[Patti]

 
Hi guys,
I haven't been on the forum in awhile so this problem might have already been addressed.  Sorry in advance if it has.  The hoses for our truck mount keep splitting?  It's usually the first one that is on the hose reel.  So I guess it's wound quite tightly.  The company we bought the TM off have replaced it once but now the replacement is just splitting everywhere.  They are pretty expensive to replace all the time.  We've only had a TM since last summer.  Anyone else had this problem?

[Spot On cleaning]

Never had this problem, and i am surprised if it is the hose reel thats doing it and the diameter of the drum belly would have been correctly designed for this purpose.

I think it could be an inferior hose or a batch of them. I worked for Twelve years for Pirelli cables and worked on plastic extrusion the whole time i was there, which included armoured cable to hollow tubes, and optical fibre cable to pipes etc, so i know a bit about how they are made. They are probably made in long lengths then cut into the required lengths.

If a machine is badly set up,it will turn out crap for a whole shift or even longer if the operator does not spot the fault. Myself and many operators, would turn a blind eye and often let cables out of the door knowing there was a fault. If the wall thickness or radial thickness is not the same all the way around, when the cable or pipe is would onto a drum, it is both in a state of expansion and compression depending on how it is wound, and this will cause a split.

Obviously the more pipe on the drum, the circumference gets bigger and the bending of the hoses is less so you don't get the problem.

There is a formula that is used to work out reel sizes or drum sizes for cables and pipes, and i was wondering if yours was custom made for your van, the belly is not big enough. I made my own from wood to hold 200 feet of pipe for now as my van was not big enough.

I bought my truck mount new from Prochem is August 200 and am pleased with it. How are you getting on with yours?

Dave

[gwrightson]

Dave , i do hope you dont have that attitude whilst c/c .  "seems yoIf a machine is badly set up,it will turn out crap for a whole shift or even longer if the operator does not spot the fault. Myself and many operators, would turn a blind eye and often let cables out of the door knowing there was a fault. If the wall thickness or radial thickness is not the same all the way around, when the cable or pipe is would onto a drum, it is both in a state of expansion and compression depending on how it is wound, and this will cause a split.

u might easily overlook one or two things when doing your job

 Geoff

[Karl Wildey]

getting back on subject, still using the same hoses  from new, had them over 6 years, so either problem with supplier, or the way you wrap hoses on reel.
I spin the reel and let the hoses go on to the reel, how they feel like. i do not try and put them in a nice neat order, if you see what I mean. Is this what you do?

[Patti]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for that.  Maybe I have had hoses from a bad batch.  The TM was all done by Hydramaster so the hose reel is the right size and everything.  I will go back and ask them about the faulty hoses.

Loving the TM.  Had portables for 17 years.  We still use portables as well sometimes.  They do a great job it's just that the TM is so easy to use.  We seem to get less tired and do things alot quicker.  

Patti

[Patti]

Hi Karl,

We roll the hoses back on just like you do.  Not tight or anything.  Although it is strange that it's the first one on the reel that always split.  Will try and reel them in alot looser.

Thanks for that.

Patti

[Spot On cleaning]

Geoff

No, i don't operate as a cc in the same fashion. All cables are tested either optically or electrically, so they will work for the customer. I might have come across as a bad operator, but surprisingy, we took some pride in what we did.

Perhaps they should have payed us more money instead of trying to make cut backs at our expense. You pay peanuts and get monkees.

To patti:  I am going into my fifth year in August and used an Extracta excel for three years as i still need to now and again. I looked at buying a new van and tm from Hydramaster at i think 26k, but went for a 3 year old van and new Blazer from Prochem which shaved around 5k off my expenditure.

I was lucky enough to be in a situation whereby we bought our equipment outright, and we are maaging okay, but i am now building up more commercial work by seding out around 50-100 commercial letters a week.

Dave

[solar]

Never had a problem with our hoses, it is worth remembering that the biggest cause of splitting pipes is down to frost, bleed your system by turning the pump off first and the pull the trigger on your carpet tool thus bleeding the pipes.

The reason that the solution pipes are so expensive is that they are made from non marking materials, if you are using your tm for crappy areas i.e powerwashing then cheaper pipes can be bought, but do not use the cheaper pipes for carpet cleaning in domestics as these may mark items and walls. It is worth spending more money on correctly designed pipes from chemspec, hydramaster or prochem, hope this helps

regards The Solar Team

[Spot On cleaning]

Solar

I think you will find that the solution pipes are also armoured with either steel wire or kevlar or something else.

Without cutting one open, i would say steel though because of the way they kink up when trying to wind them. Always puts me in mind of the time in work when an operator called Terry fell asleep on his machine. The drum that the cable was winding onto had stopped, but the cable kept coming out of the caterpillar tracks.

I think there was about 800mts of armoured cable on the floor that several of us had to manhandle back onto the drum after slowing the machine down to a crawl. You should have seen his face that time.

Dave

[Dave_Lee]

Patti,
Could you please clarify, are you talking, solution or vacuum hoses?
Dave.

[mark_roberts]

Its the vacuum hoses.  If you bend them far enough then the inner grey 'bit' between the orange 'bits' will flex out of its 'shell' and cause a leak but usually pops back into place once the hoses are laying flat.

Mark