The Forecaster and Cold Front Snow Guns are designed to work with most homes across the world. However, there are home requirements that are important for each snow gun.
REQUIREMENT 1 – The Water Source must have adequate flow capacity
<Make sure your home water source GPM is greater than the pressure washer GPM rating.>
Forecaster:
The Forecaster Snow Gun operates with pressure washers between 1-6 GPM. Most homes in the US have a water flow capacity coming out of the garden spigot of 5-10 GPM. This means that most all homes will work great with a Forecaster setup even up to the max 6 GPM setup capacity. If you have a normal home, then you should have adequate water at your home to use with any pressure washer or multiple pressure washers up to 6 GPM. Issues will arise if your home does not have enough flow for your pressure washer. In this case, you will starve the pressure washer of water and risk damaging equipment. Here is a quick way to test your home GPM capacity:
- Grab a 5 gallon bucket
- Pull out your phone timer
- Turn on the water and fill the bucket. Time how long it takes to fill the bucket.
- Divide the time it takes to fill a 5 gallon bucket by 5 to get Gallons Per Minute (GPM) capacity.
Cold Front:
The Cold Front is designed for higher flow applications ranging from 5-10 GPM. Before setting up this system you will need to test the GPM of your water source. We recommend performing the bucket test or purchasing a flow meter to monitor the flow regularly during operation. Click here for link to a flow meter we use often. It is very important that your water source has a greater flow rate than the pressure washers or pumps you plan to use.
REQUIREMENT 2 – Adequate Power Sources
The Forecaster Snow Gun uses equipment that typically will only require 110v power. Standard pressure washers and air compressors will be fine with any typical home in the US. However, if you have any equipment that requires 220v power, make sure you have the outlets and circuit breakers necessary to use this equipment. A Cold Front setup will likely require 220v power to use higher flow pumps or pressure washers. Before setting your system up, double-check the power requirements of your equipment so you don’t have issues during operation.
