Putting the plug into a “bulkhead” style location?
You forgot #4
I assume you’re comparing to running through the reels?
From where we stand now, they pull off the hose and click it onto a whip that lays beside the reel…I’m just thinking to make that a more stable connection so it doesn’t flop all around. Even the guys who used to run it through the reel don’t really care about going back to that, so I haven’t bothered trying to put in the work to make that happen. Otherwise, I must be missing something that you’re seeing…
Just put a shroud around those fill valves so they can’t get bumped as easily. Simple sheet metal with two 90° bends and weld two beads. Voila!
Wait. Folks aren’t downstreaming through the reel anymore? I understood the supply hose not being plumbed through the reel but I don’t see any reason why not to run the chem through the reel?
Don’t disagree…we’re weird, and no one seems to care. The change was made before me, and I’m not rocking the boat if no one doing the work cares. That said, the innards of our reels were all horrible when I first saw them. IDK what the actual cause was, but if everyone is good with the status quo on that, I’m not trying to clean them our nor drop the like $3-4k/truck to replace them all. Nothing runs through any of our reels at the moment.
There should be a special badge for getting burnt by Racer. I’d probably have 2 or 3 by now. We love you Rick! Keep rocking it sir.
Oh, yeah the manifold on my GP reel is probably one House wash away from dumping rusty bleach water all over my trailer so I get that but with the stainless options out there nowadays I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t go through the reel. Huh. Different strokes I guess. Agree–don’t rock the worker’s boat.
Of course the workers love it. They get 15min/house more in pay. I had no idea that you were one of those, lol.
My Titan roof reel on my trailer is over 7 yrs old, never done a thing to it except replace the swivel once. Same with any of my other. Think I’ve replaced 3 super swivels between 6 reels in almost 8 years.
But if you’re determined to be inefficient, then you should get the blocks. Don’t need the whips whipping, lol
That would be true, if they got paid primarily by the hour 
I already took my most productive guy (who would take a 5.5 and beat 2 guys with an 8) and gave him an 8 with a FlowPro this year…so I’m all for efficiency, just not spending the cash on 3 new reels per truck to gain it. I don’t think we’d make it back.
What are you enticing these guys with? Profit sharing? Commission? Got an part time employee now and I want to offer him some incentive beyond his hourly rate.
Commission bonus on top of hourly. Essentially it works out like commission but with a guaranteed minimum in case everything goes to crap one week. Usually if that happens, it’s an equipment thing, which I can’t fault them for. If a guy is stuck at the minimum for any amount of time once he’s trained, it’s time to fix it or find him something else to do.
I like this model. Reminds me of a “draw” in the car business. Basically, if you’re surviving off the draw you either need to reevaluate your line of work or the universe is against you. How do you structure this?
Sort of, but the guarantee isn’t a “loan” like a draw. I could drone on the particulars with you, but for me a lot of the decision on structuring it came down to how our payroll system functioned…calculating vacation accrual and such.
Essentially, I took what we were paying each level of guy (lead/asst) per hour. I knocked off $2-3 per hour, and targeted the total commission number to the old hourly. Basically your guarantee goes down a little, but we’re scheduling work based on the old hourly target. If you beat that pace (w/o callbacks obviously) you either make 8 hours of money in 5-6 hours, or we agree to increase your scheduled work per day and you still put in 8 but do more revenue and get more pay for the 8 hours.
Ah yeah that makes sense. I need to talk to my CPA about how to go about this. I got a kid that I think could be an All Star washer but he has another full-time job that I’m trying to swipe him away from and they pay him really well so I have been brainstorming on how to make it worth his time. I matched their rate to start him out but he’s got the whole seniority thing going on there which I completely understand.
Sounds like we’re in the same boat. I could bring in more work if I had a good trigger man. Between the CPA & my insurance guy, that should cover most of the red tape.
I got to the point last year that I was doing everything I could to keep up with my existing customers and no room to add any new ones. Had a great year but I don’t want to do it by myself anymore. Not to mention the ability to upsell a job and still be able to fit in multiple jobs in one day.
now i understand. what ive done is take an unloads block and mount it to the trailer side rail, put the unloader there with a ballvalve and nipple. whip goes from pump to block. i pull off the hose and plug it in. i suppose if you put a female on there instead of nipple, you could plug your hose to it so that it doesn’t flop around. I’ve changed trailers and haven’t remounted anything just yet. I’m still tiny with ideas before getting things welded in.
