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What tank options would you prefer

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AGlassAct

AGlassAct

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Burton On Trent
Im hoping to finish my next van project so have been considering what to do with my old van. I’ve been a great advocate for having a larger tank than you need but in my circumstances that puts me over the vans payload if I head out with a full tank. So - my tank is just over 500ltrs, I’ve developed a method to fill the tank (automatically) to two levels with a selectable switch (using an onboard solenoid valve . So the question is what would you have if you had the option, a 500ltr tank (at full capacity) and a 200ltr,250ltr, 300ltr, 350ltr, or 400ltr? I was personally thinking 350ltr and 500ltr would be a perfect compromise- that would also put me under the max payload!!!

All thoughts appreciated.

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A tank is like a brush everyone has a different need or preference, for over 6 years I had a 400ltr flat tank which I never emptied apart from on 2 large commercial jobs which I no longer do so if like me your just doing houses most days with the odd commercial as single operator then a 350ltr upright is ideal I have only drained my tank dry twice in 11 months, but I use 1mm jets which reduces water consumption by approximately 1/3 people faffing about with standard 2mm pencil jets and a univalve won't be saving anywhere near the amount of water I do I can do 25 houses + some days and still have 50ltrs or so left in the tank 

 
adamangler said:
You are putting two tank in a van ?
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No@adamangler. My van has a 500ltr tank in but want to know what the most common tank size is - I can manually select how much water to put in my tank but want to know which you would have if you had a choice. 500ltrs and ?. I appreciate some people fill manually but in an automated world what would your preferred option be as well as 500ltrs maximum


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500L TANK IN A CONNECT L2 240 is perfect for my needs.....no need for a bigger tank as i only work short hours(5 or 6 hours a day)......after a fair few years wfp you find your ideal van and tank size for your needs...?

 
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dazmond said:
500L TANK IN A CONNECT L2 240 is perfect for my needs.....no need for a bigger tank as i only work short hours(5 or 6 hours a day)......after a fair few years wfp you find your ideal van and tank size for your needs...?
Click to expand...


Welcome onboard @dazmond good to have a new member  

 
Not really 100% what answer your looking for but I think your over complicating stuff!! Alot!

If you are planning on being busy and making as much cash as possible simply fit your can with the biggest tank you can legally have in it. Don't ever go over legal weight though not worth the risk! Yeah you may well get away with it but if you have an accident and God forbid someone is seriously hurt your fault or not the police will weigh your can and hang you out to dry!! Also fines if you ever do get checked and are overweight are massive!!

 
chris clean said:
Not really 100% what answer your looking for but I think your over complicating stuff!! Alot!
 
If you are planning on being busy and making as much cash as possible simply fit your can with the biggest tank you can legally have in it. Don't ever go over legal weight though not worth the risk! Yeah you may well get away with it but if you have an accident and God forbid someone is seriously hurt your fault or not the police will weigh your can and hang you out to dry!! Also fines if you ever do get checked and are overweight are massive!!
Click to expand...
Why is it over complicating things? What’s the point in carrying a full load if you have a short day? Would you not like the option to fill up - automatically - to a lower level that would suit the majority of your work. With the option to carry more for commercial or any bigger rare days you have. I have an 800ltr tank in my new van, I’ll never use that in a day but if I ever go down the employee route I have the capacity to carry the full amount. My water production and transfer is all automated so will have two options 800ltr or 500ltr. The question I’m asking is basically what tank do you have and how much do you use on average.
I’ve been pulled over and checked by the police - hence buying a new van with a bigger payload - if I just fill the tank and carry nothing else I’m under payload. If I stick other stuff on board then it’s likely I’m going to be overweight. It’s surprising how much stuff weighs- I didn’t realise I was overweight until I weighed every individual piece of equipment I have. Lesson learned.
What I’m trying to gauge - as I will be selling my old van and don’t want the new owner to be ‘illegal’ if they fill the van with loads of other equipment- is what’s the most common size tank ? I’m not changing the tank as 500ltrs - I feel - is the maximum a single operator can use in a day. What I would like to do though is give them the option to fill the tank to whichever of the two fixed levels they want to for that particular day.


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AGlassAct said:
Why is it over complicating things? What’s the point in carrying a full load if you have a short day? Would you not like the option to fill up - automatically - to a lower level that would suit the majority of your work. With the option to carry more for commercial or any bigger rare days you have. I have an 800ltr tank in my new van, I’ll never use that in a day but if I ever go down the employee route I have the capacity to carry the full amount. My water production and transfer is all automated so will have two options 800ltr or 500ltr. The question I’m asking is basically what tank do you have and how much do you use on average.
I’ve been pulled over and checked by the police - hence buying a new van with a bigger payload - if I just fill the tank and carry nothing else I’m under payload. If I stick other stuff on board then it’s likely I’m going to be overweight. It’s surprising how much stuff weighs- I didn’t realise I was overweight until I weighed every individual piece of equipment I have. Lesson learned.
What I’m trying to gauge - as I will be selling my old van and don’t want the new owner to be ‘illegal’ if they fill the van with loads of other equipment- is what’s the most common size tank ? I’m not changing the tank as 500ltrs - I feel - is the maximum a single operator can use in a day. What I would like to do though is give them the option to fill the tank to whichever of the two fixed levels they want to for that particular day.


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Click to expand...
The point of carrying more than you need.... well firstly if you have a 650L tank like me how much am I really saving if I go out half full or 400L even if thats all I need for my planned days work? If you are trying to save carrying that but of weight to save pence in this game something's going wrong. We can make £100s out of a tank so don't worry about a few pennies!!  

Even bigger reason is priced by 2 examples I had this past week. Get to a customer £15 a month clean and she says if you have time both my neighbours are interested in a 1 off clean for Xmas. Explained to both i charge double for 1 off or 1st clean get them both and an extra £60 for another 50 mins or so work. If I was only carrying enough pure in tank for my planned customers I could have done then there and then. Another example a regular customer came out and said is there a chance she can be cheeky and have conservatory roof done as using it for Xmas dinner. All glass panels so probably used another 100L or more for final rinse again another £50 notes. Turns out it's handy to have a bit more pure water than you thought you needed for your planned work

 
AGlassAct said:
No@adamangler. My van has a 500ltr tank in but want to know what the most common tank size is - I can manually select how much water to put in my tank but want to know which you would have if you had a choice. 500ltrs and ?. I appreciate some people fill manually but in an automated world what would your preferred option be as well as 500ltrs maximum


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Click to expand...


Ok i didnt really understand you post.

So you have a 500 tank and can auto fill it to a lower level if you desire ?

so whats the problem ? you have a 500 tank if you need it and can fill it lower if you dont, im not sure what you are getting at here

500l is about right as a maximum for a full day for one man on maintenance work, id rather have 500 than 400 and risk running out.

Generally i use about 350l or so in 6 hours, 700l if i run 2 man but carry about 500 on my own and 850 with 2 just in case. thats 9-3 though not 8 hour days. Can use way more if its a first clean day.

The way i fill my tank is from a static IBC with a bilge pump, its a 700l tank and fills from empty in about 15 minutes so at the end of the day i just fill it where i want to or full for the next day depending whether im working solo or 2 man, i also have 150l in barrels in there in case and on occasion have used them all.

 
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dazmond said:
thanks iron giant...im new to this site but not to window cleaning.......25 years in the game....?
Click to expand...
I know who you are actually from elsewhere which I used for some years, We are all a good bunch of lads and ladies on here and we have a good turnover of topics so chip in as much as you are happy to as a veteran can offer a lot of advice to newbies and long termers alike.


 

@AGlassAct I thought you had switched vans for one with a bigger payload, I kinda get where you are coming from, but do agree with others to a point as in  fitting the biggest tank to suit your workload and if you have made your own autofill/stop then please share and utilise this on specific work days 

 
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chris clean said:
The point of carrying more than you need.... well firstly if you have a 650L tank like me how much am I really saving if I go out half full or 400L even if thats all I need for my planned days work? If you are trying to save carrying that but of weight to save pence in this game something's going wrong. We can make £100s out of a tank so don't worry about a few pennies!!  
 
Even bigger reason is priced by 2 examples I had this past week. Get to a customer £15 a month clean and she says if you have time both my neighbours are interested in a 1 off clean for Xmas. Explained to both i charge double for 1 off or 1st clean get them both and an extra £60 for another 50 mins or so work. If I was only carrying enough pure in tank for my planned customers I could have done then there and then. Another example a regular customer came out and said is there a chance she can be cheeky and have conservatory roof done as using it for Xmas dinner. All glass panels so probably used another 100L or more for final rinse again another £50 notes. Turns out it's handy to have a bit more pure water than you thought you needed for your planned work
Click to expand...
Wouldn’t work in your case then @chris clean. I don’t do spur of the moment cleans or one offs and my days are full days - hence the question.


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adamangler said:
 
Ok i didnt really understand you post.
 
So you have a 500 tank and can auto fill it to a lower level if you desire ?
 
so whats the problem ? you have a 500 tank if you need it and can fill it lower if you dont, im not sure what you are getting at here
 
500l is about right as a maximum for a full day for one man on maintenance work, id rather have 500 than 400 and risk running out.
 
Generally i use about 350l or so in 6 hours, 700l if i run 2 man but carry about 500 on my own and 850 with 2 just in case. thats 9-3 though not 8 hour days. Can use way more if its a first clean day.
 
The way i fill my tank is from a static IBC with a bilge pump, its a 700l tank and fills from empty in about 15 minutes so at the end of the day i just fill it where i want to or full for the next day depending whether im working solo or 2 man, i also have 150l in barrels in there in case and on occasion have used them all.
Click to expand...
I don’t have the time or energy to monitor how full my tank is, plus it’s black so can’t see the water level anyway. I have a monitor that totalises how much water I have consumed during the day which I manually reset in the evening. My average day is between 275 & 350 but have the odd bigger day with big sheets of glass that take a lot of rinsing. Unfortunately I analyse everything I do to see if I can make something more efficient or cut costs. Maybe that’s a bit overkill but I always over engineer and try to future proof so I don’t have to keep tinkering.
“so whats the problem ? you have a 500 tank if you need it and can fill it lower if you dont, im not sure what you are getting at here”
This is an automated process - I can fill the tank to full (500ltrs) or another fixed level (350ltrs?) nowhere in between. I think the consensus will be that most would just carry 500ltrs so doesn’t apply to my old van. Whereas my new van with the bigger tank it’s a ‘better’ idea as I really don’t agree that lugging 800ltrs of water around is necessary.


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AGlassAct said:
Wouldn’t work in your case then @chris clean. I don’t do spur of the moment cleans or one offs and my days are full days - hence the question.


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Click to expand...
@AGlassAct  fair enough if you don't do extras for people or one offs some people just happy doing work they have booked and nothing extra. My round is full but I will just add on a weekend morning or finish in virtually the dark as I did last week. Always more room for more if you charge a premium! Always  me laugh there s a windie I talk to who tell me he's full and had no time for extras or one offs then he's vans normally at home still at 8 in morning and he's back by about 3.30 lol never works a weekend! Depends how much you wanna earn I guess 

 
We have a 1000 ltr tank in one van and a 650 in the other we regularly run out with the 650 on domestic houses in an 8 hour day quite often we put in about 300-400 ltr at lunch time to prevent this . With the 1000 ltr tank again when doing large commercial we connect into their water supply on some days I recone we are using up to 1500 ltr , doing big detached houses with conservatory’s we do sometimes run out late afternoon, so again I put in a few hundred ltr at lunch time to stop this . I think water usage is a personal thing I like a reasonable flow or else I feel like Ime being slowed down having to wait for the water to flow down the glass , for single operators I used to empty the 650 on my own regularly so I would say 650 tank size is the minimum I would buy but we are all different some don’t do much work on my own I would do up to 40 houses a day with two of us we do up to 85 when on really compact work . We recently had one of the guys on hear come out with us for the day to see how he could improve his productiverty and earnings he was tolaly amazed at what we did in 8 hours work . It’s also useful to have a main tank for windows and if you do a lot of plastics or softwashing have a smaller tank with a mix in it for that , there is no right or wrong with this it’s all down to personal preference and what works for you 

 
If it were me @AGlassAct I would go 500 and 350 for shorter days. I personally have a 400 Ltr tank and have only ever run dry once in 3 years doing a full days work. I generally do between 15 and 30 houses a day dependant on the work. But I think for shorter days 350 should more than suffice.

 
RyeCleanLiam said:
If it were me [mention=2651]AGlassAct[/mention] I would go 500 and 350 for shorter days. I personally have a 400 Ltr tank and have only ever run dry once in 3 years doing a full days work. I generally do between 15 and 30 houses a day dependant on the work. But I think for shorter days 350 should more than suffice.
Click to expand...
The kind of answer I was after thanks@ryecleanliam


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