Pest & Weed Power Sprayers - Keep it Clean or Else!
Posted by Andrew Greess on Jul 7, 2020
Why is it important to keep your pest / landscape power sprayer clean?
There are quite a few reasons.
A clean power sprayer is important to protect your brand.
You spend a ton of money on nice trucks, equipment, uniforms, logo, training, etc. Why spoil it with a filthy truck?
What message does your filthy chemical-covered sprayer send to your clients? My guess is that many clients will think that if the company does not care enough to keep it's own stuff clean and safe, why would the company care about the Client's health and safety.
A clean pest / landscape power sprayer is important to protect your employees.
Look at the photo of the weed control sprayer above. How can an employee possibly use this equipment without getting covered in chemical? Answer: He can't. The employee should be talking to his/her boss and the boss should be inspecting the power spray equipment to make sure it never gets this bad.
A clean pest / landscape power sprayer is critical to prevent accidents.
The photo at the top of this post and the photo directly above show a pest control power sprayer that caught fire and was severely damaged. Fortunately no one was injured and by some miracle the pest control company was not ticketed or fined.
The tech driving the vehicle said that as he was driving down the freeway, someone in another vehicle flicked a cigarette butt into his truck bed, which then caught fire. HORSE PUCKEY! My best guess is that the equipment truck bed were filthy with spilled gasoline and chemical. The tech flicked his own cigarette butt in the vehicle bed and it eventually started a fire that destroyed the equipment.
Here is an inventory of the damage:
Two 100 gallon poly tanks - destroyed
Chemical in Tank - quantity unknown - spilled
Gas Engine - destroyed
Centrifugal Pump - destroyed
2 Rolls of spray hose - destroyed
Plumbing, hoses and fittings - destroyed
Truck - significantly damaged
This is thousands of dollars of damage, not to mention a truck out of commission for quite some time. It could have been worse. Someone could have gotten hurt, the company could have been fined, etc.
If you have examples or photos of dirty equipment, please email me. Thanks for reading.