HOSES
Cleaning your Rig to Save Money
How often do you give your rig a good thorough cleaning? You should do a thorough cleaning and inspection a few times a year. Taking the time to clean your rig from top to bottom will help you see any regular wear and tear from use and be able to address those areas before they become a costly problem. Be sure to address any rust areas or leaky zones to help keep your rig spraying for a long time to come.
Continue readingKeeping Material Warm
Why should you keep your material warm? Quick and simple: Cold material is unusable. When it’s cold it thickens and damages your equipment. The best way to prevent this is using a drum warmer or insulation/barrel jacket. Using these stocked in your building or rig will keep your material warm and ready to use and prevent costly equipment repairs and/or replacements.
The Importance of Maintaining Daily Logs
Daily job logs are vital to the operation of your foam company because they are a true gauge of productivity, profitability and your break-even point. Job logs assist your staff in cultivating positive documentation habits of their day to day job activity.
This in turn helps you and your crew maintain expensive equipment, track costly material and supplies, assure customer satisfaction, give the true story of actual time and material versus planned time and material, lets you know which builders are properly accommodating your staff and tracks all vital manufacturer required information.
All this information is easily tracked in a document that takes less than 10 minutes to fill out per day. If you’ve ever been involved in a nasty job-site litigation you know this is 10 minutes a day very well spent.
Robert Quesnette is the Territory Sales Manager for the Northeast region at Rhino Linings. Robert has more than 25 years experience in the insulation industry. He founded and operated one of the first foam companies in Connecticut and has experience with client training, building science and code seminars.
TRANSFER PUMPS
Graco T3 Transfer Pump Packing
As a general rule, the shaft area of your Graco T3 Pump should be checked, cleaned and lubricated every three to six months. When you get a new T3 Pump and during these checks, run about 20 gallons of material. Afterwards, tighten the packing nut by hand and then use the included spanner wrench to tighten an additional 1/8 to 1/4 turn.
Changing Hydraulic Oil in your Spray Foam Machine
What you need to know before changing hydraulic oil is when operating in ambient temperature recommendations of 0 to 90°F (-17 to 32°C) frequency is about 1000 hours or 12 months, whichever comes first and/or in 90°F and above (32°C and above) 500 hours or 6 months, whichever comes first.
Recommended Oils:
Citgo A/W ISO Grade 46 Amsoil AWI ISO Grade 46 (synthetic*) BP Oil International Energol® HLP-HM, ISO Grade 46 Carl Bechem GmbH Staroil HVI 46 Castrol Hyspin AWS 46 Chevron Rykon® AW, ISO 46 Exxon Humble Hydraulic H, ISO Grade 46 Mobil Mobil DTE 25, ISO Grade 46 Shell Shell Tellus, ISO Grade 46 Texaco Texaco AW Hydraulic, ISO Grade 46 *
NOTE: After changing hydraulic oil and upon starting motor, hydraulic pumps may make a screeching noise until primed. If this noise continues for more than 30 seconds, switch off motor control and contact your machine manufacturer.
Don’t run out of material in your transfer pump
When using your transfer pump a variety of issues can occur, the most common being running out of material. As soon as the pump runs out of material, it will cavitate from loss of fluid trying to pump air and most often run wild until the operator shuts it down. Having the pump run out of material can cause damage resulting in shut down repair time or even permanent damage to the pump, costing time and money to replace.
PROCESS & DOCUMENTATION
Properly Trained Team
Taking time to properly train your team will prevent losses in both time and money. By investing in your employees, you are able to have them run more efficiently and spend less time fixing costly mistakes.
Training doesn’t always have to take a ton of time out of your schedule. Taking one day to train a group of employees on proper equipment handling, maintenance or basic trouble shooting can prevent hours of lost time. Afterall, spending a few hours to train your crew on taking care of equipment can prevent having hours or even days of downtime due to a preventable mistake.
Ventilation at the Job Site
It may seem redundant but, when spray foaming, keep your job site ventilated and do it every single time you spray. Keeping the work area ventilated will prevent unnecessary exposure to fumes and particles that can cause damage to workers. Best practice is to be aware of the airflow and have a source of entry and a way for air to flow out of the work space. Also remember to keep the area ventilated until the re-entry time specified by the foam manufacturer.
For more information on proper ventilation procedures review the EPA Spray Foam Ventilation Guidelines
Daily Hose Maintenance
Daily hose maintenance is important to prevent your hoses form getting unnecessary damage and ensuring your hose and equipment last longer.
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