So the company I work for, and have for many years, has asked me to do cleaning of our heavy equipment (loaders, haul trucks, and other extremely large equipment.) Apparently, they’ve had a guy do it for many years who is pretty much retired. I understand hot water is a must however, is there any other advice or knowledge you guys can share? We’re talking hundreds of pieces of equipment spanning many locations so it’s a great contract to have.
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So, asking for a little guidance here. We aren’t fleet washers. We stick to residential and small/medium commercial properties. I was contacted this morning about cleaning a dozen or so pieces of heavy equipment. Graders, dozers, excavators and obviously out of our element here.
So, first of all, pricing. By the piece? or book the whole day and figure what our price would need to be for a full day working?
Next, what detergents? obviously there is dirt, but I’m thinking grease hydraulic oil etc…, anyone do this before? Any insight will be greatly appreciated. To walk away from this one is also on the table, you won’t hurt my feelings
Thanks in advance
We wash nothing but fleets and heavy equipment. We go by the HR on each piece atleast $150 an hour, no exceptions because they vary drastically on time. We also use alot of degreaser, Hcs400 from Hydrochem solutions is our go to. A comparable industrial degreaser would be ripper 2 from Hotsy, around $120 a fiver. its easier to get local, hcs400 needs to be ordered and shipped hazmat. . Also imo I wouldn’t wash heavy equipment without a hot water machine.
First debris and melt grease off , then apply hcs400 at 6:1 ish via pump up or 12 volt to engine and any grease spots, let dwell 5 minutes or so. Then wash off. Then we 2 step the entire unit and rinse. Then a coat of ceramic wax is applied via pressure washer.
Hope that helps ya. Good luck.
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Bring a change of clothes! That’s my advice
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For sure, IDK if I’m going to mess with it or not. Just curious, it’s not anything we typically do.
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That is a tremendous amount of insight. Thanks so much!
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get that company to specify what they want cleaned. maybe they just want all the chunks removed, idk. but they’ll tell you what you’ll need in your arsenal.
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Thanks for the help. Yes, you’re right. I hope to speak with them again on Monday and get some clarification on that. Then I’ll decide if we can or even should be doing this.
Thanks again
If any of the equipment around, try to get some pics. Don’t do a ton of it, but have had good luck with the EBC on them and as Sean said, HOT water.
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I’m currently looking at adding a burner to my trailer, its going to take some work getting it reconfigured. I think I’ll do the smart thing and decline any work that needs it. As always, Thanks for the valuable insight
If you go that route, be sure your machine can actually run a burner if you intend to go with a 12v unit. If you go 110v you’ll need a generator and more space.
Not all units have a large enough charging system to reliably run a 12v burner. If you have a Honda you can run the serial number to find out what charging system it has. If it’s the small 17amp, probably not going to work. If it is the larger 26 (27 maybe? Can’t recall) amp then you should be good to go.
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Thanks DT, I have 2 GX690’s I bought from IBS, so I’ll research the tha charging ability for those. I recently spoke with Racer about a coil and fuel tank he isn’t using. I’m sure he’ll be a big help with telling me how he used it. Right now, I’m on the way out the door to go try to earn enough money to buy it! haha
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Yall can probably get more than $150 an hour per machine in your parts of the country, We charge around that because we live in rural Gods country with a population of around 288 people, The mayor’s house is on axles and the single folk find it hard to get a date because their all kin to one another, So we dont charge enough IMO but its fair for these parts I reckon.
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