So much happens in a week!!

[tootyclub]

I've flitted in and out of the forum this week reading up on stuff and generally trying to get my brain in gear for what's about to happen..

I've been rather a busy boy buying wfp things. I firstly bought a bargain job lot of gear for £100 which consisted of a collins ro 450 gpd , 11ltr di vessel filled, 30ft conservatory pole and brush and three 25ltr drums.. The ro system was still in the box brand fire new...

I started to then wonder if i'd done the right thing as i'd never done wfp before..... I didn't have a trolley, backpack , diy trolley.... anything... So I bought the components for a diy trolley which i'd read about on here thanks to jimmyboots........I was then excited, but very apprehensive about the build so I just thought i'd browse around the classifieds and stumbled upon an 'extend2wash' trolley by john hewitt I think, which was going for £100.....

I almost had all the gear to start, including 3 full drums of pure water that the lad give me in the first deal.

I've bought a few other bits like a tds meter, tap fittings etc....

I had a go on my own house with the gear and I've got to say I was a little sceptical at first due to the water droplets left on the glass, but once evaporated they were gleaming...

I've set my shed up as a water station to which i've ran and concealed 15mtrs of hosepipe inside 32 mm black plastic waste pipe, directly under the guttering.....Which blends in well and looks inconspicuous.....

One full day of converting the shed and I've now got 400 litres of pure water crammed in to an old redundant wheelie bin and a 230ltr water butt from wilkinsons....

I cannot believe how smoothly it's gone, and when I got a tds reading from my house of 115, then 03 from the ro, then zero after it came through the di vessel, you can probably guess that I was ecstatic... I'm 100% trad, love it and feel i do a good all round job inc doors,frames etc, but this will hopefully make me some more money on other aspects of cleaning...

I've a gutters and fascia clean and also a conservatory roof to do and I'll be armed with my new 5ltr kingfisher pressure sprayer and 5ltr bottle of virosol.. Below are some of the items I bought. Thank you for reading my story and I'll hopefully post up some pics of my setup this week... Any advice and help will be greatly appreciated.. Goodnight all... Tootyclub

View attachment 2764

View attachment 2765

View attachment 2766

 

[boarcity]

good idea , concealing your pipework like that.

 

[TolishAPurd]

:thumbsup:Sounds like you're well on your way mate. GJ

 

[abs]

Them trolleys are really good a full charge on mine lasts all week /emoticons/smile.png

 

[Smurf]

Excellent result bud as you must have saved yourself a fortune with the bargain gear you picked up....nice one :thumbsup:

 

[cheapncheerful]

top post tooty...now off you go and make some dosh....and of course ..keep up the posts.../emoticons/biggrin.png

 

[tootyclub]

Well disaster has struck!!! ...I linked up the wheelie bin to the water butt by drilling a hole in the top of the wheelie and then feeding a piece of plastic pipe from an old air pump I had in to the water buttlinking thread and then used what I had to seal round the pipe( roof and gutter sealent ) from the pound shop.. All seemed well till I had a little nosey in the shed to look at all the pipes, feel the plastic on the water butt, stroke the wood i'd used to build the frame...... you know, the things that don't need to be touched or looked at but because of my latest obsession I just feel I have to.... I fired up the torch and popped my head in the wheelie and noticed the water had a mad tinge in colour..... Tds meter at the ready.... 05....what...

Dipped the Tds in the water butt and...03.... holy sugar... so I looked at the link pipe i'd sealed in and the sealent was bleeding and also a teeny leak had sprung..... I'm puttng it down to contamination, yet I'm only a water novice ha ha..

All of this is purely down to my eagerness to get it up and running, which has been my problem in the past as I'm like a bull at a gate and sometimes cut corners...

Anyway I'm not going to cry over it and will tomorrow set about rectifying the problems... Here are my options below..

A....Should I treat myself to another water butt for 24 quid and get the proper link kit...

B...Should I buy a tap for the wheelie and try to install it ( which I should have tried before I filled with water) but instead settled on just syphoning as and when needed....

All in all though it's quite enjoyable doing this little project and I'm just hoping I can make a good go of my new venture.. Using the wheelie bin was a bit cheapskatish and to buy another isn't the end of the world.

I would just like to say also that I think this forum is really entertaining and helpful..

Cheers, tootyclub

 

[Smurf]

We all have are little setback but I'm sure you will sort it out. :thumbsup:

 

[cheapncheerful]

great post tootyclub keep us informed....and sometimes things dont always go to plan but eventually we get there....i am lucky if anything goes wrong i have forgotten about it a few days later....i wont mention my extension roof which i put on and is leaking and dripping on the daughters bed....so i messed about....and its now dripping on her fish tank...ahh well...it will keep the tank topped up....

 

[Smurf]

How cool is that as your daughter now has a waterfall in her bedroom. Bless

great post tootyclub keep us informed....and sometimes things dont always go to plan but eventually we get there....i am lucky if anything goes wrong i have forgotten about it a few days later....i wont mention my extension roof which i put on and is leaking and dripping on the daughters bed....so i messed about....and its now dripping on her fish tank...ahh well...it will keep the tank topped up....

 

[tootyclub]

I know everyting will be ok in the end ... well hopefully...

I think the watet storage issue will be resolved , but now my thoughts are with future work... All of my work is trad and the customers all seem happy, but to take on house cleans using wfp will be more daunting to me than a fascia or conservatory roof clean.. I think I may just stick to trad for the glass and use wfp for other bits and bobs.......Time will tell I suppose... I'm sure I'll continue to do frank spencer proud for a little while yet up the ladders ha ..

 

[tootyclub]

@cheepncheerful.... my middle names are diy and disaster.. I once tried to repair my flat roof and 3 weeks later came home to find my bathroom had a big sunroof.... lovely..

 

[cheapncheerful]

or you could just do what i do....if they are out....i wfp first ...and then go and check trad....most of the time....nowt to do...and the only reason it doesnt work is because of the sh it left on the top frames and running down...its a bit of a change if nothing else..

i do have the repair stuff all ready to mend my roof but.....when....and some **** head screwed every single roof tile down...when its a first floor extension and the weight of the interlocking tiles means very few need a screw in...divvy

 

[tootyclub]

Very good idea about doing while they're out... Paranoia will get me for a few cleans, but like you say, trad can always come to the rescue. Luckily, I try and keep the frames tip top so moving across to wfp may not be as bad as I'm thinking.. cheers

 

[abs]

Very good idea about doing while they're out... Paranoia will get me for a few cleans, but like you say, trad can always come to the rescue. Luckily, I try and keep the frames tip top so moving across to wfp may not be as bad as I'm thinking.. cheers

You will be very surprised at the amount of dirt pure water fetches from the top frames, I always scrub the hell out of the top frames on first cleans , done right you don't need to go on the frame on the maintenance cleans

 

[cheapncheerful]

i have kept mine quite clean but really on trad i just dry wipe them and i think thats where the problem comes in as although they look clean...dry wiping isnt going to shift the ground in dirt...

yeh thanks puraclenz i must scrub a bit more first...and of course i think my investment was worth it just for cleaning my own windows and plastics full stop...the frames have come up a treat...and we are talking...never cleaned and two dogs...

 

[abs]

Know what you mean cnc I've had new customers asking me for frame cleans and even had this woman last week contact me for a one off clean off a 2 bed house she told me her frames were really bad and she wanted them looking like new, so I said I'd possibly need to use cream cleanser and explained this takes ages, we arranged a price of £45 and she left it under a plant pot and left the gate unlocked ,,, well pleased the job took only 10 minutes , the cleaning power of pure water is fantastic

 

[RiceRocket]

@tootyclub have you looked on eBay to see if you're near anywhere selling IBCs?

 

[tootyclub]

@RiceRocket ..Thanks for the idea and I do live close by to a place that does sell the used ibc tanks for about 40quid each for used 1000ltr ones, but I'm a little limited for space at the moment and wanted to try and use the wheelie bin/water butt system which fit like a glove next to each other in my shed..... I'm finally back up and running now after quite a hectic day...

First of all I was greeted by the sight of a smashed drivers side window on my van which was done during the night by some *****... Luckily nothing was taken from the van and I'm hoping it was just a drunken prank, but means I've got to go and get one from a scrap yard tomorrow and attempt to fit it....which will be fun...peugeot partner w reg ... advice anyone haha...... It's my mam's birthday today so i've been over there for most of the day so only got my teeth in to my water purifying and wheelie bin modification hobbies about 2 hrs ago and I'm pleased to say I put a tap on the wheelie and it works fine, so is now sat proudly in the shed again with it's 230 ltr friend, both empty of the bad water and slowly filling up now, so by morning time I'll have hopefully around 400 litres of pure.... My shed is now ultra organised and everywhere has it's place, including a 'record' vice I've had for years, but has had it's bench trimmed in half to cope with the new additions..... I've got the fascia job tomorrow morning, so I'm nervous but excited about that as they're filthy, and I just hope I'm up to the job...

Should I just fill my trolley with tap water for the job and then finish the windows with pure in wfp.... If need be I will finish the windows in trad if my brush is gunked up... These are the little things I need to discover and for sure this is going to be a steep learning curve.... If all else fails I've got my trad skills to fall back on ha... Tootyclub

 

[Smurf]

Sorry to hear of your smashed van window..../emoticons/sad.png

Glad to hear that you have sorted the shed out though. For future reference if your tds goes over 000 ppm in your storage tanks then rather than throwing it down the drain you can get a chepo submersible pump either 12v or 240 volt then connect a di tank in-line to bring it back down to 000 ppm whilst transferring water to containers and/or van tank

Regarding fascia cleans you don't need pure water to clean plastics so if they have an outside tap just connect a garden hose reel & wfp to the hose instead. For stubbon grime you can pre-spray with a chem like tfr, virosol, ubik etc or just apply it directly to the brush instead.

Some plastics can get badly stained/discoloured which doesn't come off like tigger stripes without using a scrub pad, solvent/cream cleaners etc so you will need to be upfront with customers and tell them if you can or can't remove them.

 

[tootyclub]

Aaah....I didn't realise that about the waste water... I did actually save a little for my plants, and I swilled down my yard but I did feel a little wasteful emptying most of it away so this is really handy to know... If things progress I will probably get a little pump.. Thank you for the good advice smurf as it's given me food for thought i.e.... little things like connecting wfp to the customers tap which will conserve my water, and the virosol, which I read about in one of your previous threads, which will hopefully lift the grime off quick as a flush... I'll take a few snaps and post up my results tomorrow...

Thank again mate.......Tootyclub