We drill a small hole in the ball of the valve to have our “soap switch” right at the gun. 8gpm, no issues… wash 30 houses a week like this.
Yea thats a good idea… I would probably miss being able to shut my water of tho
I read the article on ball valves to control flow, but the keyword to me is precicision. We aren’t looking for something precise the way the article explains. I would like to know how it affects the unloader. I use VRT3 and I’m not against trying others, but this one is inexpensive.
I have a 3 way ball valve one hose going to sh the other to buffer tank and the other to downstream injector. I also have a small stainless steel box just made for the ball valve only to keep it clean looking and not break the ball valve. If you want a picture of the box in ball valve I can post it.
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Nearly every person I know that uses a pressure washer to downstream a mix to wash houses sets their unloader to bypass a trickle when on the trigger. When you try to use a ball valve as a control valve or a gate valve then you create more backpressure and thus more flow being forced through the unloader. This wears out the unloader much faster. At roughly $50 a pop for the cheaper ones like you mentioned, it sounds cheap enough if you go through one a month. But the real cost is what you’re doing to your pump when an unloader fails and the machine continues to rev for the length of time that it takes for the engine to stall out.
In short, it’s an unnecessary risk that may never happen or may cost you much more in the long run. Doing it safely and professionally isn’t any harder. Sometimes I feel like folks work harder to get out of work than if they had just done the work to begin with. Walk back to the trailer. Pull a hose from one bucket to another. Walk back to the house. Rinse. So complicated.
There are folks here that can’t even match up tips to their machines but some people would trust them to control a ball valve that can raise or drop pressure from like 5psi to 4000psi within a very small range of motion.
I use a ball valve on nearly every job. It is either fully open or fully closed. No in between.
People have been using those gray poly three way valves for quite some time now. Before I had the Schertz Box that’s how I switched from soap to rinse. They work great. They are flimsy and easily broken so keep spares and I probably wouldn’t mount it in that box just because it would slow down how quickly you can swap in a new one. I just zip tied it to the tote or wherever I had space.
Oh and one trick I learned from @Hotshot is to back that screw on the lever off and mush some Vaseline down in there and reset the screw. Keeps the lever from getting tight and stiff and then you snap it off trying to get it to turn. They also don’t like the cold very much apparently.
I walk back to pull the ds stick out the soap. I just like to use the ball valve for rinsing and slight pressure drop out of the surface cleaner. So, not really frequently. I can’t see more flow coming out of the tip than does the ball valve. If anything, i agree my BV use on the surface cleaner may be somewhat damaging
I have found that rinsing flatwork with a ball valve is slower than just using a tip that puts you around 1000psi with a 25° fan pattern. For me it is at least. As far as rinsing siding I just use the same tips that I used to apply soap. If you’re still pulling drop sticks to switch from soap to rinse and vice versa you should grab some of those three way poly valves that @rickhousewashing posted a photo of. Much easier and faster to just flip the lever. I drew arrows on mine so I knew which was soap and rinse and whatnot. I started out pulling drop sticks too but that got old and SH dripping from the stick when transferring was always a hassle. I don’t know what your setup looks like but they take up almost no space and a zip tie is enough to strap one down. I still keep a three way poly valve with the hoses attached in my toolbox just in case I ever have an issue with my remote system.
Ahhh, forgot to mention the rinsing I mentioning is the flatwork…surface cleaning, you know, use surface cleaner, then rinse, use surface cleaner, then rinse. Not housewashing. Im gonna get a new nozzle and try it out rinsing too. I used to use the white and and green alot. Ball valve seems faster in the 5.5gpm.
I personally wouldn’t use anything else but a ball valve to rinse concrete.
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I just washed a roof for a buddy who did the house wash. He had a VRT3 and it was shocking to me how bad that thing kicked. I run two ZK1 unloaders on my two rigs. He was floored my 8 had no kick and his 6GPM kicked like a mule.
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Yes, it’s got a kick, I’m used to it now. I will keep the zk1 in mind. Now, dropping open pressurized ballvalve may be a concern, but thats really it.
If you can train it to close immediately if dropped, you might be good to go.
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We’ll get there.
It’s only 4 little screws and back in business
They are actually pretty cool. Designed at my local landa shop
I have a VRT3 unloader and only got less then 2 years out of it before I had to replace it. Are the vrt3 worth running or should I get a different type
These 3 way valves from Sprayer Depot last much longer than the cheap gray ones. They’re $40 a pop but have viton seals. Much smoother to operate too so don’t have to worry about the handle busting off. Keeping the gray ones out of sunlight is key to longevity so that little box you have it in will definitely help. If you try the 3 way from Sprayer Depot you’ll never go back to the gray. You will have to get three 3/8" npt x 1/4" hose barbs also.
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