Challenge
Customer needs to be able to clean commercial HVAC units on top of buildings with 1200psi at 160° while meeting the necessary challenges of logistics of equipment, personnel, and speed of delivery to meet contract deadlines. Equipment must last for five years with reasonable maintenance to allow for contract ROI. Water must be reclaimed from roof and disposed of in customers recovery systems. There is no off the shelf system to meet customers required needs so a prototype is needed to prove concept.
Process
Identify needs specific to application and eliminate as many problem areas as possible to allow customer best opportunity for success in contract fulfillment. Customer is having safety issues with pulling trailers and fuel filling. Pulling trailer systems are hard to park, especially in cities and very hard to get anyone to service because of room in enclosed trailer.
HVAC units are often 50ft vertical, and 500ft away from the pressure washer equipment. Four-man teams must travel from location to location across the US to service contracts. Units must be able to be serviced from anywhere in the US. Units must be able to run for extended periods of time and in bypass for extended periods of time as well as maintain pressure and heat to meet cleaning specifications. Units must be safe and able to be secured since teams must travel and stay in hotels. Must be able to carry luggage, safety harnesses, lanyards, ladders, tools and reclaim equipment.
Solution:
Cougar Chemical designed a 16ft cargo box with swing-out doors on two sides and swing open rear doors along with a curb side man door. We added a 4ft over the cab compartment for luggage, tools and safety equipment. Inside we used Kubota powered Landa pressure washers with belt drive pumps with bypass back to a 100-gallon freshwater tank with an inlet float system and low water shutdown. We mounted the units on slide out trays capable of holding 1000 lbs so when maintenance is required one can safely pull the units out for service. This allows a technician to pull the units out instead of having to crawl inside a confined space. We mounted 2 Hannay electric rewind hose reels with 500ft of blue non marking 4200 psi hose for each unit and installed e-trac with e-hooks to hold 12 garden hoses and 500 ft of additional pressure hose along with overhead ladder racks. For safety we used a Chevy 4500 diesel crew cab and chassis truck to go along with the diesel/diesel pressure washers, so we did not have to worry about gas/diesel fuel conflicts. Once the unit was designed, we built a prototype for proof of concept and tested for 6 months. With a few minor tweaks we worked with all of vendors to get the quantities required of Cab and Chassis, Truck Bodies, Pressure Washers, Hose reels, Hose and numerous other accessories. To ensure serviceability, we partnered with Landa’s award winning dealer network.
Result:
Cougar Chemical design a system that is repeatable and reproduceable with low maintenance requirements and lots of safety features, along with securable cargo system that is maintenance friendly. And with our extensive dealer partnerships we were able to secure serviceability across the US.
