My wife out helping today, zipper wanding, -28 below zero

Son in law called in sick today....

started out the day at -26 degrees below zero, down to -28 below at one point....

The wife came out to help out...was a crazy day for sure with the cold....

Even had her running the Titanium wand

and the  Zipper wand for the first time today












Mark Saiger

www.saigers.com

"Bring on the Blue!"

Just what kind of heat are you holding atw on a day like that?

At -15, I had slush in my vac hose and even the inline filter (sitting in the van) clogged up solid with slush running from 150 feet out. It played hell with my blower.

Sometimes I think you are nuts to work on days like that. Good to have help on a moments notice though.

Greatr your wife is helping out in need, and of course the sponsors love another plug!!

milspec6 wrote:Just what kind of heat are you holding atw on a day like that?

At -15, I had slush in my vac hose and even the inline filter (sitting in the van) clogged up solid with slush running from 150 feet out.  It played hell with my blower.

Sometimes I think you are nuts to work on days like that.  Good to have help on a moments notice though.

Still really crazy good heat!

Can barely hang onto the hose, wand or connectors running 12 flow six jet Titanium...

Butler High Heat unit.

This was yesterday at -20 below



Mark Saiger
www.saigers.com

I've been running a 12 flow Ti for 4 years, but I don't see heat like that in those temps.  Granted, my old butler is not the high heat machine, but it does have a new Hx and I run a 200 degree t-stat.

Don't take this wrong, but steam isn't heat.  I can drag my wand over a wet carpet and get tons of steam with only 160 degree water if the carpet is cold enough.  In fact, I see it all the time when cleaning store fronts at 15 degrees.

The new butlers can run 240 degrees which is well beyond my weak 200, but I remain a skeptic.  I would like to see that on a gauge atw....I would be fighting to hold 150+ atw starting from 200-205 degrees at the machine in that cold.

Again, don't take offense to this, but I would have to see a gauge to believe it.  This industry loves to demonstrate by showing all this steam snorting out of the wand, but that does not equate directly to temperature.

That is very true^^, as my LG heater is screwed up somehow 3and very low on heat, that's another story but with showing 180 on gauge at the TM today, I was still getting steam coming off the stair tool and I know the water just isn't real hot, so that steam isn't a good indicator I know...........and with my 4 jet Ti wand with jets real close to carpet I see little to no steam in the same situation......but I know that cold surrounding temp sure helps with the 'steam effect'!

Hot...

Hot at the wand (on the wand)

Super hot high pressure line barely able to hang onto....

No open windows or doors anywhere near....

Just hot

As far as what temp....

Bill Sukoreff did a lie detector test couple years back on cold weather with his Butler set up like mine and I think it was around 210 or 215 at the lie detector that day.

Couldn't tell you here what it was....just hot....LOL

Well, I get the hot part. I find a solution hose difficult to hold when the water gets over 170 degrees...you scald at what 120-130? It just means that it is hot, but not necessarily up in the 200 degree mark.

I don't believe that high heat is needed to clean, so I am good with lower temps and in no way am I attacking that butler. I just don't believe that it is slinging 200+ in that kind of cold.

Maybe it does....Bill may have proven that, I don't know. I remain the skeptic on this one.

But it is all good. Any cleaner willing to work at the temperature gets props from me and you can still clean well with high flow down to around 100 degrees....that Steamin Demon did for me and it would snort out steam from time to time as well.

I was just curious as to what the actual temperature was when cleaning in that cold due to my past experience, but like you said, "Just hot" and if your lines / hoses aren't filling with slush, it is impressive.

Still would love to see you add a temp gauge to those tools...I am a sucker for real world feedback information and I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong at those temperatures.

milspec6 wrote:Well, I get the hot part.  I find a solution hose difficult to hold when the water gets over 170 degrees...you scald at what 120-130?  It just means that it is hot, but not necessarily up in the 200 degree mark.

I don't believe that high heat is needed to clean, so I am good with lower temps and in no way am I attacking that butler.  I just don't believe that it is slinging 200+ in that kind of cold.

Maybe it does....Bill may have proven that, I don't know.  I remain the skeptic on this one.

But it is all good.  Any cleaner willing to work at the temperature gets props from me and you can still clean well with high flow down to around 100 degrees....that Steamin Demon did for me and it would snort out steam from time to time as well.

I was just curious as to what the actual temperature was when cleaning in that cold due to my past experience, but like you said, "Just hot" and if your lines / hoses aren't filling with slush, it is impressive.

Still would love to see you add a temp gauge to those tools...I am a sucker for real world feedback information and I'm trying to figure out where I went wrong at those temperatures.

Actually would be a fun test and I have wanted to do that....so will have to search for a lie detector and try it

I would love to see the results....it might just be that I need to upgrade my old butler.

Mark, Joe Bristor has lie detector for wands $ 100, with a choice of 250 or 300 degrees gauge, including qc.

what solution line do you use mil?

I would look into the more expensive ones from pressure washer supply stores, they have some extremely thick high pressure lines that handle up to 300f

they of course arent ideal for summer/busy season because they are really thick and heavy but id bet you wouldnt lose nearly as much heat as say with something like a scheiffer skinny or parker paraflex

I like to see that Saigers dont wear shoe covers, makes me feel better about it

we ditched the shoe covers about a year ago and man life is easier,   so much easier to just pack a little swiffer in the truck to wipe up hard floors if needed

with how much we go to and from the truck its such a pain to take them off and on

Thanks guys for the info. I do remember Joe has the lie detectors... Will be on my list to get.

We do cover the entry floors with our poly and canvass tarps... Take off our shoes to Vac and prep,than shoes back on. We do sometimes wear shoe covers but not often. We are really careful to make shoes are clean enough to clean with.... But some people still use them all the time and I have respect for them.

I am using the Goodyear skinny hose Butler has for high heat. It doesn't lose heat as much as the thicker hose of theirs which we have on our other Butler. Easy to work with, but we do change hoses about once a year yet just for safety purposes

Mark Saiger
www.saigers.com

Several years back I pulled a hammy or groin. The next day I was doing a 4 story country house. Took my wife with me to help ease the burden of set up. Can't move to fast with either of those pulls. She had no interest to work with me again.
Mark, that look from your wife might have been the; "YOU owe me big time" look.

Matt; My carpet cleaner wrote:Several years back I pulled a hammy or groin. The next day I was doing a 4 story country house. Took my wife with me to help ease the burden of set up. Can't move to fast with either of those pulls. She had no interest to work with me again.
Mark, that look from your wife might have been the; "YOU owe me big time" look.

A bit of truth there... Lol

I still cant get over the -28 degrees part. Mark do you turn off the van? I would imagine you have to keep it running so the fluids don't freeze up

ACpower1 wrote:what solution line do you use mil?

I would look into the more expensive ones from pressure washer supply stores,    they have some extremely thick high pressure lines that handle up to 300f

they of course arent ideal for summer/busy season because they are really thick and heavy but id bet you wouldnt lose nearly as much heat as say with something like a scheiffer skinny or parker paraflex

Used to use Goodyear Neptune for years, but have been running the Skinny for the last 18 months. At those temps., I don't think either one will be holding a lot of heat...especially if sitting on the concrete or ground.

Think about it, we are talking about 60 degrees below the freezing point of water. Polar bears wouldn't jump in that water.

Mo wrote:I still cant get over the -28 degrees part. Mark do you turn off the van? I would imagine you have to keep it running so the fluids don't freeze up

I would guess that when out to do a job; pull up, leave the van running, go in to meet/greet, go set up to clean.
I have a brother that use to live in Nome, Ak. In the winter when it got really cold, they didn't turn off the truck(24\7). There were guys that speciallized in un-freezing vehicles. Used a jet engine mounted on the back of a truck. Opened the hood and pointed the jet exhaust at the engine.
And my brother said there is a difference in -20 and -40. Lol. He lost me at (minus)

Rob,
Could you run the solution hose inside a smaller diameter vac hose...to kinda shield it/insulate it from cold temps?? 50-75' of vac from van to house with the solution hose in it. Hmmmm.

Mo wrote:I still cant get over the -28 degrees part. Mark do you turn off the van? I would imagine you have to keep it running so the fluids don't freeze up

Van of course being a Butler PTO is running, but you shut the heat off, so we open the Butler Lid to help heat the cabin.


I also have viper remote starters programed for 1 hour (they can reprogram them this long max) and we keep things running while sitting with the heat on.

it is a challenge, but you just learn to keep things moving.

Today, I was working alone....and you just have to think out each move and have everything in place ready to grab and continue working. I do put a connector on the end of the hose and keep water moving when needed....but it really doesn't freeze that fast...you have a few minutes depending on what your hoses are exposed to.

I have a lot of cold weather cleaning tips/videos on my YouTube Channel

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi9UefjEixJPGgxWPTnEUhg


Mark Saiger

Matt; My carpet cleaner wrote:Rob,
Could you run the solution hose inside a smaller diameter vac hose...to kinda shield it/insulate it from cold temps?? 50-75' of vac from van to house with the solution hose in it.  Hmmmm.

We have never found it to be needed....just keep water running.

It is actually more of a hassle to set up this kind of extra items....especially when you are out there freezing too....LOL

I agree with Mark, the added gains of running solution hose through a piece of vac hose isn't worth the effort. I used to have pipe insulation on the first 25 feet of solution hose, but that was just a mess when rolling up.

I use bypass valves on my tools to keep the water flowing, never had a psi line freeze up. My issue has always been the vac hose and filter freezing up...that vapor would just turn to slush on the way through the hose. That filter just turns into an ice ball and that sits inside the van.

My fix is simply staying home when it gets below zero. Single digits okay, but not below.

Several years ago I did a job where the customer told me "last time someone cleaned, his hose made slight burn marks in my wood floor, and I don't want that again".
That CC had to pay to have the floor fixed. I know the CC personally. So I put the Sol line in a smaller vac hose. And used it from the entry door to the bed rooms.
The lady was so thankful for me being so considerate of her concern.

My thought was if you(rob) did that from the van to the front door; there would be less heat loss. Could it add enough rise in temp at the wand to be worth it? I don't know. it doesn't get that cold here, hallelujah for that.

Don't get me wrong, Matt, I was not tossing your idea aside. There is no doubt that it would help, I just don't know how much.

I toyed with the idea of making an insulator for winter using an old hose split down the middle with fiberglass insulation inside. Lay the solution hose in there and Velcro it shut.

In the end, it just become too much of a pita and left me freezing which is worse than the hoses freezing.

I just decided that carpet cleaning isn't an emergency and can wait a day or two for better weather. Now, if you don't get better weather like Mark, then I guess you do what you have to do.