dmw
Well-known member
- Messages
- 864
- Location
- North Manchester
So it was around last October I stumbled upon this forum lurked around a bit before coming out of the shadows.
Anyway I'm 48 now and been tradding for 25 years and built a good solid round up from pretty much nothing. It was paying well but I was too busy and was starting to take it's toll physically and mentally and generally wearing me down.
So I was thinking of selling up for a new challenge, or carrying on to do this for the next 20 years
I didn't fancy either as it stood. What if a new venture failed? I've still got a family and mortgage to maintain. So I started looking at "water on a stick method" how does it work as in this neck of the woods it's still quite rare even now, and would the customers accept it?
Anyway the usual advice on here with Wfp is to find your tds, fine I get a quality metre and tested it for around 2 months and it averaged 70 ppm. Happy days, resin only no RO system to buy and maintain.
By Christmas now I'm looking at the method I didn't fancy the trolly system because of constant filling recharging battery etc. (And I know many on here wouldn't do it any other way and I appreciate that). But this was the only way I wanted to do it.
Now I was using the family car for work and then my wife's car was written off, so she could use mine and I would source a van for work. Looked at leasing and this worked out to be quite expensive for something I would never own.(I expect 10years out of this Van) so I decided I'll buy and have the van fitted out
The advice on here was to get a 500 litre tank, (which does get emptied on commercial s). And I'd need a van to carry it, plus ladders, Di, materials, fuel and all the other paraphernalia that goes with it, and my work consists of many tight streets and awkward parking so Transit sized was out of the question.
Anyhow I sourced a 3 year old Peugeot Partner, just off lease full history and a fresh Mot. The clanger I may have dropped is I chose the dodgy 1.6hdi, though having had it 9 months my mechanic who has looked after my motors for many years says flushing the engine helps and he's looked after another customer with the same engine and it has done 200k trouble free miles, so time will tell, even fully loaded it pulls effortlessly, I'm happy so far.
This is early January by know and me being a reluctant DIY'er starts looking at companies to fit the van out. I was looking at various companies The good the bad and the ugly! And got it down to Xline and Grippatank, The xline was a smart looking unit with a smaller footprint but then I saw the woeful reviews on here and decided if I was going to give someone my hard earned cash I would at least like a bit of help if things went wrong. In the end I went with Grippatank and although it was a grand more than xline I was glad I did.
By now it's early march on a damp cold Wednesday and as agreed the Grippatank boys turn up after a 4am start from their base proceed to fit my van out, and by teatime I've got myself 500 litre double Di setup all safely bolted to the chassis with a pole rack, split relay charger ( which so far hasn't seen my battery charger)! And external twin ports, topped off with Gardiner 25slx. Excellent service, fully briefed handover any questions promptly answered. (Even now). So basically I'm good to go.
CUSTOMERS.....There are no two alike are they? How will they react? They pay my wage. so early on I decided I wasn't going to tell them anything , the only inkling I gave out was when I had my van proffesionally signwritten in the February proclaiming "Waterfed Pole Technology" and some started to ask so I politely explained and set the ball rolling.
And it's Thursday morning and d-day. Now my initial plan was to slowly implement the rollout. I thought I'd pole the tops and trad the bottom's over the month. And guess what? by the following day everything was getting wfp. It was so much easier, and is to this day.
The feed back from the customer is what makes or breaks us, bearing in mind I also increased my prices (as I always do every other March anyway), the overall result was brilliant I lost about 7 customers out of approximately 330 and I could only attribute 3 who point blank would not accept this method (the other 4 cancelled due to the increase) and have more than been replaced.
Any regrets? Yep a couple, out of my hands but my Tds level has a risen to about 125 i think it is because a new estate has been built up the road from me and I they have also swapped over to another reservoir it is costing me about a fiver for a full tank in resin, but at least I'm not on a meter I'll just have to see how things pan out on that one . And 80 quid on telescopic ladders, but find it easier to slide my old set off the roof and a Gardiner backpack which is under my stairs, I've just not needed it, may visit eBay. Oh and the Grippatank pole hose had a few leaks after a few months, so I replaced it with Gardiner yellow.
So finally after my long ramble, this is where I find myself after 6 months, I've got my mojo back and making more money for less hours. And I know not everyone will agree with the way I've changed things and it could be done for infinitely less but I'm dead happy with it, and really couldn't have been done without you guys on here, Cheers[emoji16]
P.S. anyone thinking of taking the plunge, just go for it.
Anyway I'm 48 now and been tradding for 25 years and built a good solid round up from pretty much nothing. It was paying well but I was too busy and was starting to take it's toll physically and mentally and generally wearing me down.
So I was thinking of selling up for a new challenge, or carrying on to do this for the next 20 years
I didn't fancy either as it stood. What if a new venture failed? I've still got a family and mortgage to maintain. So I started looking at "water on a stick method" how does it work as in this neck of the woods it's still quite rare even now, and would the customers accept it?
Anyway the usual advice on here with Wfp is to find your tds, fine I get a quality metre and tested it for around 2 months and it averaged 70 ppm. Happy days, resin only no RO system to buy and maintain.
By Christmas now I'm looking at the method I didn't fancy the trolly system because of constant filling recharging battery etc. (And I know many on here wouldn't do it any other way and I appreciate that). But this was the only way I wanted to do it.
Now I was using the family car for work and then my wife's car was written off, so she could use mine and I would source a van for work. Looked at leasing and this worked out to be quite expensive for something I would never own.(I expect 10years out of this Van) so I decided I'll buy and have the van fitted out
The advice on here was to get a 500 litre tank, (which does get emptied on commercial s). And I'd need a van to carry it, plus ladders, Di, materials, fuel and all the other paraphernalia that goes with it, and my work consists of many tight streets and awkward parking so Transit sized was out of the question.
Anyhow I sourced a 3 year old Peugeot Partner, just off lease full history and a fresh Mot. The clanger I may have dropped is I chose the dodgy 1.6hdi, though having had it 9 months my mechanic who has looked after my motors for many years says flushing the engine helps and he's looked after another customer with the same engine and it has done 200k trouble free miles, so time will tell, even fully loaded it pulls effortlessly, I'm happy so far.
This is early January by know and me being a reluctant DIY'er starts looking at companies to fit the van out. I was looking at various companies The good the bad and the ugly! And got it down to Xline and Grippatank, The xline was a smart looking unit with a smaller footprint but then I saw the woeful reviews on here and decided if I was going to give someone my hard earned cash I would at least like a bit of help if things went wrong. In the end I went with Grippatank and although it was a grand more than xline I was glad I did.
By now it's early march on a damp cold Wednesday and as agreed the Grippatank boys turn up after a 4am start from their base proceed to fit my van out, and by teatime I've got myself 500 litre double Di setup all safely bolted to the chassis with a pole rack, split relay charger ( which so far hasn't seen my battery charger)! And external twin ports, topped off with Gardiner 25slx. Excellent service, fully briefed handover any questions promptly answered. (Even now). So basically I'm good to go.
CUSTOMERS.....There are no two alike are they? How will they react? They pay my wage. so early on I decided I wasn't going to tell them anything , the only inkling I gave out was when I had my van proffesionally signwritten in the February proclaiming "Waterfed Pole Technology" and some started to ask so I politely explained and set the ball rolling.
And it's Thursday morning and d-day. Now my initial plan was to slowly implement the rollout. I thought I'd pole the tops and trad the bottom's over the month. And guess what? by the following day everything was getting wfp. It was so much easier, and is to this day.
The feed back from the customer is what makes or breaks us, bearing in mind I also increased my prices (as I always do every other March anyway), the overall result was brilliant I lost about 7 customers out of approximately 330 and I could only attribute 3 who point blank would not accept this method (the other 4 cancelled due to the increase) and have more than been replaced.
Any regrets? Yep a couple, out of my hands but my Tds level has a risen to about 125 i think it is because a new estate has been built up the road from me and I they have also swapped over to another reservoir it is costing me about a fiver for a full tank in resin, but at least I'm not on a meter I'll just have to see how things pan out on that one . And 80 quid on telescopic ladders, but find it easier to slide my old set off the roof and a Gardiner backpack which is under my stairs, I've just not needed it, may visit eBay. Oh and the Grippatank pole hose had a few leaks after a few months, so I replaced it with Gardiner yellow.
So finally after my long ramble, this is where I find myself after 6 months, I've got my mojo back and making more money for less hours. And I know not everyone will agree with the way I've changed things and it could be done for infinitely less but I'm dead happy with it, and really couldn't have been done without you guys on here, Cheers[emoji16]
P.S. anyone thinking of taking the plunge, just go for it.