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UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Window Washers on December 13, 2011, 07:07:14 pm

Title: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 13, 2011, 07:07:14 pm
for those of you that use hot.

Could I ask can you do more work with it and in a quicker time, does it increase your turn over or is it just an expensive hand warmer?

cheers
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: SherwoodCleaningSe on December 13, 2011, 07:41:42 pm
It depends on the heat of the water.  Some will say that it is no faster at all, but they probably only have the water warm. If you have the water very hot at about 60C + (not recomended this time of year though) then it will clean much faster, baked on birds doings come off with ease, the water flows down the windows nicer. I'd say you get maybe a 10% increase in speed if you can take advantage of it, maybe even faster.

A lot of hot users are really only Luke warm to bath temperature users though, it makes a big difference to the cleaning ability of the water, even so that still means you can work on a sub zero day.

Simon.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Lee GLS on December 13, 2011, 07:45:07 pm
What heater have you got Simon?
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Richard iSparkle on December 13, 2011, 07:46:33 pm
problem is that if you have the water on hot, you'll crack some windows and power through your fuel too which of course ups costs.  with the water warm you do get better cleaning, most noticable on the pvc i reckon...
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 13, 2011, 07:46:42 pm
Simon, how are your hoses coping with the heat? I've tried two different minibores and neither like the heat.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: niceandclean on December 13, 2011, 08:24:54 pm
Simon, how are your hoses coping with the heat? I've tried two different minibores and neither like the heat.

Streamline microbore, never had any problems in 3 or more years.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: SherwoodCleaningSe on December 13, 2011, 08:32:07 pm
I have L5's set up and find the temperature output they give pretty good, I might try a fogwash one day.  The running costs for the L5 are low about £4 a day for 650 litres running at silly temps.  I'm using brodex heavy duty microbore but it's 8mm internal, it doesn't blow up but I am sure it could be improved upon. I've not cracked a window yet.

Simon.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: wightsurf on December 13, 2011, 10:29:41 pm
I went hot a few yrs back after losing days work due to hose freezing.Time spent
defrosting hose and starting later due to low temps also .I can say those days are long gone  ;D but i am also a luke warm user,its just a keep working tool for me and in thte summer i dont use it at all.So far this winter i still have not used it but i will the minute the temps get low and i wont lose any money due to low temps.
Just think in terms of lost money due to pratting about with frozen hose,hot makes sense  8)
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 14, 2011, 07:56:05 am
I went hot a few yrs back after losing days work due to hose freezing.Time spent
defrosting hose and starting later due to low temps also .I can say those days are long gone  ;D but i am also a luke warm user,its just a keep working tool for me and in thte summer i dont use it at all.So far this winter i still have not used it but i will the minute the temps get low and i wont lose any money due to low temps.
Just think in terms of lost money due to pratting about with frozen hose,hot makes sense  8)
Thats one very good point, I lost one day last year from snow.

does this allow you to clean faster ?
Do windows stay cleaner even longer?

You say you use warm water, so would warm water pumped into van be good enough ?
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: wightsurf on December 14, 2011, 08:13:34 am
The water temp is about 20 the last time i checked it.
If you can keep the tank rapped up to keep the water warm enough then i cant see why that wouldnt work.There are a few here that can help with that.
Does it clean quicker hmmm,it feels to work smoother and easier so it could be quicker.Longer lasting results i would say pure water is pure water so the end result the same.
But i went the heater in van route,you have options here.turn heat up/down when needed.You can pump very hot water over the hosereel to defrost if needed .
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 14, 2011, 08:22:13 am
The water temp is about 20 the last time i checked it.
If you can keep the tank rapped up to keep the water warm enough then i cant see why that wouldnt work.There are a few here that can help with that.
Does it clean quicker hmmm,it feels to work smoother and easier so it could be quicker.Longer lasting results i would say pure water is pure water so the end result the same.
But i went the heater in van route,you have options here.turn heat up/down when needed.You can pump very hot water over the hosereel to defrost if needed .

Cheers dude, I will be on the Island at easter, we should defo hook up and have a chat  ;)
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: AuRavelling79 on December 14, 2011, 01:36:00 pm
Interesting post from ALEX/EWAN there!
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: rscleaningservices on December 14, 2011, 02:31:56 pm
I think hot is much better only use hot now with the fog wash find the hoses are much softer and easy to reel in and doesnt cost loads  to run off the gas a 13kg bottle lasts about 6 weeks which I use everyday I wouldnt say it makes me work at a faster pace but does clean off the crap easier so all you cold water users its time to go hot or warm ask Mr Bones hell tell ya !!!!!!!
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: SherwoodCleaningSe on December 14, 2011, 02:53:10 pm
Hi Alex.

Out of interest what hot system do you use?  As I said before I'm a cheap and cheerful l5 user.

What you say about the surface tension of hot water is interesting, I take it that you are referring to cold water effectively being more abrasive that hot. A point to keep I'm mind though is that hot water acts a lot faster as a solvent than cold. I've found that hot water is faster on maintenance cleans than cold. I also find that the lack of surface tension makes the windows rinse easier, although the water won't cling to the window as easily due to the heat, one of the properties of water whatever the temperature is that it clings to itself, so therefor rinsing is easier. At least that's what I've found.

The only time I find that hot could be slower is when you have oxidised frames, the hot water can then maked the frames start milking again even if they have been cleaned wfp for years.

Simon.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 14, 2011, 03:44:25 pm
Interesting post from ALEX/EWAN there!

Shame he can't even spell the name of the brushes he sells.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 14, 2011, 03:51:04 pm
All this talk of surface tension is rollocks for our purposes. The difference in speed is down to how fast you can shift a blob of bird poo. In most cases hot will be faster. On maintenance cleans it makes no difference - you still do an identical scrubbing and rinsing action then move on to the next window. The biggest increase in speed would be obtained simply by rinsing on the glass - hot or cold.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: AuRavelling79 on December 14, 2011, 04:36:56 pm
All this talk of surface tension is rollocks for our purposes. The difference in speed is down to how fast you can shift a blob of bird poo. In most cases hot will be faster. On maintenance cleans it makes no difference - you still do an identical scrubbing and rinsing action then move on to the next window. The biggest increase in speed would be obtained simply by rinsing on the glass - hot or cold.

Exactly!
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Peter Fogwill on December 14, 2011, 06:12:39 pm
All this talk of surface tension is rollocks for our purposes. The difference in speed is down to how fast you can shift a blob of bird poo. In most cases hot will be faster. On maintenance cleans it makes no difference - you still do an identical scrubbing and rinsing action then move on to the next window. The biggest increase in speed would be obtained simply by rinsing on the glass - hot or cold.

Exactly!

I would say it mattered more for our purpose than any other purpose I can think of. We don't use detergents and we want as much of the water we can get off the glass as possible.

Peter
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 14, 2011, 06:26:23 pm
So do you clean glass in a different way with hot water? I don't. Couple of scrubs and a rinse. Can't see me standing there with a stopwatch and timing how fast it dries or how long it takes the beads of water to travel from the top to the bottom of the window.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 14, 2011, 06:27:50 pm
so apart from a hand warmer, can this make more money for the user ?
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Peter Fogwill on December 14, 2011, 06:49:08 pm
So do you clean glass in a different way with hot water? I don't. Couple of scrubs and a rinse. Can't see me standing there with a stopwatch and timing how fast it dries or how long it takes the beads of water to travel from the top to the bottom of the window.

The point is, a window needs a certain amount of water to clean.  Now let's suppose your couple of scrubs and a rinse is the very minimum your window needs to get it clean with cold water.  Now what if instead of a couple of scrubs and a rinse you only needed one scrub and half a rinse to get the same result? You would be faster, and you would use less water?? Agreed?  Now we know that the viscosity of water is different from hot water and cold. And hot water moves more freely than cold. Now if there was going to be any spotting due to not enough water it would show up in water beads that were left on the glass, and if the viscosity of the hot water allowed it to make it's way to the bottom of the glass then it would be taking anything else in it with it.

 Now if there is any one thing that could make a difference then it could be the heat of the water.

Peter
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 14, 2011, 07:07:36 pm
 ;D yes but who actually changes their method? Nobody I bet.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Peter Fogwill on December 14, 2011, 07:51:53 pm
I would if it saves me time and water.  Also all the people who report water and time savings with hot water obviously do.

Peter
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 14, 2011, 08:01:35 pm
I would if it saves me time and water.  Also all the people who report water and time savings with hot water obviously do.

Peter
would like to hear from the people that say they save time and water, on how they do this.

Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Peter Fogwill on December 14, 2011, 09:36:26 pm
They use hot water :D. There are a great many posts on the forums people saying it, not really going into detail as there is not much detail to go into.

Peter
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: boshravie on December 14, 2011, 10:15:13 pm
Well we find it great to work with in terms of being faster and easier to clean  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uAf6NJyRg
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave71 on December 14, 2011, 10:23:46 pm
just put a deposit down for purefreedom hot system, get fitted after newyear cant wait to use, it looks smart to
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Window Washers on December 15, 2011, 04:56:50 am
just put a deposit down for purefreedom hot system, get fitted after newyear cant wait to use, it looks smart to
it looks smart lol  ;D
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Dave Willis on December 15, 2011, 08:08:20 am
Well we find it great to work with in terms of being faster and easier to clean  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uAf6NJyRg

Bosh, I've seen your utube clips and have to say you are the slowest windowcleaner I've ever seen  ;D
Can't see how hot water is making money for you.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: boshravie on December 15, 2011, 03:10:04 pm
Well we find it great to work with in terms of being faster and easier to clean  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uAf6NJyRg

Bosh, I've seen your utube clips and have to say you are the slowest windowcleaner I've ever seen  ;D
Can't see how hot water is making money for you.

I might be slow to some people, but I like to do the job through, then I can charger a bit higher  ;)
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: dave.e on December 15, 2011, 03:23:06 pm
Well we find it great to work with in terms of being faster and easier to clean  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uAf6NJyRg

Bosh, I've seen your utube clips and have to say you are the slowest windowcleaner I've ever seen  ;D
Can't see how hot water is making money for you.

I might be slow to some people, but I like to do the job through, then I can charger a bit higher  ;)




hi mate can i ask what fan jets are you using cheers dave
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: pristine window cl on December 15, 2011, 04:02:08 pm
everybody interested in hot water systems take note. i rushed into an ionics thermopure system,
great, but you MUST ensure that u can charge more for your cleans, if not you could end up in trouble.
Thank god i live in woking surrey, and after 6mths realised that i had to charge more . thanks to
the area i was able to do this,  some of the prices i see on this forum worry me. you would need to be earning
around £30---£50 an hour! just last wk my burner finished up after 3yrs .         £500 to repair PLUS VAT
so beware . Hot verses cold well  i only had cold for a few wks and i can tell you it was much harder work
to get the finish that hot delivers. no need to go into all that blarney, you will see and feel the difference
it wins hands down. i can also clean many other things with ease gutters facias garage doors signs etc etc

     Alan
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: Scrimble on December 15, 2011, 05:35:33 pm
this is my first week of hot water and there is no way i'm going back to cold fogwash heater best £190 i've spent for a long while
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: niceandclean on December 15, 2011, 05:42:40 pm
everybody interested in hot water systems take note. i rushed into an ionics thermopure system,
great, but you MUST ensure that u can charge more for your cleans, if not you could end up in trouble.
Thank god i live in woking surrey, and after 6mths realised that i had to charge more . thanks to
the area i was able to do this,  some of the prices i see on this forum worry me. you would need to be earning
around £30---£50 an hour! just last wk my burner finished up after 3yrs .         £500 to repair PLUS VAT

£500 plus vat for a burner? Who fitted that?
so beware . Hot verses cold well  i only had cold for a few wks and i can tell you it was much harder work
to get the finish that hot delivers. no need to go into all that blarney, you will see and feel the difference
it wins hands down. i can also clean many other things with ease gutters facias garage doors signs etc etc

     Alan
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: niceandclean on December 15, 2011, 05:47:05 pm
Pristine, £500 plus vat for a burner on a webasto, who fitted that?
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: pristine window cl on December 15, 2011, 07:07:39 pm
who do you think, ionics of course, 1 burner cartridge, 1glow pin, 1 wibasto flame detector
labour 2.5 hrs.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: niceandclean on December 15, 2011, 07:20:32 pm
who do you think, ionics of course, 1 burner cartridge, 1glow pin, 1 wibasto flame detector
labour 2.5 hrs.

Blimey! Try an independant like a boat yard, there are plenty around Surrey/Berkshire. I changed the burner on one of my units last year, very easy to do. Its generally the burner when its smoking like a good'un all the time. 
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: boshravie on December 15, 2011, 07:28:27 pm
Well we find it great to work with in terms of being faster and easier to clean  :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-uAf6NJyRg

Bosh, I've seen your utube clips and have to say you are the slowest windowcleaner I've ever seen  ;D
Can't see how hot water is making money for you.

I might be slow to some people, but I like to do the job through, then I can charger a bit higher  ;)




hi mate can i ask what fan jets are you using cheers dave

Gardiner fan jet.
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: matthewprice on December 15, 2011, 07:31:33 pm
has anyone a problems with brocken windows when using hot i do a lot of victorian single paned glass and i am a bit worried that this would be a problem
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: boshravie on December 15, 2011, 07:36:52 pm
everybody interested in hot water systems take note. i rushed into an ionics thermopure system,
great, but you MUST ensure that u can charge more for your cleans, if not you could end up in trouble.
Thank god i live in woking surrey, and after 6mths realised that i had to charge more . thanks to
the area i was able to do this,  some of the prices i see on this forum worry me. you would need to be earning
around £30---£50 an hour! just last wk my burner finished up after 3yrs .         £500 to repair PLUS VAT
so beware . Hot verses cold well  i only had cold for a few wks and i can tell you it was much harder work
to get the finish that hot delivers. no need to go into all that blarney, you will see and feel the difference
it wins hands down. i can also clean many other things with ease gutters facias garage doors signs etc etc

     Alan


Yes Ionic do over charge for maintaince of these Webasto heaters, but we have had one of these burners on other van and its been working for the past 8 years without any maintaince, and still working very well.

you find they are very robust burners, so find a local Webasto dealer near you if you have any issue with it and most likely the boat yards will know, because they fit these kind of heaters in all boats.

Bosh
Title: Re: Hot v's Cold
Post by: pristine window cl on December 15, 2011, 07:49:24 pm
hi mathew, when cleaning single glazing in cold weather do not use hot water it will crack glass,
use warm water if you can, with mine i can use the cold flow, but with the heater on.
as i am not using the hot flow, the hot water goes back into the tank, slowly  heating
the main tank of water, this gives me warm water. Never use hot on frosty mornings on single glazing,

Alan