For gaining maximum profit in every particular vehicle washing choose, the right car washing pump

Choose the right car washing pump for maximum profit

For big cleaning jobs, you’ll often need the muscle of a high pressure washer to get the job done quickly and with excellent results. Car washing pumps or pressure washers come in a variety of sizes, pressures, and flows, and each pressure/flow combination is made to handle a different kind of cleaning. Selecting a pressure washer that’s too small means you’ll be cleaning for hours and hours. Picking one that’s too big and you end up with damaged surfaces or uneven cleaning.

How pressure washers dictate the car washing sessions

Many people don’t realize that pressure washing isn’t all about the pressure. Pressure washers have pressure and a flow rating with the pressure measured in pounds per square inch (PSI) and flow in gallons per minute (GPM). Multiplying these two numbers gives you a measurement of the machine’s cleaning ability called the effective cleaning units (ECU or CU). Depending on who you’re talking to, the cleaning requirements for a specific surface may be described in only PSI. As a rule, the better flow (GPM) you can get for the rated pressure (PSI), the better.

• TIME FACTOR: To clean stubborn mould on cement with a cleaning effect of 0.76. It will take twice as long as with a machine with a 1.5 cleaning effect. A more powerful pressure washer doesn’t necessarily do a better job, it will do the same job in less time. 

• TEMPERATURE: This is the most over-used technique used to try and increase the cleaning effect. It is expensive and maintenance on boilers is often increased. The correct and often better technique of cleaning stubborn grease is to first blast off as much as you can using high pressure cold water which cuts away the heavy build-up, then apply detergent neat with a low-pressure spray pack or bucket & broom.

Leave for the prescribed time to dissolve the grease and oils, then rinse with high pressure cold water again. In saying that, at 80-90 degrees Celsius (the temperature, where most hot water high pressure cleaner boilers are set to,) most oils will be melted and can be blasted off with ease.

• DETERGENTS: Detergents can be injected through the high pressure hose and applied to the surface. This is done at low pressure, which activates the Venturi effect. Sucking in detergent at the pump and diluting it by approximately 90%.

The downsides to this are: Detergent is hugely diluted, losing much of its efficacy, you need special double lance or detergent lances to apply it, injector pick-ups clog up readily if not cleaned daily before use and they can stick shut if not used regularly.

• OPERATOR TECHNIQUE: This is important. Depending on the type of surface to be cleaned, the operator should vary the pass rate and distance from the surface to allow for different surfaces. The pressure at the nozzle maybe 3000 PSI, which at 4” away from a painted surface works beautifully with a fan jet/nozzle, but if you put the tip of the lance right up to the surface, it will most likely damage the paint. Always test on an area where you won’t see the damage and start from a bit further away, test, then adjust.

 

The right car washing pump can really help in saving time, money, manpower, and electricity. Washing cars or using the machine in other commercial or domestic places can be helpful only until the machine is maintained properly.