We have been looking at getting a buffer tank setup this season and mounting it in our enclosed trailer that we don’t have much use for! Recently we have been receiving a decent amount of calls from customers who don’t have on sight water source making it hard for them to find somebody to service their property.
Stopped by a local store earlier, took some measurments and have decided on a 150 gallon tank. The washer we will be using is 4gpm. do I need an inline pump to feed to the washer or will gravity feeding work? Don’t want to burn up a pump! Anybody care to share some pics of their buffer tank setup?
Is your washer belt drive drive, gear drive or direct? If direct you’ll need to have water tank above level of intake on pump or some use a booster pump. It will pull water if you prime it, but that’s a pain sometimes. If belt drive or gear drive, you’re good to go. Don’t worry about any of that.
CAT direct drive triplex pump! i would assume i could do some type of platform setup in my trailer and not worry to much… i would how large of an area i could actually cover with 150 gallons before getting low
If your belt/gear driven you dont need a extra pump to force feed the pump. One thing to note is that 150 gallons means you only have about 130 gallons of usable water before the water level gets below the bulk head and you start sucking in air. So at 130 gallons that gives you 30ish minutes of trigger time. Depending on if your on tandem axles or not you may be pushing the weigh capacity of a small trailer. 150 gallons by it self is 1260lbs plus trailer itself and all the gear you carry so make sure you calculate everything on the trailer. Most charge any where from $80-150 per trip to carry water because its heavy, burns more gas to get their, extra wear and tear on everything.
this is true. The current job im going to look at today was a house first, wants their foundation washed to get the soot off. Should i tell him if i need to go and refill the tank its additional $$? i havent gone and and see the home yet so i can comment on trigger time but im hoping one tank is enough
Some direct drives will pull water if you start it at low rpms. Even raising the tank you still relying on the weight of the water to force the water out the bulk head. So when the water gets low the force gets weaker. Some have ran small pump in between the tank and washer with varying degrees of success. If the in between pump dies then you burn up the washer pump.
Its your business and your decision to charge or not. But water is heavy, also you having to pack up to go get more water is time. TIME = MONEY
150 gallons = 30 min of trigger time
So if it takes you 1 1/2 to wash a house that 3 trips of water. And depending on where your getting the water from filling up the tank at an average of 5gpm means another 30 min sitting waiting on the tank to be filled. That now means this job is now a 5+ hour long house.
I use a water tank on a daily basis both with my old direct drive and my new belt drive pump. I use a 250 gallon tank raised so that the out flow is above the inlet on the pump. I don’t have any problems with either of the units.
i am picking up a 275 gallon tank tomorrow with a water spicket already on the bottom! i will be using a direct drive unit for now. How long does your 250 usually last?
Size of tank / gpm = continuous run time
It varies a great deal based on tip selection etc. Easiest way to find out
what you can expect is to put your tips hoses etc in place as you will have
them on the job, then time how long it takes for you to fill up a 5 gallon
bucket.
Example: 1 minute to fill a 5 gallon bucket = 5 g/pm so you’d have 50
minutes of “wand time”. don’t count your last 25 gallons of water, you’ll
be sucking air by then.
Also, I recommend that you plumb from the tank to the pump with a 1" or
1.25" hose…
