Backpack sprayers are an absolute “must have” for anyone using a water fed pole window cleaning system that uses a DI bottle and a reverse osmosis water filter system, for producing pure water. A powered backpack sprayer is preferrable to a hand pumped one, especially if you will be using it for a long period of time, day after day. Pushing a switch is a whole lot easier than pumping your backpack sprayer by hand, all day long.
There are various backpack sprayers available from a variety of sources, including eBay.
Backpack sprayers are used to access interior courtyards, shopping precincts and other areas where dragging hoses may be a disadvantage, such as at the backs of terraced houses.
They are ideal in built up areas where access with a water fed pole trolley system, or a vehicle is often difficult or, in some cases, impossible.
Terraced house areas are best suited to water fed trolleys and backpack sprayers because you don’t have to drag your hose up the street through all the dog dirt and also lay yourself open to a compensation claim from anyone who claims to have tripped on your hose.
Have you ever tried walking up one side of a terraced street from your van system and then had to clean more houses on the other side of the street? You can’t just drag your hose across the road and carry on. How will you pull it down the other side, when it gets trapped under the tyres of the car parked at the end of the first side!
You have to wind everything back to your van, and then start from scratch on the other side.
With a backpack sprayer, it’s up one side with your water fed pole and straight down the other with no trailing hoses.
These days, in most terraced areas, it’s sometimes impossible with a van system to get parked anywhere near enough for your system to reach the houses you’re supposed to be cleaning. I pulled up in an area that earns me a generous hourly rate for window cleaning and couldn’t even park my van….. No Cash Earned!
Most backpack sprayers, at first, appear to be comparatively expensive for what you get for your money, but when you take into account their versatility, they soon pay you back.
An increasing number of window cleaners who use a pure water trolley have added a backpack sprayer which allows them to walk through a customers terraced house to clean the windows at the back, for very little loss of production time. This increases the amount of work available to them in the areas where they already work. They don’t have to find new customers, they just do more work for the ones they already have.
Loads of window cleaners (at least where I live) who clean terraced houses, have refused for years to clean the backs of them because of the time it takes to get round there and back again. Walking through the house with a backpack sprayer opens up a whole new market to terraced house window cleaners.
Backpack sprayers and water fed trolleys are frequently used as starter systems because it’s the cheapest and most versatile way to test a water fed pole system, until you get used to it, and to check out if it actually does a good enough job on the windows you clean, before you swap over to a pure water system and move away from your traditional window cleaning methods.
Water fed trolleys and backpack sprayers can comfortably fit into the back of any van and will also fit into most estate cars and even the boots of some cars. There’s no need to go to the expense of buying another vehicle, before you can try a water fed pole cleaning system for yourself.
If you know anyone in your locality who already uses a water fed trolley or backpack sprayer , then why not ask them if you can borrow or rent them from them for a day or two, when they’re not using them, and if everything works out to your satisfaction, then you can commit to buying your own water fed trolley system and backpack sprayer , safe in the knowledge that you already know they will meet your needs.
Backpack sprayers are also useful as emergency supplies of pure water when used with a DI bottle. You can fill your backpack sprayer from any standpipe or suitable tap and work all day, without having to return to base for a new supply of prepared, pure water.
Using a DI bottle used to be an expensive way to run a pure water window cleaning system because of the cost per litre of producing pure water through the mixed bed resin. By following this tip you will drastically reduce the cost per litre of producing pure water through a DI bottle.
Cheers.