Technology

The technology we use today has evolved over many years and has earned its place in today’s market. The concept of cleaning windows using just water was developed in America nearly thirty years ago and the use of water-fed poles has been used for over fifty years. Today we have gained more knowledge about water and its needs to be extensively filtered to clean a surface, and, with the added bonus of water filtration technology being more accessible and affordable it has been possible to adapt it to the window cleaning industry.

Let's keep it simple…

In simple terms, this is what actually happens. Everyone knows that water is H2O, hydrogen and oxygen, but in fact, tap water contains many other chemical elements, calcium, chlorine, iron and copper to name but a few. If you wash windows with untreated tap water and leave it to dry, once the hydrogen and oxygen have evaporated, these chemicals and mineral residues are left on the glass leaving streaks and other watermarks. The filtration system removes all chemical and mineral content from the water, and because there is nothing in the water, when the H2O evaporates it leaves nothing behind, …

… except sparkling glass

How it works…

Today Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) is used to supply lab-grade pure water for cleaning.  Reverse Osmosis has being around since the start of time. In layman’s terms the principle of how it works is that everything in the world has a positive or negative charge, that’s how atoms stick together. With the reverse osmosis process the water is passed through a membrane and the combination of the pressure and flow allows the water to divide into two parts, one part is what is called the concentrate which is the water that has all the impurities in it and cannot be used for cleaning. The Concentrate (waste water) can be stored and reused again and again. The other part of the filtering process is what we call permeate and this is the good water. This is what we use for cleaning. After the filtering process the water is slightly negatively charged and all the water wants to do is to get back to its natural state, so when it comes in contact with a dirty surface it takes the positive charge from the un-clean surface and when it dries it leaves nothing behind but a clean chemical and soap free surface.

…Pure and Simple – Chemistry in Action

The above statement gives you a little bit of an insight into how the water is filtered. To get the best results this has to be achieved by using other specialized equipment as well. Due to the quality of our Australian water supply the filtration process is very slow as the water has to go through a four stage filtration process to reduce the TDS (total dissolved solids) content to an acceptable level (000ppm) (parts per million). The water passes through two pre-filters and then onto the membrane. Once the water has passed through the membrane, a large quantity of impurities will have been removed from the water but the TDS is still higher than needed to be able to clean successfully. It therefore has to pass through a final filter to reduce the TDS to 000ppm. Once this has been achieved it is perfect for cleaning.

The cleaning process…

The Lab-grade pure water can be taken to the location of the job site via a portable storage tank for use. This can be mounted on a trailer, Ute or van, or even a portable trolley. Once on site, the water passes through another filter of resin beads which is controlled by a pump to ensure that the water is 000ppm before it comes in contact with the surface.

The water is then pumped through a hose and up the centre of the telescopic water-fed pole to the brush head. The telescopic water-fed poles come in a wide range of sizes. The beauty of these telescopic water-fed poles is that you can reach from as low as ground level or as high as twenty-five metres whilst still having both your feet safely on the ground. The brush head is specially designed to softly aggravate the surface allowing the water to come in contact with the bristles of the brush and glass at the same time. Because of the reduced flow of water, approx 1.5lpm, this allows greater contact time between the water the glass and bristles of the brush. Due to the nature of the design of the brush head, the bristles are constantly being cleaned by the pure water passing through the bristles thus eliminating cross contamination of the surfaces.

If the surface or glass has not been cleaned for a long period of time, it will probably have a large build up of dirt, dust and cobwebs on the surface. This will be removed relatively easily, however if the surface has been cleaned previously with detergent or soap, there will be an invisible film of on the surface. We call this invisible film a dirt magnet. By using the pure water and the soft rubbing action caused by the brush, this invisible film (dirt magnet) of detergent will be forced out from the cracks and crevasses from around the window frame and off the surface itself.

This first cleaning process we have personally named the “virgin clean” as it may take three cleans to totally remove all the detergent impurities and unwanted contaminates  from the surface. The virgin clean is the most important part of the entire cleaning process. As described in a previous paragraph, the pure water comes in contact with the surface and it’s the time the water is in contact with the surface where the cleaning is taking place the water is breaking down the dirt and minerals on the surface and is being constantly washed away with the flow of new water and moved away by the brush head.  The Virgin clean removes about 95% of all the unwanted detergents, dirt, minerals, soap, cobwebs and bird droppings from the surface. After the second or third application, you have totally cleaned the surface and removed any traces of unwanted items or products from the area cleaned.

…to easy to believe but totally true

The experts…

If you are interested in owning your own system, or need parts, servicing, technical support or just want to find out more, contact the company who cares at AQWA Magic Pty Ltd  We also offer training and back-up support for new and existing systems.