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This is Jeff McGovern the past coach and I was just out in the field with a PMP from north Florida and we were working with a new foamer and I got to thinking you know maybe I need to talk a little bit about foam. There are different types of equipment we can do it with. And you know we have so many new tools to use fault with right now that it really needs to become part of everything we do particularly with restaurant type work because there’s so many problems we can solve if we have a different method of putting a product into the zones that the insects are inhabiting.
Foaming Equipment
So to look at the units themselves to look at foamers I think the most expensive for the most premium farm unit that’s commonly available right now would probably be the nisus unit the power cart 2000 the power cart. The 2000 is a beautiful foaming system.
You’ve got a two gallon tank. It’s on a cart. It has a motor hooked up to it it’s electrically powered and it keeps the unit pressurized all the time so that you can power it up. you’ve got it full of foaming agent and the type of mixture that you may want to use on that particular account and you can hit the switch and as soon as the pressure starts to drop in the tank below where it can push the foam properly it’ll turn on it’ll run and will pump that unit back up so you can work continuously within the length of the hose. until you actually run out of product. and you look at all the different situations you can treat with this because everybody thinks the foam is just a drain a hole in the floor.
Yeah that’s fine. You can put foaming agent down in there with the appropriate additives and you can kill insects you can dissolve grease and crud you can keep things cleaned out you can also use that same type of equipment maybe on the back of the dish line in a restaurant where you get all the grease and crud on the wall go ahead and fall mat down and all that grease and crud and garbage will start to dissolve provided you have the right mix and that foamer the other place you can use it is up behind those three parts sinks where they stand out a little bit from the wall you can foam those zones you can foam the underside of stainless steel equipment you can foam the wheel housings around equipment and take all the grease and the crowd out of there you can get backup behind that nasty ice machine.
There’s just so many places that have foam application makes sense but that power car to thousands of pretty good size unit and some people may say well gosh I don’t have that much real estate available on my truck maybe I’ve got a smaller vehicle or maybe you’re going. You know I I don’t use a former on my business a lot but I need to have one for the few accounts that I have that I may want to try it.
So you could step down and go to something like Gardener’s new foamer because Gardner corporation the people that make the flying machines for us also have a wonderful little manually powered Fulmer and it’s got a gauge on it so you can pump it up the whole power and it works beautifully as long as you keep it pressurized and you can pick it up and carry it around wherever you want to. And it’s a handy little piece of equipment with a hose on it got a wand you can guide it up underneath things and you can use it much in the way as a power cart but you’re doing it in a far less expensive unit.
But it’s an option and in some cases companies may have both because they may grab the heavy duty piece of equipment for one type of work and then take the small one for something else or maybe for residential. But it doesn’t end there because you can go even smaller. Birch Meyer has a fabulous little handheld foamer that is just wonderful not only for what we do. but also as something that a client might buy. And I’ve seen restaurant groups that have purchased the birch Meyer foamers because it doesn’t have a lot of hoses and attachments it doesn’t have all the excess equipment. It’s simply the container the pump housing and a short hose or a little foaming tip. And it’s beautiful for going behind dish rings and up underneath things and just forming them down as part of the regular cleaning process that a facility might have in their day to day work.
So in other words we can partner with the client and they can have their former we have ours for other areas and our two teams working together can get things cleaned up because the cleaner and more sanitary that restaurant facility is the easier it is to deal. With the introductions of past that take place because remember. we don’t deal with introductions we can’t keep things from coming in. We deal with preventing infestations and a clean facility that’s well kept. It’s very easy to knock these things out before it becomes an infestation problem.
And these small foamers from birch Meyer are ideal for a client. And in fact when I work with PMP in the field you know that’s the small unit that all take sometimes because I don’t use them every day and I want to go in and do some work with the PMP and aid him and what he’s doing. You get some pictures get some documentation get some field time and with these new young guns that are taken over the industry and that small foamer from Birchmeier. served me very very well. So that’s three different choices but it doesn’t end there.
There’s a company called Airofog and they make micro foamers. Now you talk about a super slick piece of equipment that now you can foam that tiny little places and I just left a facility this morning that had tiny little places that needed foam and that little tiny former micro unit from air fog is fabulous for getting into those. You’ve got the needle tips different lengths different thicknesses you can put those on there and you can push that foam into tiny cracks and crevices and just dissolve all that crud that may be hanging between a piece of stainless steel and the wood backing behind it.
You couldn’t get into it any other way but these micro foamers will do it. So there are choices out there.
Maintaining Foaming Equipment
Her the equipment. Now as with any piece of equipment. a lot of people have told me oh I don’t like foamers they clog up okay. When was the last time you serviced your foamer because common sense tells me if I’m out using my equipment I’m done at the end of the day I’m going to transfer the material out into a caddy and then I’m going to clean out my applicator system.
Because that way it’s going to last. You don’t want these foamers getting all clogged up with material and they will if you don’t keep them planting. But if you keep them clean serviced them every day it just takes a few minutes and you’re guaranteed the next time you pick it up. It’s going to perform as you expected. You know the same people that tell me Well I don’t like to clean my equipment that’s too difficult it adds too many hours to my day.
Whatever. Those same people have beautifully clean firearms and beautifully clean fishing equipment that they use every weekend when they get done fish and particularly in salt water or when they get back from the range or out hunting you know what they clean the tackle and they clean the guns.
Why wouldn’t we do that to the equipment that pays for all that stuff. Keep up the foamers and they will take care of you and your business in a fabulous manner.
Foaming Solutions
Now as far as what to put in the foamers I think the most common foaming compound that most people use at least what I see in the field is pro farm from niceness and that material you can mix with just about anything to go ahead and make a foam application.
I think the most common cocktail would be a mixture of the Nibor D possibly some DSV both of those materials from Nisus Pro Foam and there are specific recipes that you can get right from Nisus depending upon the situation that you’re dealing with. Another forming product that I really like and I use quite a bit. Is the Garner fruit fly spray.
Now that material is a 25b exempt compound that cleans beautifully it’s also labeled for food handling surfaces and man does it dissolve crud and that’s really what we need to have and you don’t need a foaming agent with it it foams all by itself when mixed in the proper ratios and a former. So there is just a few things that you can use with that former to give you a greater degree of success and if you’re doing these commercial accounts and doing these restaurants I really do encourage you to introduce their team to the use of foam with a small foamer like that Birchmeier and that becomes something they do for regular maintenance within the restaurant because the facility is I see that do that. The area behind the dish ring is pristine. It’s all nice and white the tile is clean there’s no more crud build up because they got into the habit of forming those areas every single night during normal cleaning and it keeps things cleaned up.
If you go back years ago that’s exactly how meat rooms used to be cleaned and production facilities and businesses such as SAMs where they cut meat in grocery stores where they cut meat. Course a lot of that now that it’s prepackaged and you don’t have that anymore. But those foaming systems were designed to clean and were used every day. And if restaurants will do that with proper controls in the areas where it gets really cruddy what you’re going to have is a far better partner for yourself and those small foamers are like 50 60 dollars so it’s not an expensive piece of equipment and they’re very very field durable and they’re easy to clean as well.
So there’s another option for you the use of foam and this is one separate area we looked at with commercial accounts as these restaurants. You know what.
You can also take that foaming system into a residential account or any other type of account you have where you’re trying to get a product into an area and dust or liquid just doesn’t do it quite right but fall will. So take a look at the foamers a variety of price ranges to look at and you have manufacturers support from all of these firms that want to see you be more successful in your business. So this is Jeff McGovern the past coach. And Frank I’ll sign off for now and turn it back to you. You folks have a great day.
