Learning from our mistakes and the mistakes of others is important and can be very helpful. In this video, I will highlight some of the things we have seen techs do with spray wands that is outside of the recommended uses and did not end working out so well. While many of these examples feature B&G sprayers, the same things can happen when any brand spray wand is used incorrectly.

Spray wands should not be used for opening doors, moving bushes or anything that causes too much stress on the wand. 

Spray wands are meant for herbicides, insecticides, and such, but they are not meant for bleach which will eat right through the brass.

Additionally, if your spray wand has a leak, fix it properly. Using duct tape and clamps is not professional nor is it going to do a very good job of stopping the leak. It also does not convey a very good image of the company.

Business owners and managers should check on their techs and equipment periodically. Inspect the pest control equipment, reiterate training and safety protocols and ride along with them from time to time. Watch how they treat the equipment and your customers. And don’t forget preventative maintenance. It will prevent costly downtime.

We sell spray wands and other Birchmeier Backpack sprayer parts and accessories at https://birchmeierbackpacks.com.

Video Transcript:

Andrew Greess: Hello this is Andrew Greess with Quality Equipment and Spray qspray.com with the next edition of “Stupid Shit Techs Do” to your pest control and landscape equipment.

This is a series where we share examples of really serious equipment problems that techs have brought into our shop for repairs and the goal of course is to help you learn from other people’s mistakes and avoid these mistakes so that you can reduce your repair expense, increase equipment lifetime and really do a better job servicing your customers without downtime.

Today we’re going to talk about spray wands. And the examples I’m going to use are mostly these B&G spray wands. This is the spray wand most pest control guys use on their on their one gallon sprayer but the the lessons learned apply to all spray wands whether it be on your backpack like your Birchmeier backpack or your power sprayer.

All the lessons apply to any kind of spray wand. Here’s the first example and this is the most common one. This is a spray wand a tech brought in and you can see it’s just totally exploded and we asked the tech what happened he goes “I don’t know. It just happened” and obviously, that’s a load of you know what.

The tech was using the spray wand in a way it was not designed for which is to as a tool to open something, probably open a cabinet door. We’ve seen tech’s use spray wands to open gates, to push open doors, to push bushes out of the way, you know to use it for unintended purposes puts undue stress on the wand and you can see here, it weakened the brass and it finally just blew up.

And the issue here is not even the cost of replacing this wand. The biggest cost is the time it took the tech to leave his job or his stop, his customer come to the repair shop get it repaired and replaced and then go back. And that’s where the real time sink is, and the real expense is. And that’s clearly the biggest problem here.

So you want to make sure your techs know how to use your equipment and they’re using a proper without misusing it and abusing it, like this case.

Here’s another example this was a case where a tech put bleach in his B&G sprayer and you can see the bleach reacted badly with the brass and ate right through it and totally destroyed the spray wand. And again quite a bit of lost time as well as the expense of replacing and repairing the B&G sprayer. So, don’t put products in your sprayers there’s not intended for and if you’re unsure, ask.

And lastly this was a spray wand brought in, and this was several years ago so I’m a little foggy on the details but you can see here. So the tech, I can’t remember if it was the tech or the owner had wrapped the wand multiple times with tape and then put a number of clamps on it to stop a leak. And this is obviously ridiculous. You know my thought here is if you’re the company owner and you can’t afford to replace a spray wand then you should probably close down your company go get a job. And if you’re a tech working for this company you need to quit and go get a job with a real company because this is just silliness. And just think about the messages this is sending to the customer whose home you’re treating. It’s crazy.

So in summary, it’s critical that you train your technicians on the first day of work and it’s critical that you retrain them. As you’ve heard me say before, just because you trained Joe and day 1, doesn’t mean he’s still doing it exactly the way you want him to.

Number 2, you got to do it quick equipment inspections. Check your techs equipment to make sure they’re not misusing it.

Next, ride-alongs. If you’re the owner, the supervisors, the manager, you know periodically right along with your techs to make sure they’re well trained, they’re treating your customers the way you want them to treat your customers, and that they’re using your equipment properly.

And lastly do your preventive maintenance don’t delay don’t put it off because you’re going to have a problem, it’s going to cost you more in the end in downtime.

So, if you think this was valuable, please consider qspray.com whenever you need spray equipment for your pest or landscape business.

Thanks so much for watching.

Old YouTube description:

In the second installment of our series Stupid Sh*t Techs Do, we are going to talk about spray wands. Most of my examples are B&G spray wands as these are the most popular #sprayer wands for #pestcontrol techs. 

The first, and most common example, shows an exploded wand. The #pesttech of course “had no idea” what happened to it, but we can tell it was being used for something it shouldn’t have been – opening doors, moving bushes etc that caused too much stress on the wand. 

The next example illustrates what happens when techs use products that are not intended for the sprayers. This shows what happens when bleach is used in a sprayer. The bleach ate right through the brass. 

And the last example shows a spray wand that is wrapped multiple times with tape and has several clamps on it to stop a leak. What were they thinking? What kind of message does this convey about the company? 

The cost of the downtime to leave a customer, drive to a repair shop, get a replacement and then go back is far more than just the cost of the part. And what about the image of the company? 

Owners, managers, supervisors all need to check on your techs periodically. Inspect their equipment, retrain them to ensure they know what you want and ride along with them from time to time. Watch how they treat the equipment and your customers. And don’t forget preventative maintenance. It will prevent costly downtime.