Hello Peter, and welcome to the forum.
Before you read this I apologize now for my lack of basic knowledge
Now please read on, (no giggling though)
No problem, this is what the forum is for.
I'm considering starting a round early next year. First question do you think i should start part -time on weekends to test the water (fully insured and everything obviously) in case I aren't happy and have lost a highly paid (but crap) job. and also do you think customers will dislike me cleaning on the weekends.
"Testing the water" is definately a good idea. You might find that you really hate window cleaning, in which case you may be a bit stuck with it if you pack your job in. Working on weekends is usually no problem. I would avoid Sundays because customers dont much like that, but saturdays are fine. Actually customers tend to like a saturday call because they are usually at home.
Nearly there now
I've seen mention of water tanks on the forum, I presume this is for people with the wfp systems? isn't it?
And finally I was under the impression that people with a wfp had to have an expensive machine that turns ordinary water (ps do you need to tell your local water authority when you set up as a w/c?) into de-ionised, but whats this resin lark for.
When window cleaners talk about water tanks in vehicles, you're quite right, they are talking about water-fed pole systems.
To use a water-fed pole system, you have to have very pure water. Pole systems incorporate a machine to purify the water, often inside the vehicle (which is "plugged in" at night time) and this fills the water tank.
This purification is done either by using a DI resin vessel, as you correctly said, or by a combination of Reverse Osmosis and DI. These sytems are expensive compared to conventional window cleaning equipment.
This is quite a complicated process, and not all systems use both RO and DI, it depends on the hardenss of your local water.
WFP systems are complicated, and choosing the right one can be confusing. For this reason, and because it is of so much interest I decided to include a feature article about water-fed pole systems and how they work in the first issue of PWC magazine.
See the thread on the main window-cleaning board to see how you can obtain it by clicking
HERE-Philip