Product: AES 200/19 Twin Mega Trailer-Mounted Petrol-Powered Water Blaster
What happens when those single unit water blasters you bought from the local hardware store cost your business money? We caught up with Affordable Roof Coating (ARC) owner Logan Pratt to find out how a customised trailer from AES Water Blasters has turned lost time on site into more jobs and increased revenue.
It’s been six years of hard work for Logan Pratt and his small team at ARC. He’s a numbers guy and keeps a close eye on the time his boys spend on each job site. But, after cleaning and coating hundreds of roofs across Auckland and the North Island, one thing stood out: his numbers didn’t add up.
You might relate to Logan’s problem. He was running three off-the-shelf water blasters purchased from a consumer hardware store. They’re cheap but they come with major problems when you’re up on a roof.
Roof cleaning is tough work. His guys see all sorts of nasty moss, mould and gunge, making roofs slippery and very challenging. The right equipment is essential.
Homeowners aren’t always clued in to how they can extend the life of their roof and just expect they’ll need a new one. Logan says not every roof can be saved, but you’d be surprised how many his crew have rescued with a high-pressure clean and fresh coating.
Problem number one for the ARC team. Hauling a lot of extension hose cables around site takes time, around two hours a day Logan reckons. Plus, the team has to unload and load the units, hoses and attachments into and out of their company trucks on each job. And if you’ve got two operators on a job, water blasting for six hours, then it’s time that could be better spent elsewhere.
The next major problem is the PSI. Those single unit consumer water blasters are advertised as having a PSI of 3200. “By the time the water gets to the end of the hose, you’re probably sitting at maybe 2000 PSI. And using the water supply directly from the property’s outside tap is inconsistent,” says Logan. Reduced PSI is more time spent on the roof water blasting.
The third and major concern for Logan when using the single units is around safety. His crew is always securely harnessed when they’re water blasting but it’s not ideal to have to move around a roof quickly.
“Basically if something happens on the roof and you have to stop the water blaster and go and do another thing, it could cook the [single unit] pump. If you let go of the trigger, you can only let go for about 20 seconds.”
“Those units don’t like it when there’s no flow going through because they’re not self-regulating,” he says.
So, Logan recently did a time audit on each job to work out just how much these units were costing him in man hours. And he worked out those single unit water blasters were costing him a minimum of two hours on every job.
“I do pros and cons on everything and I talked to the boys and we decided there were very few pros for single unit water blasters versus a water blasting trailer set up,” he says. Single unit water blasters might be right for sole operators, but not for commercial work and especially not for cleaning roofs.
Logan went online to do some research looking for reputable New Zealand companies selling water blasters. In the end, it was a mate running a similar business who gave him the heads up about AES Water Blasters. He’d had a great customer experience and recommended AES because it specialised in heavy duty equipment.
AES Waterblasting General Manager, Chris Wilmoth listened to Logan and came up with a customised trailer solution to solve all the problems ARC had been dealing with on site. Other firms could only offer him off the shelf units.
Now, the ARC team turns up on site with the new AES 200/19 Twin Mega Trailer-Mounted Petrol-Powered Water Blaster. It’s a game changer for the business.
It’s a portable trailer water blaster that allows two of his crew on the roof to water blast at the same time using the twin engines. It has a huge 750 litre water tank, so once it’s filled up on site there are no inconsistencies with water supply. It’s also self-regulating so operators can stop mid-clean if they need to without fear of any equipment malfunctions.
Turning up to a new site is easy. The trailer unit hooks up to ARC trucks and is towed to wherever it needs to be. No time-consuming unloading and loading of units and hosing.
“And we’ve got 75 metre hose reels that can easily run around the commercial property roof,” Logan says. Swivel heads on the hoses mean no tangles and no need to stop and untangle or move anything, he says. “It’s amazing. There’s so many benefits to us, it will save us money and time, gives us a better clean and is safer for the boys to operate.”
This setup also works for:
The new trailer water blaster means Logan can now add another ARC job or two each week with the extra man hours he’s claimed back. He hopes to eventually expand the business from Auckland and the North Island into the South Island as well.
ARC Affordable Roof Coating needed a customised solution and AES Water Blasters delivered, says Logan. “They were just so open to what we were looking for and they listened. I was trying to get something achieved and they did it!”
46 Sir William Avenue
East Tamaki, Auckland 2013,
New Zealand
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