[Simon Campbell]

Hi guys

The next piece of equipment I'm looking buying is a water fed pole with a trolley. All I'll be using it for is cleaning glass conservatory roofs or areas where water is inaccessible, I'll be buying in the pure water for the corny roofs.

So my question is do you have any thoughts/ opinions/ experience with  wfp/trolley systems  that's only for light use? I'm a big believer in you get what you pay so will pay more for a quality build but don't want to spend money on an overkill setup.

Thanks in advance

Simon

[nathankaye]

Do we take it your a traditional window cleaner.
I ask because of its relevance. Initially i would say buy a gardiners back pack, a carbon fibre pole and good brush. Stick the back pack on a trolley.
After a little thought (becomes confusing, sorry) i would say buy a pure freedom trolley system.
Now for the reasoning;
Either way, going down the route of a trolley system and pure water, you will realise like the many of us did, how great, easy and effective wfp trully is. Then you may begin to wonder about using it on your customers windows, not just the hard to reach windows or conny roofs etc.
The gardiner back pack is a cheaper but good quality product, so youve not spent overly much if you then decide (and probably will!) to go wfp. Or you can use the purefreedom as a base unit in a van mount if you again choose to go full wfp, only requiring the added expense of a tank and hose + reel and filtration. So a higher initial cost, but only a small step to take after!
Hope that makes sense!?

[Simon Campbell]

thanks for taking the time to respond in detail  Nathan.

No I should have said I am not a traditional window cleaner but I do offer external cleaning services such as  gutters, fascias conservatories etc and I like to have all the gear and as I'm sure enough can appreciate the right equipment makes life easier.

Because I am not a trad window cleaner I'm not after a heavy duty set up, it will be occasional use but still good to have in my arsenal.  I will take a look at your suggestions 

[Simon Campbell]

Also I have done some reading into  the RO set up but I got far too confused with resins and everything else so just a pole and trolley will do me fine lol 

[KS Cleaning]

Purefreedom have just released a new light weight trolley with lithium battery, I've just ordered one.

[Smurf]

You can buy also buy those 18 hole battery packs used in that new pf trolley from the likes of fleebay too if you wanted to go down the diy route or use it to power a chemical sprayer pump maybe? Still they are a lot of dosh  just for a 16ah battery. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-16AH-18-HOLE-LITHIUM-GOLF-TROLLEY-BATTERY-FITS-POWAKADDY-WITH-BAG-CHARGER-/121175533206?hash=item1c369fe696:g:pTsAAOxy1yZSMwIu

[Smurf]

If you're into exterior property cleaning then a purified wfp system is a must in my book.

Yes you can go down the trolley or backpack route at first if pennies are tight but if you ask me frome experience it's a waste of time and effort having to hump all the water about you would need for each job. 

For ease of use I would recommend a van mount or use a old style pf trolley static in the van with a decent size van tank and a static ro/di setup too  or just di tanks depending on the tds of your tap water to produce purified water. You don't want to be cleaning glass conny roofs, windows etc with just tap water using a wfp as defets the object otherwise you would have to trad them afterwards or they would end up looking crap.

Regards to water fed poles get yourself some decent carbon poles from the likes of gardiner pole systems instead.

[Simon Campbell]

Thanks for the input guys 

[Don Kee]

Use the customers tap to clean the conservatory roofs
Use the pure to finish the glass panels/windows to leave them streak free

You dont want to be using a trolley for the whole clean, you'll be forever changing barrells
(Also buy a tap for the pole, you'll soon learn how to save pure as you wont want to be changing barrels all the time)

[Simon Campbell]

Cheers Don Kee. Good bit of advice. Because I'm not a window cleaner, I can't justify gettin a tank and RO set up so the trolley and some pure will be plenty. Appreciate that!

[Smurf]

Worth mentioning you will come across some that you don't have access to an outside tap then you will start to struggle big-time. Hence why I mentioned using a wfp van tank to store your purified water in.

The biggest downside I've found using a wfp trolley as a trolley and containers apart from humping all the pure water about is the flow rate especially on conservatory roofs etc as the lower the flow rate the longer the job can take especially on rinsing down.  Best to not underestimate how much pure you will actually use either or time it will take as can be quite a lot more than you think.

Can I ask where are you going to get your purified water from if you don't intend to use a ro/di or di only setup?

[waterforce]

Just buy a small pressure washer and turbo nozzle for the connies.

[Simon Campbell]

I believe there is a place near me I can buy it in after talking to a mate whi is a window cleaner. I think going off the input I may just be better making a contact with a full set up and passing any work onto them in exchange  for work that I do. It sounds like a trolley may be more hassle than it's worth.

But you know what it's like when you busy and you have these ideas 

[Nick Day]

Hi Simon,

We use a trolley to do windows and conservatory roofs and find no problems with it, in the past I've even used a back pack on them. I personally don't find lugging water about a problem, I just get how many tubs out I think I'll need at the start of the job and  put them where I'm working and just change/top up as I need to. I put it on a high flow and it's as simple as that and they obviously come up OK because one of the roofs I do is my mother in laws and if it wasn't good she'd let me know in no uncertain terms!!

[Smurf]

Nick that's is defo the hard way to do it if you ask me.

Myself I started of with a pf trolley and 25 ltr containers filled from a water butt that the static ro/di filled up. Then when all the containers were full had to lug the containers normally anything between 5 - 10 into the van.  That is even before I done any work.

Once arrived to where I was working had to unload the trolley, grab a continer from the back of the van and lug the trolley to wherever I wanted it setup. Depending what I was doing I had to keep swaping the containers over which meant having to keep stopping work and going back to the van to swap over the containers which wasted a lot of time and effort doing so.

I soon realised this was a daft and hard way of working so kept an eye out on fleebay for a used good condition wydale tank for the van. To get me started the first one I bought was a wydale 250 litre upright I picked up for £25 from fleebay. As far a space was concered the tank actual foot print was smaller than all the containers I had to lug about. Then all I did was mod the trolley inlet hose to directly feed from the van tank, add a 100m hose reel and bobs yer uncle had myself a wfp van system for next to bugger all as I already had the pf trolley.

As for having to waste time filling and humping water containers to the van that all stopped as just got myself a 1000 ltr ibc as a holding tank instead of using a water butt so the ro/di could continue to produce more pure while I was out and about/overnight. Then when I wanted to refill the van tank just  transfered the pure water directly into the van tank via a transfer pump.

My opinion is that trolleys/backpacks are ok for the odd job now and again but are not practical nor very productive to be used all the time. The only type of wfp trolley now I would consider would be an on demand ro/di or di only (if in a soft water area) for larger jobs that could be hooked up to a mains water supply. Then would have an endless supply of pure water on demand if/when required.