operators will always have hot water to work with.

The downside of Ionic system is that you can’t fine tune the water temperature to the brush. All Ionics gives you is a summer and winter switch that reprograms the furnace to operate at a lower temperature range.

.

Very good advice dont use red diesel and do t stop start with it all the time , we have over 400 amp gel batteries which is over kill but we do use up to 4 pumps and 6-8 reels on one job so need the extra power 

 

[Pjj]

how much more £ does he earn using hot i think you will fine its 0 i know three guys that have junked the heat

1.because it so unreliable

 2.  because apart from warm hands that made no extra money from it let alone voiding your insurance carrying a fix gas bottle about with out telling them 

3. its only any better on first cleaning and a squirt of viasol sorts that out at a cost of 0.5p  

We ran cold systems for 10 years and have now had hot for just over 3 years it is worth the expense in my opinion we do a lot of salty costal work very dirty plastic and building wash downs and it makes a huge difference in time and the finish is much better with hot , we regularly get asked to re clean jobs others have done beacause the customers arnt happy with the results of other company’s , that’s not boasting it’s just a reality , many people ask now do you use hot water when phoning up or website enquiries, our system has paid for its self many times over with the contracts that we have secured , but like all subjects I’ve no doubt some will totally disagree with what I’ve said and everyone is entitled to there opinion , but that’s my first hand experience 

 

[Pjj]

I think it's more that we advertise using the fact we are the only hot water cleaners in our area, which brings a lot of customers to us


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We are exactly the same 

 

[Donny]

something is wrong here naomi,what boiler are you using?,

Exactly what i was thinking, ive been using a Cointra LPG boiler for 5 years now, never misses a beat

 

[Naomi]

never said you were simple naomie,infact i admire you for asking for help,i was trying to get to the bottom of the problem with the boiler not firing up,(i have experience with both gas and deisel heaters)
theres no need to spend 5k when you can actually buy a better stystem suited to your requirments for far less naomi

No I didn't think you were at all I was mocking myself as half the time I tell my husband something is broken I've unplugged it [emoji23][emoji23]

Can I ask what you would suggest? X


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[Julian Noddy Dean]

We are exactly the same 

cool so 5 quid worth off stickers for the vans quick change on the 4 web site and i am off with hot water , its not like the customer can tell because once its hits the floor its cold great idear ! thanks for that (joke)

i know  hot water as i clean carpets with water over 280o  you have none idear how quick it cools down even when where at 600 psi its leaves the cleaner at around 290ish and hits the carpet around 255ish running only 100ft of hose !

  the only different s between hot and cold water is that when broken down hot h20 moves faster then cold h20 when at  the  molecul  level (again hyramaster spent million on this research ) so the water is hitting the fame and window faster and harder then cold this is fact so my next question is at what point to do need to up the psi with cold to do the same job ? wheres spruce ?

 

[spruce]

cool so 5 quid worth off stickers for the vans quick change on the 4 web site and i am off with hot water , its not like the customer can tell because once its hits the floor its cold great idear ! thanks for that (joke)

i know  hot water as i clean carpets with water over 280o  you have none idear how quick it cools down even when where at 600 psi its leaves the cleaner at around 290ish and hits the carpet around 255ish running only 100ft of hose !

  the only different s between hot and cold water is that when broken down hot h20 moves faster then cold h20 when at  the  molecul  level (again hyramaster spent million on this research ) so the water is hitting the fame and window faster and harder then cold this is fact so my next question is at what point to do need to up the psi with cold to do the same job ? wheres spruce ?

Your hot info regarding carpet cleaning is very interesting. I have also found the adverts on tv for steam cleaning windows with a small steam 'generator' through a cloth interesting as well.

Sometimes, the sales spiel can get additional business because customers get drawn in by it. "You wouldn't wash your dirty dishes with cold water would you? so why ..................... " We have a friend who was once a carpet cleaner down south. He had 2 carpet cleaning machines, an old one and a new one. The new one was quiet and worked efficiently where the old one was noisy and didn't do as good a job. But customers preferred him to use the noisy one as they felt it was doing a better job because of the racket it was making.

However, I'm not convinced that hot water is the best thing since sliced bread for window cleaning. Yes, there are going to be those odd times when snail trails and birds lime full of fat ball residue will come off the glass quicker than with cold, but we don't seem to notice much difference in general with cold water in winter or summer.

Yes, water flows easier in summer when it's warmer than it does in winter, but it isn't that noticable. All we do is put our Varistream's dead end up a point in winter and on some house increase the flow a bit as well.

My initial interest in warm water (not hot) was about 10 years ago a little after we upgraded to minibore hose. The hose we bought from Cleantech was brilliant ( we still have some on my son's occassionaly used hose reel), but it was and still is terribly stiff and unmanagable (by todays standards) during the winter. I wanted to make the hoses slightly more managable.

I set up a 2 man test rig with a Thermo Top C Webasto diesel heater. The best performance I could get out of that furnace was to raise the water temperature from 9 degrees (water temp in the tank) to 35 degrees at the brush head at 1.5lpm of water flow. Now that water flow was at cold and when that water was at 35 degrees the water jets from the brush head sprayed nearly twice as far. So for me running 2 operators and raising the temperature at the brush head to around 15 to 20 degrees C would bring the managability of the hoses in line with summer and that was good enough for me.

However, what I was dissappointed with was that according to physics it would require 2.65kw of heat to heat that water through 26 degrees at that flow. The furnace was a 5.2kw, so where was all the rest of the heat going? I had to conclude that the remaining heat (just less than 50%) was being lost in the heater internal heating system itself, from the heater and through the exhaust which gets very hot. So turning that into reality, for every £1 of diesel used, 45p is wasted. Now, Webasto say the Thermo Top C uses 0.61 liter of fuel and hour on full heat output and 0.30 liters per hour on reduced heat mode. Reduced heat mode operates in a small window so the majority of a working day will be spend on full throttle. If we worked 6 hours then we would expect to use about 3.5 liters of diesel. As Webastos don't like red diesel we need to use the price of road diesel in our calculation. At 1.20p a liter (Asda has it at 1.167p atm) it means heating the water to just above warm is going to cost around £4 a day. (Strangely enough, on the test bench my Webasto used a lot more fuel than Webasto specify it does, but as this wasn't part of my focus, it slipped by unnoticed.) That could be £80 a month or £960 a year extra on diesel. I'm struggling to justify that extra spending.

Within a couple of years the quality of small bore hosing has improved so much that there isn't that much of a difference in managability of hoses in summer to winter.

The nice thing about using warm water is that the pole with internal pole hose is nicer to hold, but then a pair of gloves would sort that out.

One of the local windies fitted an LPG heater which he used for a couple of seasons. It was rated at 16kw which is 3 times what the Thermo Top C is rated at. My mate went back to cold water. He had a scare with a gas leak at the regulator (the regulator itself) and his van filled up with gas. He got a fright and removed the whole setup.

From a safety point of view, there isn't much to go wrong with a cold water system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against diesel heaters. I love my Airtronic unit which I run when it gets too cold outside for my comfort. Its lovely getting into a warm cabin after working outside to thaw out.

I have plans to fit that Thermo Top in my Xsara hdi but I doubt it will ever happen due to my health and not getting any younger.

.

 

[Pjj]

cool so 5 quid worth off stickers for the vans quick change on the 4 web site and i am off with hot water , its not like the customer can tell because once its hits the floor its cold great idear ! thanks for that (joke)

i know  hot water as i clean carpets with water over 280o  you have none idear how quick it cools down even when where at 600 psi its leaves the cleaner at around 290ish and hits the carpet around 255ish running only 100ft of hose !

  the only different s between hot and cold water is that when broken down hot h20 moves faster then cold h20 when at  the  molecul  level (again hyramaster spent million on this research ) so the water is hitting the fame and window faster and harder then cold this is fact so my next question is at what point to do need to up the psi with cold to do the same job ? wheres spruce ?

We have contracts with a very large national company that have several thousand large blocks of retirement flats and it’s part of the tendering proces that you use hot water you also have to prove this with photographic evidence showing all filtration and heater , the reason for this is that they had a national company based up north doing work for them they were sending two guys out In a van with just a tank and pump then filling up at the customers water supply and just using tap water , I kid you not and this is a very well known window cleaning firm better not say the name on hear , we now do quite a number of these  blocks of flats for them the regional manager Evan asked to meet up with us to take a look at our kit , so there is a lot more to it than just saying that you have certain equipment I think more firms will go this way too as many are being ripped of by people just using tap water :  many companies now if you clean solar panels for them want regular water samples and dated photos each day you are on sight proving your tds , Ime all for it as it might root out these under cutting cowboys 

 

[spruce]

We have contracts with a very large national company that have several thousand large blocks of retirement flats and it’s part of the tendering proces that you use hot water you also have to prove this with photographic evidence showing all filtration and heater , the reason for this is that they had a national company based up north doing work for them they were sending two guys out In a van with just a tank and pump then filling up at the customers water supply and just using tap water , I kid you not and this is a very well known window cleaning firm better not say the name on hear , we now do quite a number of these  blocks of flats for them the regional manager Evan asked to meet up with us to take a look at our kit , so there is a lot more to it than just saying that you have certain equipment I think more firms will go this way too as many are being ripped of by people just using tap water :  many companies now if you clean solar panels for them want regular water samples and dated photos each day you are on sight proving your tds , Ime all for it as it might root out these under cutting cowboys 

Yep. There is a window cleaning company based further north than we are who do a lot of work for the local councils.

They've got the jobs because they can show a healthy balance sheet and have lodged a financial guarantee in case of an issue. I certainly wouldn't remortgage my house to come up with the guarantee they wanted. I was told not even bother to quote. As a sole trader, I would never be able to meet the company turnover requirements they need when vetting new contractors.

The state of the windows after they have cleaned is unbelievable. But they still have the jobs having done them for years with the same shoddy workmanship. They fill up with water at the customers premises and put the water through a di vessel as they wash. The trouble is, the resin is long since spent. But no one seems to care.

 

[Cghwindowcleaning]

I have never heard of a client insisting on hot water and I only clean commercial.

unless you do work on the coast or city centres with a lot of pollution or commercial window cleaning on long frequencies say 6-12 months then hot water won't make much difference on maintenance window cleaning.

I had a demo of the grippa hot system about 3 years ago.Now don't get me wrong it was a very good system with some nice features like frost protection and well made.

They came to a commercial building I clean(regular) and I have to say it made no difference to speed or finish on the glass if it was on a really dirty building or annual clean my experience and opinion may be different.

But in all honesty it was 5k + running costs to keep your hands warm which is one  very expensive pair of gloves.

 

[Part Timer]

Yep. There is a window cleaning company based further north than we are who do a lot of work for the local councils.

They've got the jobs because they can show a healthy balance sheet and have lodged a financial guarantee in case of an issue. I certainly wouldn't remortgage my house to come up with the guarantee they wanted. I was told not even bother to quote. As a sole trader, I would never be able to meet the company turnover requirements they need when vetting new contractors.

The state of the windows after they have cleaned is unbelievable. But they still have the jobs having done them for years with the same shoddy workmanship. They fill up with water at the customers premises and put the water through a di vessel as they wash. The trouble is, the resin is long since spent. But no one seems to care.

Are they part owned by a "dragon" or based in South Shields. The Shields one are glass only cleaners and do all of Sunderland Council work. 

 

[Pjj]

I have never heard of a client insisting on hot water and I only clean commercial.

unless you do work on the coast or city centres with a lot of pollution or commercial window cleaning on long frequencies say 6-12 months then hot water won't make much difference on maintenance window cleaning.

I had a demo of the grippa hot system about 3 years ago.Now don't get me wrong it was a very good system with some nice features like frost protection and well made.

They came to a commercial building I clean(regular) and I have to say it made no difference to speed or finish on the glass if it was on a really dirty building or annual clean my experience and opinion may be different.

But in all honesty it was 5k + running costs to keep your hands warm which is one  very expensive pair of gloves.

Most of our commercial work is 6 weekly jobs that took 4 hours with cold we usually do with hot in 3 hours . Some are on the coast with loads of salt on sometimes they are that bad that you would think the windows and balustrade were opaque these jobs we do in half the time with hot it desolves the salt much quicker and rinses much faster , we always had a problem with run marks with cold very rarely do we get that with hot , I accept it’s not cheap to buy and uses about 1.1 ltr per hour in diesel but I feel it’s well worth it and we have secured several contracts beacause the customer wanted the job doing with hot water as they had previously had cleaners using cold and the windows looked worse after cleaning than before . Also plastic cleans are a lot quicker with hot also I have no idear why but the finish with hot is definitely better 

 

[Pjj]

Are they part owned by a "dragon" or based in South Shields. The Shields one are glass only cleaners and do all of Sunderland Council work. 

The firms name is made up of letters , no idear about being owned by a dragon 

 

[Nextgen]

We are looking at upgrading from a lpg boiler system to a diesel hot box, any recommendations? Budget of around 5k would really appreciate any advice or reviews

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For me I am filling my tank to a level for cleaning windows that day using my combi boiler first thing in the morning my tank is insulated as best I can and only on really cold days and works amazing, a lot cheaper and cost effective and saves valuable space in my van. It's only getting filled with hot water on an as required basis hope this helps.

 

[ched999uk]

For me I am filling my tank to a level for cleaning windows that day using my combi boiler first thing in the morning my tank is insulated as best I can and only on really cold days and works amazing, a lot cheaper and cost effective and saves valuable space in my van. It's only getting filled with hot water on an as required basis hope this helps.

You realise that you just replied to a post from 5 years ago!
I assume you have low TDS so just DI or is your membrane OK with hot water?

 

[Nextgen]

You realise that you just replied to a post from 5 years ago!
I assume you have low TDS so just DI or is your membrane OK with hot water?

Yes just DI it's only for short term measure to get through the winter

 

[Nextgen]

Yes just DI it's only for short term measure to get through the winter

Just for clarity it's lukewarm water I'm using it won't burn your hand, only taking the chill off it.
Just trying to help out those that can't afford a hotbox to get them through the winter by only using say half a tank you don't need to spend too much money to be able to wash windows in minus temperature feel it would work even using RO as it's not that hot.