Again, I’ve been reading a lot here and am grateful for all of the fantastic info.
Initial plan was to trade in my SUV and get a truck, which would double as a personal and work vehicle, and run off of a trailer. But after weeks of searching the brutal used truck and trailer market (especially brutal for a 3/4 ton) used U-Hauls are looking like an absolutely smoking deal in comparison to everything else. 14’ and 17’ enclosed Ford 450’s with around 150k miles, 6000lbs payload, for 8-9k, and I have a place to park it. If my mechanic verifies decent condition that’s a done deal, and I love the idea of running an enclosed rig for advertising, storage etc, but I want to run a hot water machine, and I live in Las Vegas, where we hit 115+ in the summer without machines running. Was thinking vents & fans on top of venting out the machine, but read a post from @Innocentbystander saying he was doing that and it was still so hot his machines didn’t want to run. Find some budget rooftop a/c unit, maybe insulate the trailer, and deal with a generator? Anyone somewhere hot have luck with keeping the heat manageable in an enclosed? Thanks
Sure. Spray foam insulation and then skin it with 3/4" plywood. I recommend using a flame resistant paint to treat the wood. The operation I started out with had a dozen or more rigs with at least two hot water units in each trailer and this is how they were all done. Now, these were gooseneck trailers with a man door on the side to create a draft through the trailer and you won’t have that with a U-Haul truck so you’ll want to add some RV windows/doors for ventilation. Be aware of how you’re going to lay out the rig so that you can plan ahead to ensure you don’t have burner or machine exhaust pointed directly at something flammable.
Now, having worked out of both, I believe open trailer or open truck rigs are far superior for pressure washing rigs. Enclosed rigs are nice don’t get me wrong but they make literally every aspect of the job more difficult. You can work around a lot of the little things and be fine but the day will come when you’re laying upside down on your head trying to swap a blower out on your hot water machine and you’ll understand why so many people that have been doing it for a long time run open trailers
Thank you for the info and advice. Was thinking about insulation, sounds like it really makes a huge difference, especially if they were running multiple hot machines per trailer, wow. Would cut out an area or two for access/airflow for sure. I hear ya on the open setup…its just how good of a deal these uhauls are compared to everything else that really has me considering it. They do have some great deals on chassis cabs too though, if I could find someone around here that could drop a flatbed on there for a decent price that would make an awesome open setup, maybe I’ll look into that too. Thanks again
Not yet. Still planning, learning, and trying to get everything figured out but will be going on it soon. It will be a used Uhaul 14’ enclosed and plan on running a 8gpm hot water machine. Will install a smaller concession style window and a larger door/access opening on the curb side and vent out the machine through the roof. Will insulate before summer as @DisplacedTexan suggested, and am also thinking about putting down a slide out rack on the very back for a generator. Would like to have one anyway, and could run some kind of a/c unit if it really came down to it. Any other suggestions welcomed and will post some pics when I get it going
