One of those days....listen to your inner voice

[john gerding]

Got up this morning had a tiny little tile job booked earlier this week...Lady is old and batshit crazy she called me twice during the week after scheduling the job to see if I wanted to cancel due to rain forecast which I kindly declined. Mind you this was not a money job at all but it was a referral so I wanted to make good on the referral.

So I role out of bed its not raining yet and something told me to call and cancel the job but I resisted the instinct. Headed out there got started mixed up some grout master sprayed it, scrubbed the lines, fied up the machine and started extracting. Should have been a twenty minute job at 200 sqft of ceramic.

Started getting intermittent pressure drops, ran out to the van and didnt see any leaks, stood there trouble shooting for 10 minutes trying various things and then bypassed the waterbox and ran thje hose straight to the pressure block. At that time water began spraying out of one of the para plate regulators...If you dont know what that is join the club, its a weird thing about the steamway machines.... Anyhow so I called up david nalley and asked him how to bypass the thing and he gave me some tips, had to run to home depot to get some brass fittings and got it jerry rigged to where I could clean at 500 psi only...

By the time I got back The grout master had pretty much dried, so I resprayed it and cleaned the tile going stupid slow letting the heat do the work...By the time I was done there was still grout master haze and the lady was nitpicking it.... If you havnt figured this out yet do not ever ever let grout master dry on the tile... Some guys say just rewet it but I have tried that multiple times and it does not work... The only solution I have found is goof off... So I had to crawl around on my knees for another hour with a rag and goof off to get the haze.

In the end I did everything I could for the lady and wasnt even going to charge her but she insisted on paying me anyway. Slowly but surely the day just kept getting worse everything I touched seemed to fall apart. Brand new vaporizer battery I bought 3 days just died with no apparent cause 70 bucks right there...and the list goes on...

All im saying is if that little voice tells you to stay the fug home stay the fug home....

 

[rob allen]

Some days are coal and some are diamonds. Roll with it brother

 

[ColoradoCleaner]

I have the same machine as you and I have found that it is much easier bypassing the water box. Back when I was using it several months ago, it would work fine at 500 psi for carpet but at 1200 psi it would lose pressure. But I never ever have problems with the regulators and I've had them apart and back together and they're so simple. Have you greased them recently? That is one thing on my machine that has never ever given me an issue.

 

[john gerding]

I have the same machine as you and I have found that it is much easier bypassing the water box. Back when I was using it several months ago, it would work fine at 500 psi for carpet but at 1200 psi it would lose pressure. But I never ever have problems with the regulators and I've had them apart and back together and they're so simple. Have you greased them recently? That is one thing on my machine that has never ever given me an issue.

Yeah I grease every so often. David said that sometimes a piece of trash gets in them and grinds through the O-ring.... Its a busted O- ring and nothing more but I dont care I hate them and monday morning that shit is gone...
No more Medusa snake head for me...

 

[ColoradoCleaner]

Do you have the cat pump inlet filter? http://www.catpumps.com/products/inlet-filter.asp

 

[john gerding]

Do you have the cat pump inlet filter? http://www.catpumps.com/products/inlet-filter.asp

Yep... sho do...

 

[john gerding]

Didnt know they had a clear one though...

 

[Ray Thomas]

Today I learned I can't encap house boats. I learned not to use a vacuum cleaner with ANY moisture present and also that my variable speed makita will break after bogging down the motor. Also, my (over priced) $60 sprayer broke. using the cheapo one now... Yeah and that houseboat job was 1.5 hrs away.

Anyway, now that I got my "bad" day out of the way, I can expect some good ones to show up!

 

[john gerding]

Today I learned I can't encap house boats. I learned not to use a vacuum cleaner with ANY moisture present and also that my variable speed makita will break after bogging down the motor. Also, my (over priced) $60 sprayer broke. using the cheapo one now... Yeah and that houseboat job was 1.5 hrs away.

Anyway, now that I got my "bad" day out of the way, I can expect some good ones to show up!

There ya go buddy share some of thaat good attitude with my negative nancy ass...

 

[john gerding]

I had my good day thursday... 1k tile job went off without a hitch and played pool with some friends later that night...

 

[bob_rugratz]

Every hitch is a lesson for success later. You will have a back up plan for this situation. Chances are, I bet it will never happen to you again or maybe even future employees if you tell them about that time you fudged up.

Now here's my take on this. Because I have done this....There's normal dry (respray dwell rinse) and there's fukn bone dry. You let it get fukn bone dry. Well you didn't let it dry on purpose. But with my 20/20 hind sight. I would prolly have used vacuum to get most up then neutral mop. I did the same thing about 3 years ago. sprayed tile and my TM wouldn't even start. I failed to do anything just left cleaner on tile like a dummy. I did absolutely nothing to remedy the situations except walk in there scrugg my shoulders mop it up and say ah it will be alright. It was pretty dry by the time I gave up on starting tm anyways. But not bone dry. I could have did something more. Came back next day and I had to really scrub I think I used citrus solvent or something. Wasn't all over bad but was on the low spots in the floor. Now and I'm sure you feel the same way, I would never just leave anything to get that dry. No matter what especially on tile. We had sprayed carpets as well and no issues there.

You may laugh but I have cleaned some weird ways when I was pressed. Hit me up if you get caught with your finger in your butt again. I am a fairly ingenuitive person. As I have a extensive and very impressive turd library. Just shit that happens.

Really at the end of the day. You got the job done and paid. done and next.

 

[bob_rugratz]

Today I learned I can't encap house boats. I learned not to use a vacuum cleaner with ANY moisture present and also that my variable speed makita will break after bogging down the motor. Also, my (over priced) $60 sprayer broke. using the cheapo one now... Yeah and that houseboat job was 1.5 hrs away.

Anyway, now that I got my "bad" day out of the way, I can expect some good ones to show up!

Well it will sure be better day the next time you get a call for the same situation.

 

[StevenB.]

2 weeks ago seemed like the worse week I've had all year. October in general hasn't been all that good. Last week though was pretty decent. I was overdue for a shitty week or two. I try to appreciate the good stretches more than I used to but yeah some days just get worse once you get out of bed.

 

[Reflections138]

I don't have bad days.....I have bad yrs.

 

[EverythingFlooring]

Got up this morning had a tiny little tile job booked earlier this week...Lady is old and batshit crazy she called me twice during the week after scheduling the job to see if I wanted to cancel due to rain forecast which I kindly declined. Mind you this was not a money job at all but it was a referral so I wanted to make good on the referral.

So I role out of bed its not raining yet and something told me to call and cancel the job but I resisted the instinct. Headed out there got started mixed up some grout master sprayed it, scrubbed the lines, fied up the machine and started extracting. Should have been a twenty minute job at 200 sqft of ceramic.

Started getting intermittent pressure drops, ran out to the van and didnt see any leaks, stood there trouble shooting for 10 minutes trying various things and then bypassed the waterbox and ran thje hose straight to the pressure block. At that time water began spraying out of one of the para plate regulators...If you dont know what that is join the club, its a weird thing about the steamway machines.... Anyhow so I called up david nalley and asked him how to bypass the thing and he gave me some tips, had to run to home depot to get some brass fittings and got it jerry rigged to where I could clean at 500 psi only...

By the time I got back The grout master had pretty much dried, so I resprayed it and cleaned the tile going stupid slow letting the heat do the work...By the time I was done there was still grout master haze and the lady was nitpicking it.... If you havnt figured this out yet do not ever ever let grout master dry on the tile... Some guys say just rewet it but I have tried that multiple times and it does not work... The only solution I have found is goof off... So I had to crawl around on my knees for another hour with a rag and goof off to get the haze.

In the end I did everything I could for the lady and wasnt even going to charge her but she insisted on paying me anyway. Slowly but surely the day just kept getting worse everything I touched seemed to fall apart. Brand new vaporizer battery I bought 3 days just died with no apparent cause 70 bucks right there...and the list goes on...

All im saying is if that little voice tells you to stay the fug home stay the fug home....

Vaporizer battery? Is it a 26650?

 

[russrroberts]

My Van gives me my worst days...... I'm never buying anything used ever again.

 

[rob allen]

I don't have bad days.....I have bad yrs.

Lmao ouch

 

[rob allen]

My Van gives me my worst days...... I'm never buying anything used ever again.

Russ I finally got to that point too. Life has enough problems I don't need vans or equipment that are problematic. It's such a pleasure driving new vans. Makes you look forward to getting in them

 

[russrroberts]

Russ I finally got to that point too. Life has enough problems I don't need vans or equipment that are problematic. It's such a pleasure driving new vans. Makes you look forward to getting in them

I can't agree more. Luckily my bought the 370 brand new and the only thing I haven't replaced yet in my van is the engine.... but that's coming soon too but after that I'll have a brand new van front to back. Can't wait to grow the next van will be a new PTO in brand new van and this one will be my backup. You mentioned that you have a backup unit in a trailer in one of the videos, what unit is your backup TM?

 

[rob allen]

I can't agree more. Luckily my bought the 370 brand new and the only thing I haven't replaced yet in my van is the engine.... but that's coming soon too but after that I'll have a brand new van front to back. Can't wait to grow the next van will be a new PTO in brand new van and this one will be my backup. You mentioned that you have a backup unit in a trailer in one of the videos, what unit is your backup TM?

White Magic 1900. Im about to pull it and recondition it for next Spring. It is in great running condition. Just want to keep it that way to reduce problems.