`Pressure Washing Heavy Equipment
One of the best ways to make money in the pressure washer business is to power wash heavy equipment. It is not necessarily easy work and you will get quite greasy but it is steady work and there is lots of it. You will need to know the different types of equipment and the issues which are of concern to preventative maintenance technicians, operators and owners.
Scrapers
The average scraper costs over $250,000. With these monsters, excavation companies can literally move mountains. The incredible size of scrapers and power it takes to propel it self, plus all of the dirt these machines move, add up to extremely dirty engine compartments. A small oil leak and the dust clings to the grease, clogging radiator flanges, and causing fire hazards and cooling problems.
Scrapers are probably one of the hardest pieces of equipment to clean. Like bulldozers and turret-mounted trackhoes, they are difficult to climb on. Their massive size and the time to clean them appear to be an impossible task, but give yourself 3 - 4 hours and you will have it so clean you can eat off of it. Give yourself 10 hours and it's ready for fresh paint.
Realize that scrapers collect a lot of grease and oily dirt in the center where all the hydraulics come together. This occurs due to hydraulic leaks or an overzealous mechanic with a heavy hand on the grease gun. Just get in there and blast it all over everything. You must remove it by conventional methods first.
Excavators
The average excavator sells for about $180,000. Although it's concept is relatively simple, it is important to clean it thoroughly. Remove all exterior panels, rotate turret 90°, and extend arm forward as far as possible. This way, you can clean the arm and all the hydraulic fitting surrounding it. The cab must be carefully rinsed out and the body is cleaned bottom to top and from inside to out side and then rinsed the other way. When it is completely cleaned, all the panels are replaced and then you soap it, and rinse it again and detail the cab. It's about a three to four and a half hour job on a large size excavator with cabin.
Bulldozers
Bulldozers are some of the hardest worked equipment in excavation. You can clean everything from huge D-10 dozers down to an old 1960 John Deere Museum piece. Many bulldozer owners have many pieces of equipment, one we recently worked for owns 136 other pieces of serious heavy equipment used in road construction, forest cleaning and grading of future housing tracks. Most larger excavation companies have numerous contracts for flood control, hurricane demolition and land clearing for five states, so you need to do good work because the referrals are endless and you will need to buy more equipment and hire more steam cleaning pressure washer employees for your company.
A small dozer, such as a D-4, can take an hour to and hour and a half to three hours to clean, including the cab. A D-10 or larger may take as long as three hours and if dirty up to seven. This service includes complete cleaning of the triple radiators with steam and 1500 PSI with 6 gpm, so as to not bend the radiator flanges. We recommend that you use a dual tip system with 2 15° angle tips.
A motor on a D-10, if it overheats, can cause permanent damage. New engines go for about $55,000.00. You must take our job seriously and realize that you must help the owner maintain their equipment equipment. Down time is as much a killer in the excavation business as it is in the power washing business. By keeping the heavy equipment cleaned, it is easy to detect hydraulic and oil leaks earlier so they can fixed before permanent damage occurs. Your ability to help the owners maintain such equipment is a huge factor in their success.
By setting up a preventative cleaning schedule and working around any union labor, you will be virtually invisible, environmentally friendly, and extremely cost effective. Not to mention a very valuable resource for their team. Think about cleaning heavy equipment and expanding your pressure washer business today.
"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance;
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