Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 08:51:15 -0400
Reply-To: craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: craig cowan <phishman068@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: daily driver = RUST Re: Friday Ramblings, probably long,
possibly pointle...
In-Reply-To: <033e01c77f1c$8a6d01c0$667ba8c0@main>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
I have an extremely steep and long gravel driveway with a level "parking
area" at the bottom that always fills with ice. Its never a big deal to have
ice on the level surface, but when we get inches thick of ice on the slanted
driveway, its impossible to get any of our cars out. The solution we came up
with some years ago involved some garden hoses running from an old hot water
tank to a pressure washer. It kills the ice like nothing i've ever seen
before, and then it adds to more ice at the bottom (which, we dont really
care about). We have pressure bleaders on both the water tank and the
pressure washer, so the risk of danger is low. Maybe this would work to
clean a car with?
I've also used a combination of two pressure washers to clean out a
neighbors basement with 3 feet of water in it during some flooding when the
power went out and his sump-pump didnt work. Everyone else was running
around with their heads cut off not realizing they owned a high GPH gasoline
water pump already......
No damage was done to the pressure washers (suprisingly).
Just some food for thought.
-Craig
'85GL
On 4/15/07, Robert Fisher <refisher@mchsi.com> wrote:
>
> I was delivering pizzas in Knoxville many years ago during one of the
> worst
> storms ever in the time I was living there (this was about '85 maybe). The
> THP had just declared all roads closed in the area except for emergencies
> so
> I was headed back to the store when I passed a house where some idiot was
> cleaning the snow and ice of his driveway... with hot water, from his
> water
> heater.
>
> I made it through ok but you could already see what the result of his
> stupidity was going to be... I've often wondered if he managed to kill
> anybody.
>
> What made me think of that was that those of you in the salt belt could
> probably wash the underside of your cars in your driveway or even garage
> if
> you were quick about it and if you had some idea of what to do with the
> runoff. Some of those small home pressure washers are rated at 2 or even
> 2.5
> gpm- You're not supposed to run water hotter than about 140 F through one
> of
> those pumps but most household water heaters are set slightly lower than
> that so you could get away with running the supply out of the water heater
> for a few minutes. It shouldn't take very long to wash the worst of the
> crap
> out.
>
> I've been thinking about this because a) I own a pressure washing business
> and b) we're probably going to move from sunny SoCal to not-quite-as-sunny
> Nova Scotia in the next 2-3 years so I've been giving some thought to how
> to
> keep our vehicles from getting destroyed. A quick and dirty way to get the
> runoff would be to have another person standing by with a Shop-Vac, but
> what
> I might do is get a several yards of gravel and make a van-sized 'wash
> pit'
> in a flat spot off the side of the drive. Roll the van onto the gravel
> every
> so often, give it the once-over and move the van to wherever you normally
> park it; do a more thorough wash at 'warmer' times when the opportunity
> presents itself.
>
> Kind of a PITA but not so much as having your vehicles disintigrate out
> from
> under you.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <JordanVw@AOL.COM>
> To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
> Sent: Saturday, April 14, 2007 5:32 PM
> Subject: Re: daily driver = RUST Re: Friday Ramblings, probably long,
> possibly pointle...
>
>
> > In a message dated 4/14/07 12:26:01 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > magikvw@GMAIL.COM writes:
> >
> >
> >> Salt and snow will eventually take their toll but if people would wash
> >> thei
> >> cars more often in the winter it certainly would help keep the rust at
> >> bay
> >> longer.
> >>
> >>
> >
> > kinda hard to wash your car when the temp is below freezing.. which is
> > the
> > case in most northeast states the majority of the winter.
> > you car gets covered with salt in october, and stays that way till
> april.
> >
> > when i was coming back from GA last month, towing my westy, i went thru
> 10
> > miles or so of the nastiest road salt on i-95 south of baltimore.. i
> had
> > planned my return trip (post V-day snowstorm) to try to make it back on
> > all dry
> > roads, but got caught in a freak snowsquall that activated the
> previously
> > dry salt
> > on the roads and turned it into a nasty wet brine.. temps were in the
> > 20's
> > .. the van, trailer and westy were totally white with that sh*t. when
> i
> > got
> > back i took the van to one of those do-it-yourself car washes to try to
> > spray
> > it off but that was kinda pointless, the water froze as soon as it hit
> > the
> > metal and all my doors froze shut.. didnt even was the salt off.
> > so it sat like that. nothing you can do.
> >
> >
> > fun times in the salt belt.
> >
> > chris
> >
> >
> > **************************************
> > See what's free at
> > http://www.aol.com.
>
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