Keeping a track of your rounds

So once you've got either your backpack/trolley or van system up and running you'll be out on jobs putting the new equipment into practice. Of course you never know how good your kit is really until you take it for a few test drives. You may find yourself having to tweak certain parts. Perhaps the trailing hose gets caught up, snagged and tangled, disrupting your work. Or maybe you're system is leaking around the connectors. There's always adjustments and improvements you can make.

However, another important part of the business is keeping a track of the work you're doing, who's due for a clean next, and the amounts owing on your rounds. Of course there are several ways you can do this. One is to keep a diary and note down all the houses/premises/offices on your round and when they're due to be cleaned. Another way is to keep a spreadsheet with all the necessary data for you round. Or you can buy software which does this all for you, such as Round tracker. You may prefer to use a combination of these methods. Also, if you're doing canvassing it's a good idea to note down which houses you've canvassed and keep these perhaps on a database with the contact information. Make sure you update your spreadsheet weekly or fortnightly so you can put it to good use.

DIY Water Fed Pole Sytems: The Trolley System

There are various ways you can go about doing it yourself, and on the cheap I might add for WFP.

First things first is that you need to collect your water, with a suitable rain water butt. Make sure its large enough to collect an adequate supply of water.

I'm going to run through a typical garage setup:

1st Stage:

• Now place this water butt on an elevated position, either make a stand for it, or have it on an elevated platform outside. This is important because you will recycle the waste water produced from your RO.
• Simply connect your hose pipe to your water supply, make sure you run the RO output tubing into the water butt. Depending on what output your RO is, you could find your water butt filling up in no time, so either downgrade to a lower output or make an overflow sytem by connecting up to a second water butt.
• If you haven't already buy a TDS meter, to make sure your water is pure enough to clean with.

2nd Stage:

1. Buy your water containers for transporting the water. 4-6 containters should be enough
2. Buy a sack truck and get it welded for carrying the containers, so you can fit 2 containers on it.
3. Then you need two buy two essential components a pump box , like the one available from Cleantech, which is around $500 and a power supply, something that can last you all.
4. For the poles, I'd recommend either Unger extendable poles. Go for the 3X3 sections extendable for up to 31', takes you up to 3 storey work if your round has higher windows. And go for something like the Vikan Brush. Also buy the unger cranked joints (metal) for supporting the pole sections. Or you may want to consider other telescopic poles, such as the ones from Varitech, omnipole or Gardiner
5. Get the necessary fixtures and fittings. I'd recommend Hozelock pipes and connectors.
   

Of course there are different permutations and combinations you might like to try. It's up to you what you eventually go for. But as long as it's practical and enables better mobility then it's doing the job right!

Poles providing a good workout.....

I was recently talking to a mate, who swears by his Gardiner poles as producing the best cleaning results. He also said his longer sized poles, namely the carbon fibre ones 38' and 56' ones respectively give him the chance for a good workout, and to build some muscles on the old arms. Never really thought about it, until he mentioned but thinking back to when I first started out I had these really skinny arms, now my arms are bigger and the best thing is I've never had to go to the gym to achieve this. It was solely achieved by me being out and about using me poles. So my questions to you kind readers is what poles do you use? Are they lightweight or heavy ones? And have you noticed any increase in muscle mass?

The importance of water proofing your van

Before you start about thinking about fitting your components for your system in your van, you should first make sure that the van is waterproofed. As the constant exposure to pure water can have very harmful corrosive effects on the internal structure of your motor. Meaning if waterproofing the van floor is not done right first time, you could be having costly visits to your local garage. There are many ways of waterproofing these include: Protecta-Kote or Hammerite, Anti-slip Floor Paint, Speedliner or even Fiber glass lining. I've used protecta-kote before and must say relatively happy with the results. Although it can stink up the van a bit, and when you're applying it make sure you wear a mask and gloves as it's nasty stuff if it gets on your hands.
I did two coats of it, and my van has ply-lining as well. You may want to consider Hammerite if you have an older van and want only 2-3 years of protection for your van floor. Anti-slip floor paint, it's best to by the polyurethane one which is about 80 quid for really good results. Or for ease and convenience speedliner comes in spray from. Some people are facouring fiber glass lining for protecting their van floor. How effective this in waterproofing I'm not entirely sure but hear reports of mixed success. However, if the jobs done correctly and no open space is left it can be as good as any other method of waterproofing. Once the water proofing of the van is done. You can concentrate on the fitting the water fed pole system. Which I'll look at next week.