I have a few questions regarding reclaim systems. My main focus lately has been Residential. But as I look more into Commercial cleaning, like parking garages ect… The need to reclaim water is necessary.
To those who DO reclaim, Are the systems out there efficient? I’ve been reading up on hydrotek systems and l’m not sure what to think of them…
It seems some have the option to redirect the waste water or filter it and pump it back into the buffer tank?
I see the systems have filters that need to be changed, Are these filters expensive? Are they cleanable?
Another thing I see, is these systems say there only designed to pick up waster water with no detergent in it… We all know most cleaning jobs specially commercial require chems…
The best reclaim system out there is Sirocco. It’s really the only one that has enough power to reclaim more than 50% of the water. They can be found at Sirocco Performance Vacuums - Bull Dog Pro Sirocco
If you get a hold of the owner Jerry McMillen he’ll talk your leg off, but he really knows his stuff. I have experience with Sirocco and a couple of the others, Hydro Tek included. Sirocco blows everything else away.
Here are some high points:
You want an engine powered system, not electric. Electric won’t have enough power.
Cleanable filters or a trap that is easily and quickly dumped. The more capacity the better. You don’t want to stop every 10 minutes to clean and dump filters.
How do you plan to recover? Surface cleaner, berm or boom, vacuum head…
I’ve been looking into recovery and reclaim for a while and probably adding this year as our commercial continues to grow. I will definitely be going with either steel eagle or hydrotek. I’ve had a couple of vendors that carry Sirocco tell me that I’d be better off with the above mentioned instead. For a while we’re just going to do recovery and not reclaim. We’ll transfer it to the landscaping
I was only speaking of Jerry’s Sirocco reclaim equipment. The rest of his stuff does look a little questionable. As for pressure washing equipment, I would put Hotsy, Landa and Hydro Tek at the top.
Not to plug Jerry, but I have been using his supposedly shoddy recovery equipment for 9 years & it works excellent, in my opinion the vacuum portion is as good as any out there [after a few tweaks that he paid for & is now incorporated on all his systems] his filtration I cant give an accurate opinion about since I run a water miester . Have you ever used a vacuum recovery system or filtration William ? or is this parrot on your sholder
I’ve heard good things about water miester. The problem I’ve heard is it’s hit or miss with Sirocco due to inconsistency on what parts are used. So when there’s a problem it sometimes can be a guessing game as to which model is the replacement. Like I said dealers that stood to profit recommended going with other systems.
The pump out pumps were a problem for some, but I just replaced an 8 year old pump with over 1500 hrs on it. I have two vac drums & other ran over 1k hrs & went bad from acid exposure. other than filter replacement I have had 0 issues. I have used a fury & hydro vac units & the sirocco vacuumed the same pumped out the same. Second gen water meister units are better than first gen but I try to filter as little as possible. Research BATS filters or storm drain pillows etc. My local POWT is fine with use of this media as filtration prior to discharge into drains this is the same media used in storm drains to catch petro chems etc. just worry about turbidity. I dislike people beating a 10 year old horse that has been well trained since being broken…
Never use a reclaim system. I’ve met Jerry and he is a nice guy. His suggestions and opinions on dual feeding pumps and other things are wrong in my opinion, but they don’t effect me. I saw his reclaim demo at a round table in SC but he couldn’t get it to work. His custom made washers are junk. Search Frank Peter’s post here. I’ve never had a parrot but the kids had a parakeet that flew into the ceiling fan.
The thread was about reclaim/recovery. I was specifically referring to the vac / recovery system & they are not shoddy, this is coming from an owner of Jerry’s equipment that has 1600+hrs on it other than belts, oil, filters, bearings [cause I wanted to tear the blower down for kicks} a couple nuts & bolts the normal stuff I couldn’t be more pleased it works. Having not read the peters thread, and I cant comment on his washers having never used or even seen one. As for parakeets, stupid useless Little birds whose chirp means Zero……
@Maelstrom well said. @Chesebro reclaim is a good topic to discuss. It’s not that big of a deal washing residential in most areas yet, but it’s coming. Commercially some corporations won’t even consider you unless you reclaim.
Is that 4k for a vacuum on a drum? I mean I have done zero research on reclaim… but that’s seriously what it looks like… please tell me it’s more complicated than that.
