Researched the forum and couldn’t find anything on this topic. I am sketching out the plumbing configurations for my future enclosed trailer build and when drawing the plumbing for the separate SH, Water, and soap tank to the 3 valve proportioner system for the 12v pump, I thought, I wonder if I can proportion the soap tank and SH tank to the downstream injector before the reel to achieve the correct ratio of soap to SH to downstream for house washing. Is this possible or would I need to batch mix a house mix for down steaming. I would be using SLO-mo surfactant which uses a lot less then let’s say elemonator to achieve the same soapy-ness.
If it is possible, do I need to dilute the slomo to achieve the correct soap to SH ratio if I was able to proportion the 2 tanks to the injector ?
I would not like to have a 4th tank to batch mix a house wash mix to DS which is why I thought of this idea. Would it work ? Are some of y’all doing this?
It would be a lot simpler to have one tank, fill it up with bleach and a splash or surfactant, and just wash houses with a DS injector. Unless you plan on doing roofs, you are never going to need a 12 volt pump. If you are washing roofs, then you only need one tank for that. Not sure why you would need 3 or 4 tanks.
Reason I was going with 3 tanks was to have the ability to adjust the amount of soap and sh I use for different roof applications but it seems to be inhibiting the ability to DS the correct proportions for house washing.
I saw squids setup that he had with the 2 barbs but with Slomo, you use a lot less soap then let’s say elemonator because it’s very thick and concentrated and that system looks like a 50/50 draw. So with that setup, I feel like I would either have to
A: dilute the soap with water to achieve the right strength
B: get a smaller diameter tube or proportioner plug like the X jets have to draw a smaller amount.
Honestly i have slomo on the way but I’m not sure if I can draw it through a DS injector with how thick I heard it is. Is it suppose to be diluted with water if you plan to 12v it through the proportioner by itself ?
Either way, I think you’ll need to dilute your surfactant if you want to draw it on its own (not premixed with bleach)
The proportioning injectors have a whole bunch of different sized tips you can buy for them, just like the xjet. So you’d put a larger orifice tip in the bleach side, and a smaller orifice for the surfactant side.
It’ll obviously take some experimentation to find the right tips for your setup.
Thanks. I’ll definitely see about incorporating this into one of the setup designs. I feel like a lot of people’s setup have the ability to do roofs with a proportioner systems and still do house washes with an injector and don’t have to do it this way with the duel barb injector. Am I missing something? Over thinking it maybe ?
You should already have a buffer (water tank) on your rig. No getting away from that one.
You need an SH tank, obviously.
No matter which way you slice it, you’ll need to store extra surfactant in something. A soap tank for your proportioning system doesn’t have to be very big.
The only tank you can really eliminate here is a dedicated downstream tank, (which, btw, doesn’t need any water mixed in if you’re using a proportioning injector)
So best you’ll really do is 3 tanks. Worst you could probably do is 5 tanks, if you eliminate the roof proportioning system and batch mix the same way a lot of guys still do.
I’m definitely looking forward to trying that dual barb injector. I like to change up my surfactant for housewashing depending on what type of grime I’m tackling.
If you want to be able to DS as well just carry a 5 gallon bucket with you, you would fill that bucket from your proportioner, dial in on the proportioner what you want in your 5 gallon bucket and go to town downstreaming. A whole tank dedicated to downstreaming is a waste of space if you have a proportioner system. You would need 3 tanks at the most, buffer tank is just standard.
This is the plumbing And hose layout I was thinking. Do you see anywhere that I could Improve?
This is not the layout of tanks, reels, and machines.
This only so you can see the plumbing and hose setup.
Now that I look at the 3 way at the buffer tank, I’m seeing that the way it’s set up wouldn’t work the way I’m describing it. I’ll probably just put a pvc T there and the ball valve would be moved up closer against the T. When closed the water will flow towards the washer, opened the water would flow out to dump.
Here’s what I do. I have an 8gpm with 250 foot of hose. I run a 2.1 injector. I also have a proportioner for my 12v. I have one water tank and one bleach tank. I add a splash of Elemonator to the bleach. I dilute the bleach about 4 gallons bleach and one gallon water. I downstream out of that tank and pull bleach for my roof washing out of it. On roof jobs I batch mix the roof surfactant in a 5 gallon bucket. I have no need for 3 or 4 tanks.
Here’s the thing. You have a proportioner. It doesn’t really matter what dilution you have in your downstream tank. As long as you know what it is you can control the amount of bleach being proportioned. This works for me.
