Jim@Garagecleaning
banned
We were at a California Parking Facility just turning on our equipment to steam clean at 3 am. A cold front moved in very quickly and drop the temp down to 38-40 degrees. A Fog warning was in effect for the Bay Area.
We turned on our equipment and to our surprise, we could only get up to 220-230 degrees. The oil stains DID NOT COME UP as well as if we were at 275 or higher.
This is a perfect example of why one may need to upgrade their boilers when thinking about cleaning a Parking Garage.
Due to this experience, we are thinking about re-connecting the two boilers for winter use, as we once had in the past bringing our 6 GPM's pump to 2.2 million BTU's. Again, just for late Jan and Feb.
1.1 million BTU's at 6 GPM is not enough to hit the 240 degree mark when you are at 40 degrees or colder. We do not know what the water temp was.
My subcontractor has 590,000 BTU's at 6 GPM's and only got 155 to 170 degrees. His unit was assigned to clean stairs and columns.
NOTE: The steam was huge ! One could not see the surface cleaner or the operator, nor the sidekick holding the hose, at most of the time during the cleaning.
Almost 0 visibility within 30 feet of the operator. This made it very difficult not to overlap the area to be cleaned, and made me nervous for the operators safety.They simply could not see the front wheels of the surface cleaner.
1/8 or more of the garage was totally engulfed in a steam cloud, and still we could only hit the lows 200's.
If you saw this amount of steam, you would easily conclude that we must of been at 300 degrees PLUS. That's what I thought , however this was farther from the truth than I was lead to believe based on the steam cloud. Luckily we notified the fire dept BEFORE we started to clean.
That saved us a $1,000 service call !
This is the FIRST time this has happened to us, and if I did not see it... I would not of believed it.
We turned on our equipment and to our surprise, we could only get up to 220-230 degrees. The oil stains DID NOT COME UP as well as if we were at 275 or higher.
This is a perfect example of why one may need to upgrade their boilers when thinking about cleaning a Parking Garage.
Due to this experience, we are thinking about re-connecting the two boilers for winter use, as we once had in the past bringing our 6 GPM's pump to 2.2 million BTU's. Again, just for late Jan and Feb.
1.1 million BTU's at 6 GPM is not enough to hit the 240 degree mark when you are at 40 degrees or colder. We do not know what the water temp was.
My subcontractor has 590,000 BTU's at 6 GPM's and only got 155 to 170 degrees. His unit was assigned to clean stairs and columns.
NOTE: The steam was huge ! One could not see the surface cleaner or the operator, nor the sidekick holding the hose, at most of the time during the cleaning.
Almost 0 visibility within 30 feet of the operator. This made it very difficult not to overlap the area to be cleaned, and made me nervous for the operators safety.They simply could not see the front wheels of the surface cleaner.
1/8 or more of the garage was totally engulfed in a steam cloud, and still we could only hit the lows 200's.
If you saw this amount of steam, you would easily conclude that we must of been at 300 degrees PLUS. That's what I thought , however this was farther from the truth than I was lead to believe based on the steam cloud. Luckily we notified the fire dept BEFORE we started to clean.
That saved us a $1,000 service call !
This is the FIRST time this has happened to us, and if I did not see it... I would not of believed it.