Cleaning dead-ends without using blowers
Have you looked outside your window, or heard that familiar high pitched whine of a blower pushing dirt and leaves up into the air?
It’s one thing to blow a few grass clippings back onto the lawn. However, if you live in a community with short dead-end streets or court streets, blowing all that road dust out to the main street is just annoying.
Yes, streets and walkways need to get cleaned and blowers are a great tool when appropriate. However, have you ever wondered if there was a better way?
Peloton Sweeping has experience serving private communities back to the 1970s. To get some perspective, the TV shows of the day were Charlie’s Angels, The Six Million Dollar Man and Welcome Back, Kotter. At the movies, we watched the first: Rocky, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Jaws, Alien and American Graffiti.
The Community Associations Institute was founded in 1973 with the Orange County Chapter created in 1976.
Since then, we have worked on hundreds of communities and if you have what we call a typical layout, we would use a large street sweeper and operator training to deliver great results every time.
However, what if your community has dead-ends, court streets, or other unique features?
Big full-size street sweepers just don’t fit. It is almost impossible to turn around a full-size pick-up, let alone a large street sweeper.
Since we can’t turn around, to sweep the curb imagine driving in one way, backing out, then backing in to do the other curb. During the backing up process, we have to lift the pick-up head which takes that powerful blast of air from moving the debris to the hopper, to blowing it in the air. Yuck!
To avoid backing up, most sweeping companies simply send a guy with a blower to blow all the debris from the back all the way out to the street. Then the sweeper can pick it up. That creates more problems, like lots of noise and dust.
Speaking of dust, let's talk about just what’s in that dust…
As cars and trucks move over our roads and driveways they leave behind small quantities of tire rubber, diesel particulates, antifreeze, brake dust and very fine asphalt dust. Other things blow in, like tree pollen, regular dirt, mold spores, etc.
That’s not a big deal if it stays on the street or down in the cracks, crevices and pores of the asphalt. However, normal vehicle movement, even at slow speeds causes some of it to become air born.
Then it slowly settles until the next vehicle pushes it higher. This process is called Re-entrainment. Other fun words that get bantered about are Fugitive Dust and Suspend Particulate Matter (SPM).
While the particulates and road dust are airborne even the slightest breeze moves them into our homes through open doors and windows. Or it settles on our front steps and driveways to be tracked in later.
In some communities where front doors or windows are only six feet from the street this is like second hand smoke from cigarettes. You can’t really see it, but you have to dust more often and your family is breathing it.
Would it not make more sense to move the nasty stuff from the road to the sweeper hopper in one step? Skipping the blower all together? We can’t eliminate all dust, but getting the fine particulates into the sweeper without first putting it up in the air has big benefits.
Peloton Sweeping has a unique sweeper that can drive into any dead end or court street, turn around and drive right back out. No backing – no blowers – no second-hand dust to enter your home.
The sweeper has water spray on both brushes AND about 100 gallons circulating inside. Designed in Europe to handle the narrow streets and ancient cobblestone, their maneuverability solves so many problems.
These sweepers are also powerful enough to sweep the main streets in America if the frequency is right.
Of course, a $150,000 sweeper costs more than a $400 blower. Even so, sweeping remains one of the smallest budget items even though it’s maintaining one of the community’s most visible assets.
A community’s curb appeal starts at the curb. Keeping a community looking good and reducing pollutants just got easier.
Reach out to us today and we will see if this service is a fit for your community.