Like all Hotsy dealers, the sales and service location in Delafield, WI naturally puts their pressure washers to work cleaning off trucks, inventory, floors and the other equipment when ever they can. The trouble is this powerful 4,000 psi stream of water blasting through the wand can cause quite a mess. The solution might be to do much of the power washing outside, but in Wisconsin there are a number of cold months when this would be impractical if not downright uncomfortable.
This particular facility has a 25,000 sq. ft. shop and warehouse that has a variety of uses – truck washing, equipment prep and repair, painting and storage of $100,000 worth of equipment. Putting up concrete walls to make a dedicated washing area might be a solution, but not for a space that has all this activity happening. Furthermore, solid walls would limit their options to re-arrange and take best advantage of their space.
In this open area the Hotsy dealer does washdown of its trucks, sprays down dust and solvents from the floor in the workshop once a week and uses the pressure washers to clean out the inside of a paint booth. To try and screen out the spray, they had rigged up sheets of canvass hung rack using ¼” wire rope. The canvass protected the inventory that bordered one side of the shop.
“That arrangement did the job,” noted Bill Isler, the manager of this Delafield Hotsy location. “But the canvass did not have a professional look for the customers who come through here all the time.”
“Plus the canvass is difficult to handle.”
Bill found the solution in the form of vinyl curtains specially made for commercial applications such as Hotsy.
These vinyl partitions are cut to provide ceiling to floor coverage for selected areas in the shop, including their truck washing station and equipment repair section. In the truck area, a vinyl curtain has been hung to surround two sides with the exterior wall taking up the third side. For the repair section another set of vinyl curtains provide a barrier against water jets for the products on the shelf.
The curtains are thick and heavy enough to offer the strength to withstand high pressure streams of water and detergent. Hanging from an easy-to-install track section, the curtains have a 14 oz. reinforced top section, a 20 mil double polished clear window section, finished off at the bottom with a 14 oz. reinforced section.
“We like the clear section of the curtain that allows light to pass into the areas,” says Bill. “By being able to transfer light to both sides of the curtain we don’t have to use additional lighting fixtures to provide illumination for the warehouse and shop.”
Bill pointed out the lighting in the truck washing area blocked out by the canvass prevented getting the truck as clean as they want it.
He also appreciates that the windows sealed into the curtains that enable Hotsy to better showcase their operation. “The customers can look through the curtains to the different areas and can see the value of service provided by their repair shop.”
Besides enabling Hotsy to confine the spray, it is much easier for employees to access enclosed areas. The curtains ride along a 16 gauge steel channel on heavy-duty rollers that enable easy separation when driving in the truck for a washing or for quickly getting in and out of the repair area.
Over at their paint booth the operation previously had a lot of overspray because of the confined space. Hotsy put up a small curtain at the opening of the booth to confine some of the overspray.
“You don’t get to confine all of it,” points out Bill, “but maybe 50% of it.” “We keep it in the booth because it has a regular sump pump that sucks everything dry.”
The Hotsy crew still takes a squeegee for small water pools outside of the booth, but now it is about 10% cleanup job versus the overall painting task where before the cleanup would be a 50% job.
After painting they clean off the curtains, though there is not much paint clinging to them. The crew wets the booth down, then paint. Most everything that is in the air is goes up the exhaust vent. When the surface is wet the paint comes off the curtains, which are pressure washed, involving no hand work.
“Before the vinyl curtain,” says Bill, “we had more of a mess whenever we did anything. The curtains now contain all that water and simplify the cleanup, saving us lots of time.”
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Please send inquires to:
Tony Goff
Goff’s Enterprises, Inc.
1228 Hickory St.
Pewaukee, WI 53072
Telephone: (800) 234-0337
Fax: (262) 691-3255
Email: sales@goffscw.com
www.goffscurtainwalls.com
