Everything doing well and only had one street to do and that was me complete for the month. As I left the next street, smoke began to come from my bonnet. Only doing 10 mph so pulled over and stopped, then lifted the bonnet and seen the culprit. Idler pulley bolt had come loose and fan belt was nearly on fire. Removed belt and Googled if I could run without the fan belt. Okay for short journeys but no power steering so moved along to other street and parked in the middle so I could complete my run. Mate told me to bring it down tomorrow morning and he would have a look at it in his garage. He said, it needs a round pulley and you have to remove the front as I'm too busy and I'll order it. 2hrs later I had the front nearly off and managed to get the pulley off. They came in with new one and it was the wrong one. Sent it back and ordered the right one again. 4pm came in with the other wrong one so sent that back and the correct one would come Friday 10am. Back down today and they came in with the correct one (£30) and I fitted it, mate checked it and the new belt which I had and I was to put the front back on. 2pm I finished and drove out and all is well. He told me this happens all the time with parts delivery companies and that's the reason he needs a few more ramps so he can leave the car/van stripped on the ramp till the exact part comes in. I always thought a garage was a licence to print money but have now seen the other side of things. 🤔

Back on topic I will defo be interested in a new electric van in the next 7 years or so.i will probably have to incorporate an immersion system to heat my water rather than a diesel heater as I don't fancy having a separate tank for filling up.it would be difficult too i imagine depending on where the batteries are in the van..

My average mileage per year in my van is around 3000 miles and I will have a large driveway to install a charging point at home...

Is there any companies who professionally fit immersion heating systems in vans for window cleaning?(as I don't feel confident in doing the job myself).

Better off with a diesel tank for the heater IMO.

You're not going to want to run an emersion off your van battery, if that's even possible? On demand diesel heating is a very different prospect to insulating then night heating a tank of water via an emersion from your mains.

Once you go on demand hot - you don't go back, right?

One of the franchisee's vans gave up the ghost so I've spent a couple of days kitting out the new van.

Chaos




Followed by...

Happiness, just his powered reel to fit tomorrow



Vin

In 7 years time if diesel is further out of favour, I guess companies such as Grippa  would provide some sort of immersion option for their systems.

Hadn't thought of that but if you're comparing like for like, a 9kW heater like Grippas would require an electric heater with the same power rating. Buy a Toyota Proace with a 50kWh battery, run the heater for three hours and you've worse than halved your range.

Interesting problem if you run hot water.

Vin

Sebo BS36!