[julianbiggs]

Hi guys. A question for you wfp experts.

Considering going over to wfp but im on a water meter.

I know its difficult to get an exact figure but.. how many litres would we use if there were two of using wfp out of one van. Lets say we do 30 houses a day. Consisting of average 3 / 4 bed houses with a few conservatories. How many litres will have used at the end of the day.

Also to give us an idea how many litres are used on a typical 3 bed detached and how many on a typical 4 bed detached ?

Cheers

[Spruce]

This is a difficult question to answer.

When I upgraded to a 2 man system, the typical tank of choice was a 650l unit with 2 pumps and 2 controllers.
On the occasions when my son and I work together as we did yesterday, we have never run out of water. Yesterday we used about 500 all day.

I know there are a few teams that use smaller tanks in their vans - Tosh and his missus I think use a 500l tank in their Dispatch. Some have opted to WPF tops and trad bottoms to reduce water usage. When I first started trad, doing bottoms was always a pain as I needed a step ladder to reach the tops of the bottom windows so WPFing all windows made more sense to me and saved time.

We have also found that 2 identical houses can take different amounts of time and you can use more water on one than the other.

I have also found from my experience that I can also waste water by having the controller flow too high whereas setting it too slow wastes time.

My son mainly uses his backpack and uses his van mount as a water tank. On average he uses about 250l a day on his own. My son in law uses his van mount and will get through about 400 litres a day and I probably use about 350 - 400 litres a day.

When my son and I team up together we never manage to do double the amount of work we do on our own, so as I doubt anyone else does. This reduction in productivity will also show as a reduction in water usage.

We don't work all that far from home and have an IBC tank to draw from should we get low. I know one of the local lads will go out first thing in the morning expecting to have to come back home and fill up at lunch time if he is working locally. The trouble with that is that if you run out at about 3pm you are hardly likely to be motivated to fill up and get back out there after that in our experience.

Spruce

[Ian101]

If you work on 500 to 600 litres you be about right I rekon.

Depending on your way of making pure you may use 1000 to 1200 to make the 500 to 600 of pure.

An IBC of 1000 litres of pure costs me about £5 to £7 to make ... not a massive raw material cost  

Amount per house errr prob about 20 to 30 litres so about 2p in costs

[Spruce]

If you work on 500 to 600 litres you be about right I rekon.

Depending on your way of making pure you may use 1000 to 1200 to make the 500 to 600 of pure.

An IBC of 1000 litres of pure costs me about £5 to £7 to make ... not a massive raw material cost  

Amount per house errr prob about 20 to 30 litres so about 2p in costs

Hi Ian

Maybe a little more than 2p per house.  

If you are using 30 litres a house you would get 33 house cleans from 1000 litres. At £7.00 for 1000 litres your cost per house would be just over 21p, which again isn't much. (Depending on their water TDS and the efficiency of the r/o, they will always need to add resin costs and filter and membrane replacement costs to this figure - although the question was initially about the amount of water used rather than the cost of it.)

This does however bring up another angle. Whilst your estimates of 30 litres a house are probably a little high, this would be a good figure to work with. If Julian does manage 30 houses a day with both of them and they do use 30 litres per house, then they will need 900 litres of water a day.
If they did manage to use 20 litres per house which I think is too low, then they will use their full 650 litre tank each day. I would now think that they would need a 40/40 r/o with an IBC storage tank and they would probably need to refill at some point during the day, especially in summer when the working day can be longer.

Spruce

[Ian101]

Oooppps decimals in wrong place maybe use a calc next time ... Now know why I'm skint !!

[Ian101]

Depending on tap tds maybe a di vessel to a friendly customers tap be good way to top up ... I can squeeze about 1500 litres from my 7 ltr vessel before resin burnt.

[KLEENAWAY]

Sorry to hijack but what is your TDS reading ian?

Danny

[Ian101]

Tends to vary from 150 to 180

[Ian101]

Only use di fast fill if short but carry 650 so not had to do it for a while

[jay kingston]

If you have a seperate water meter fitted for your business you will not pay sewerage on the usage,this accounts for 2/3 of your bill.I live in devon where water bills are highest in the country.To fill my van it costs £1.50 per 1000 litres as opposed to £4.50.The bill is itemised so it is easy for tax deduction.Your water company should supply the meter free of charge and will inspect it if you fit it yourself,they would probably charge something like £100.

Regards

Jay