48 Inch Surface Cleaner- Looks awesome!

Christopher;329041 said:

I remember when I first started my business after pressure washing with/for other companies for many years, the distributor sold me a 30" Steel Eagle surface cleaner because I told him that I wanted to clean larger areas of concrete fast, faster than with the smaller 24" or 20" surface cleaners but I was buying a new Hotsy 5.6gpm 3000psi hot water pressure washer with trailer, oil water separator, generator, etc...... ready to go out and start making money.

Little did I realize it but you cannot push a larger surface cleaner with the same gpm's and expect to walk as fast or faster than you do with the right size surface cleaner for your pressure washer, to do this you need more gpm's.

I used that 30" surface cleaner for some jobs but called the vendor and explained the situation and he let me swap it out for a 24" Steel Eagle and it worked better and faster than the larger 30" Steel Eagle surface cleaner but not as fast as a 19" Classic when using the same pressure washer.

I had seen a lot of companies in other cities using the Big Guy surface cleaner and thought maybe it was the swivel that was letting them clean faster on large areas of concrete but there was some problems with this picture.

One was when I talked to the guys and saw the pressure washers, they were only 4gpm and 5gpm machines pushing the big guy surface cleaner and when I looked at the concrete there were swirls all over the place (walking way too fast) and from a distance the concrete did look better but when you look down and start inspecting the concrete, it was a terrible job in just about every place I looked at and this was in many cities and small towns, not just where I live.

I was thinking that I had a larger pressure washer, 5.6gpm at 3000psi so the Big Guy should work good better than what I saw the other companies doing so I purchased one and it had the wrong fittings on it for the way I had things rigged up so after it was rigged up right, I had an opportunity to try it out on a large property of 30,000 sq.ft. of concrete.

I ran that surface cleaner and it only did better than the original 30" Steel Eagle but then I tried the 24" Steel Eagle surface cleaner and it was cleaning better and a little bit faster than the Big Guy, Wow, another learning opportunity here so this Big Guy sat in storage.

I thought maybe I need to try out a smaller surface cleaner and the Classic seems to be a popular surface cleaner so after asking some friends about it, I bought one and tried it out and it did a great job, faster and better than the 24" Steel Eagle surface cleaner.

I saw some info on another site where a very smart guy called Philip mentioned a rule of thumb of 4" of surface cleaner for every gallon per minute of flow from the pressure washer so it seemed to make a lot of sense to me, especially after what I went through with the 30" surface cleaner and then the 28" surface cleaner. It really did not seem to make a difference between the brands of surface cleaners as the spray bars seemed to be almost the same for the same size surface cleaner.

Later on I bought an 8gpm cold water pressure washer and then tried out the Big Guy again and it worked a lot better than when I tried it with the 5.6gpm machine. This pressure washer and surface cleaner were now my favorites because I could clean concrete faster and do a great job.

I have had a lot of jobs where I had a helper run one surface cleaner when I was using the other and we got large areas of concrete washed fast. The only thing that slowed us down were the bubble gum pieces all over since I only had 1 hot water pressure washer at the time so I had to go and pop gum after I washed the concrete and then follow the helper and cleaned gum there as well. This has been the issue for a while because of weight and room I could only have 1 hot water machine on the trailer (I tried putting one of my Landa hot water rigs onto the trailer and bent an axle so I had to remove it) but a hot box would not add as much weight so I might go that route on this trailer.

With most of these jobs I have wanted to buy a Maxima surface cleaner but by my experience and Philip's rule of thumb, I would need at least 9gpm but more like 10 or more to be able to walk at a decent pace and with the 8gpm and the 5.6gpm machines, I would hate to tie up both of them to run a larger surface cleaner and then have to go back and rinse so I did not buy the Maxima, just waited for other options.

Now I have another machine to put on the trailer (cold water rig) so it does not add too much weight and I can "T" 2 machines together so I can get a 48" surface cleaner, be able to clean at a good pace and be able to have a helper rinse all at the same time.

I was going to have a 50" or 60" surface cleaner built but I think that the 48" is a good size and with the gpm's being right there now, I think it will be a great addition to the surface cleaners I have and make jobs go even faster now.

Supply to the 325 gallon tank is no problem, I have 3 hudson float valves there (from back when I had the Landa skid on the trailer) and was running the 5, 5.6 and 8gpm machines all from the same tank and had 2, 3 or 4 supply hoses running into the tank but only 3 hudson valves there so we had to keep an eye on the tank so we would know if it was over flowing or running low.

Now with the 48" surface cleaner out there, there is another option for cleaning large areas of concrete if you have the gpm's and supply to do so.

I am wondering how many more companies/manufacturers out there will start making these as there is a demand for them?

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