help choosing a mini tile extractor

[Donald]

Question: my need/focus is using the extractor for upholstery (both residential and restaurant commercial - I currently use a Rainbow vacuum for extraction - it gets the job done, but has no heat or PSI), and also in the following "tile" cleaning scenario;
I currently clean tile by spraying my alkaline solution (and/or acid/etch if color sealing) onto the floor, letting it dwell for 10 minutes, agitating tile and grout using a 17" floor machine with a nylon tile brush (also use hand held stand up grout brushes for tight spots or hard to clean grout lines), and then extract the cleaning solution using a wet/dry vac, then rinse the floor with a 50 PSI Multi-Sprayer, then extract the water rinsed floor with my wet/dry vacuum again. let dry and either begin clear or color sealing.
what I plan to do with the extractor is use the Turbo Force 4 jet squeegee wand to rinse and extract the alkaline and/or acid in one clean step.
Based on my needs would you recommend the 6-2300 or the 6-3300, and WHY ?
I want the best possible solution to support my cleaning efforts. My current tile process is not that bad, but I suspect anything would be an improvement.
Im hopeful your feedback will help me make my final decision.
thanks, as always, for your excellent support !
Barry

Answer: The advantage of the dual 3 stage is being able to run 75 ft of hose, 50% faster dry times, and more dirt sucked out of the carpet and upholstery. Ever empty you water and an be amazed how dirty the water is? Did you now that the water you leave on the surface is just as dirty as what is in the tank? This is because the head of the tool only knows how to suck up the water. The extraction is no selective. You are not sucking up clean water you are sucking up the same water quality you leave on the surface. Here might be a huge factor: dual 3 stage with heat requires dedicated 20 amp breakers, while the dual 2 stage with heat will function on 15 amp breakers. You can run the dual 3 and heat machine on a 15 amp breaker but you will have to turn the heater off.
The #1 think to look for in a machine is more suction, cleaner and dryer surfaces, happier customers.
#2 is more pressure. More pressure means faster cleaning.
#3 heat. Heat is important but because of the breaker issue you cannot use it on every job site.

Links: http://www.steam-brite.com/advanced_...eywords=6-2300
and

http://www.steam-brite.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=6-3300

[TigerJ]

Re; help choosing a mini tile extractor

Question: my need/focus is using the extractor for upholstery (both residential and restaurant commercial - I currently use a Rainbow vacuum for extraction - it gets the job done, but has no heat or PSI), and also in the following "tile" cleaning scenario;
I currently clean tile by spraying my alkaline solution (and/or acid/etch if color sealing) onto the floor, letting it dwell for 10 minutes, agitating tile and grout using a 17" floor machine with a nylon tile brush (also use hand held stand up grout brushes for tight spots or hard to clean grout lines), and then extract the cleaning solution using a wet/dry vac, then rinse the floor with a 50 PSI Multi-Sprayer, then extract the water rinsed floor with my wet/dry vacuum again. let dry and either begin clear or color sealing.
what I plan to do with the extractor is use the Turbo Force 4 jet squeegee wand to rinse and extract the alkaline and/or acid in one clean step.
Based on my needs would you recommend the 6-2300 or the 6-3300, and WHY ?
I want the best possible solution to support my cleaning efforts. My current tile process is not that bad, but I suspect anything would be an improvement.
Im hopeful your feedback will help me make my final decision.
thanks, as always, for your excellent support !
Barry

Answer: The advantage of the dual 3 stage is being able to run 75 ft of hose, 50% faster dry times, and more dirt sucked out of the carpet and upholstery. Ever empty you water and an be amazed how dirty the water is? Did you now that the water you leave on the surface is just as dirty as what is in the tank? This is because the head of the tool only knows how to suck up the water. The extraction is no selective. You are not sucking up clean water you are sucking up the same water quality you leave on the surface. Here might be a huge factor: dual 3 stage with heat requires dedicated 20 amp breakers, while the dual 2 stage with heat will function on 15 amp breakers. You can run the dual 3 and heat machine on a 15 amp breaker but you will have to turn the heater off.
The #1 think to look for in a machine is more suction, cleaner and dryer surfaces, happier customers.
#2 is more pressure. More pressure means faster cleaning.
#3 heat. Heat is important but because of the breaker issue you cannot use it on every job site.

Links: http://www.steam-brite.com/advanced_...eywords=6-2300
and
http://www.steam-brite.com/advanced_...eywords=6-3300

RESPONSE; thanks Donald, so it's pretty clear the 6-2300 will be best due to the 15amp vs 20amp rqmt.

I looked at the 6-3300-H link - it looks like it could use some editing as it currently states the unit runs on two 15amp circuits, but should read 20amps, etc...when it was created yesterday you might have copied the 6-2300-H info as a starting point cause it even says it only has "two 300 psi" motors.

[TigerJ]

RESPONSE; thanks Donald, so it's pretty clear the 6-2300 will be best due to the 15amp vs 20amp rqmt.

I looked at the 6-3300-H link - it looks like it could use some editing as it currently states the unit runs on two 15amp circuits, but should read 20amps, etc...when it was created yesterday you might have copied the 6-2300-H info as a starting point cause it even says it only has "two 300 psi" motors.

One other thing I want to make sure I have some education on before moving forward is what I should expect with regards to the 6 gallon unit and it's fill up time.

My experience has only been with extraction using a Rainbow vacuum (only extracting solution I sprayed on the carpet or upholstery manually), and not extraction using an actual extractor that uses PSI/water/solution. So, lets say I'm cleaning upholstery, in my process I spray our citrus/oxygenation cleaning solution onto the fabric, then use a dual headed Cyclo power brush to agitate the surface, and now I want to begin using the 6-2300-H extractor and rinse/clean the surface with heated water. About how long before my 6 gallon unit says I'm full and must be emptied ?

Unfortunately I'm limited on vehicle space (and unit weight - like to keep right around 100 lbs) which is why I'm leaning towards the 6 gallon unit, but if the dual 300 psi motors are pushing out a lot of water and my unit gets full too quickly I'm really defeating the purpose of trying to improve my process. Unless I can find a small footprint with auto-fill/auto-dump features, or maybe use something like the Rotovac CFX and somehow add an inline heater (since I want that for my upholstery cleaning).

Remember, I'm not planning to clean carpets with this extractor, just upholstery, and using it also for tile/grout rinse/extract.


thanks, as always for your excellent support !

[Donald]

more cleaning extractor options

I really cannot answer and exact amount of time it will have to be refilled and emptied. I can only guess about 20 min.
Another way to auto fill is to convert the machine to "direct connect." This mean the machine hooks to the building pressure and does not fill the fresh tank, rather the pressure goes direct into the pump inlet. This is how the 6 gallon machine might have to be set up to have an automated system.
You might also want to consider the 220 psi pump and 1800 watt heater in a brief case for the pressure and heat side of the equation

http://www.steam-brite.com/clean-storm-volcano-1800-watt-heater-with-220psi-pump-carpet-upholstery-cleaning-spraying-p-12680.html

The above pump can convert the Rotovac suction machine into a cleaning unit with heat.

[TigerJ]

I really cannot answer and exact amount of time it will have to be refilled and emptied. I can only guess about 20 min.
Another way to auto fill is to convert the machine to "direct connect." This mean the machine hooks to the building pressure and does not fill the fresh tank, rather the pressure goes direct into the pump inlet. This is how the 6 gallon machine might have to be set up to have an automated system.
You might also want to consider the 220 psi pump and 1800 watt heater in a brief case for the pressure and heat side of the equation

http://www.steam-brite.com/clean-storm-volcano-1800-watt-heater-with-220psi-pump-carpet-upholstery-cleaning-spraying-p-12680.html

The above pump can convert the Rotovac suction machine into a cleaning unit with heat.

I was afraid that might be the case. It would seem that doing a direct connect for filling would bypass the heater (correct?) and if so then I would not have a heater for my upholstery cleaning...so that's not good. Either way, I become part of the bucket brigade, which is also not desired.

Since my process is to pre-spray with my cleaning solution and agitate with my Cyclo (dual headed power brush), how about if I was to turn down the amount of spray/flow on my Dri-Master bi-directional cleaning tool, would that possibly extend the cleaning/extraction time from the estimated 20 minutes you mentioned ? just grabbing at straws here...

I understand the other option you mentioned with the Rotovac CFX and the Volcano/1800W heater, but that really jumps the cost up quickly...$1200 for CFX, $800 for Volcano.


any chance something like the Durrmaid CCX 1700 ($1,235) might be an option ? I suspect it would not provide enough PSI to drive the bi-directional feature of the Dri-Master...

[Donald]

compact carpet and upholstery cleaning

The 6 gallon Clean Storm can be set up with a direct connect to the sink. This also improves pump performance because you have the 75psi building pressure pushing into the water pump and now during high flow applications the pump does a better job keeping up.
Please visit

http://www.steam-brite.com/faucet-direct-connect-cross-american-portables-p-12011.html

A device like this would be set up for the 6 Gallon Clean Storm. When you want to direct connect you would simply quick disconnect the acorn strainer in the bottom of the fresh tank and snap in the auto fill hose. A direct connect does not bypass the heater. The heater would continue to work the same.
The other advantage to direct connect is the water is hotter. The water does not sit in a tank and cool down. The water goes right from the sink to the pump to the heater to the wand. Other suction feed auto fill machines can cool the water down as much as 15 degrees F.

Turning down the flow rate on the Drimaster hand tool will make the tank last longer if you an just using standard tank system.

Rotovac CFX dual 3 stage machines are $1950 not $1200

The Durrmaid portables are all low flow and you cannot use the Drimaster hand wand. Here is the pump he uses on the inside

http://www.steam-brite.com/flojet-et508224b-ocsillator-volt-high-pressure-nptf-ports-part-ap30-p-11624.html

Links:
DriMaster hand wand

http://www.steam-brite.com/hydramaster-dm2hiflo-drimaster-upholstery-tool-drymaster-hand-wand-p-5713.html

Durrmaid hot spotter

http://www.steam-brite.com/clean-storm-24gal-60psi-heated-cleaning-machine-auto-detail-spotter-extractor-with-tools-filter-120volt-p-8875.html

[TigerJ]

The 6 gallon Clean Storm can be set up with a direct connect to the sink. This also improves pump performance because you have the 75psi building pressure pushing into the water pump and now during high flow applications the pump does a better job keeping up.
Please visit

http://www.steam-brite.com/faucet-direct-connect-cross-american-portables-p-12011.html

A device like this would be set up for the 6 Gallon Clean Storm. When you want to direct connect you would simply quick disconnect the acorn strainer in the bottom of the fresh tank and snap in the auto fill hose. A direct connect does not bypass the heater. The heater would continue to work the same.
The other advantage to direct connect is the water is hotter. The water does not sit in a tank and cool down. The water goes right from the sink to the pump to the heater to the wand. Other suction feed auto fill machines can cool the water down as much as 15 degrees F.

Turning down the flow rate on the Drimaster hand tool will make the tank last longer if you an just using standard tank system.

Rotovac CFX dual 3 stage machines are $1950 not $1200

The Durrmaid portables are all low flow and you cannot use the Drimaster hand wand. Here is the pump he uses on the inside

http://www.steam-brite.com/flojet-et508224b-ocsillator-volt-high-pressure-nptf-ports-part-ap30-p-11624.html

Links:
DriMaster hand wand

http://www.steam-brite.com/hydramaster-dm2hiflo-drimaster-upholstery-tool-drymaster-hand-wand-p-5713.html

Durrmaid hot spotter
http://www.steam-brite.com/clean-sto...lt-p-8875.html

Thanks for the Direct Connect education...I had no idea what that meant, but your explanation helped me kind of understand, and just knowing the water from the sink will be going into the fresh tank makes me feel better. Interesting point on how the water can cool down sitting in the fresh water tank. So, would I order the Direct Connect part if I decide to order the 6-2300-H and then only use it as needed ? And, I would not be filling the fresh water tank because the water will come in through the Direct Connect to the sink...I think I get it now. I know it's not that difficult, but because I really have no real experience with extractors it has been a little more challenging than I would have preferred...but the education is good too.

how long of a hose would be used to connect from the sink to the Direct Connect in the fresh water tank ? Is that a special hose I would also have to order ?

So, now I can accomplish auto fill with the $99 direct connect part, and would be left with only being in the half bucket brigade as the machine will stop once the 6 gallon dirty solution tank is full. That might not be too bad to just use a 5 gallon bucket, have my assistant go empty it and keep moving. And, I can stretch it out a bit, as mentioned, by turning down the Dri-master flow rate.

I think we were both off on the Rotovac CFX price...your site/cart shows $2,195 : - ) (instead of $1200 or $1950)


Let me know if I mis-stated anything...


Barry

[Donald]

converting carpet cleaning machines to auto fill and dump

The link for the Cross American direct connect system was only an example. We would have to custom make the connection for you on the machine of choice. All the connections and hoses would cost $300. The auto dump is an other $400. The water would not fill the fresh tank, rather just pass through it. The draw back to these changes is having to wait for all this customizing. In some cases if we sell out of your make and model machine you select, we will have to have the factory build and ship the machine to us and then we customize it, then re-ship back out to you. This is not a problem but can mean waiting for all this to happen. By default we use 6 ft hoses for the sink connection. This is not a permanent change. We make it so you can add the direct connect system or remove it in one minute using brass quick connects. You can use the fresh tank and or the waste tank like the machine was made originally in a moments notice.
The Rotovac CFX dual 3 stage auto dump and vacuum system is listed at $2195 but we do offer sales on the phone especially if you are ordering lots of other items.

Link:
Rotovac CFX

http://www.steam-brite.com/rotovac-carpet-cleaning-dual-stage-dual-motor-flood-pumper-extractor-discount-shipping-p-11678.html

[TigerJ]

The link for the Cross American direct connect system was only an example. We would have to custom make the connection for you on the machine of choice. All the connections and hoses would cost $300. The auto dump is an other $400. The water would not fill the fresh tank, rather just pass through it. The draw back to these changes is having to wait for all this customizing. In some cases if we sell out of your make and model machine you select, we will have to have the factory build and ship the machine to us and then we customize it, then re-ship back out to you. This is not a problem but can mean waiting for all this to happen. By default we use 6 ft hoses for the sink connection. This is not a permanent change. We make it so you can add the direct connect system or remove it in one minute using brass quick connects. You can use the fresh tank and or the waste tank like the machine was made originally in a moments notice.
The Rotovac CFX dual 3 stage auto dump and vacuum system is listed at $2195 but we do offer sales on the phone especially if you are ordering lots of other items.

Link:
Rotovac CFX
http://www.steam-brite.com/rotovac-c...g-p-11678.html

thanks Donald, looks like an expensive modification ($700) to add auto-fill/auto-dump.

Now I'm wondering if I should just consider the larger Clean Storm 12 gallon units which would double my cleaning time before have to hit the bucket brigade:

12-2300-H; $1,385 300 PSI, Dual Two-Stage Vac

12-2500-H; $1,594 500 PSI, Dual Two-Stage Vac

can you provide me the weights for the above units ?

is the 12-2500-H a two 15Amp circuit rqmt too ?

would be good to have the above info added to the website.

Is there any chance you could do a modification to the 12 gallon unit to add "vehicle loading wheels" to the handle, similar to those used on the EDIC, Powr-Flite, and US product Pex models ? If so, how much would something like that cost ?


thank, Barry

[Donald]

Add Load wheels to Clean Storm 12 gal series.

12-2300-H 123 lbs
12-2500-H 139 lbs

12-2500-H electricity: Cord 1 7.5 amp vacuum motor + half of the heater 7.5 amps + 500 psi pump 3.5 amp = 19 amps
Cord 2 7.5 + 7.5 = 15 (no pump)

We can custom make a machine for you that has an aluminum rails on the back wall that supports two wheels to roll the machine into the truck for an extra $250 I expect this will add another 5 to 10 lbs to the weight. I am sorry, I do not have any photo of this modification but I know it can be done.

The difference in the 500 psi pumps are heavy and take more electricity to run.

[TigerJ]

12-2300-H 123 lbs
12-2500-H 139 lbs

12-2500-H electricity: Cord 1 7.5 amp vacuum motor + half of the heater 7.5 amps + 500 psi pump 3.5 amp = 19 amps
Cord 2 7.5 + 7.5 = 15 (no pump)

We can custom make a machine for you that has an aluminum rails on the back wall that supports two wheels to roll the machine into the truck for an extra $250 I expect this will add another 5 to 10 lbs to the weight. I am sorry, I do not have any photo of this modification but I know it can be done.

The difference in the 500 psi pumps are heavy and take more electricity to run.

The weights are too high. Looks like I may have to go back to the 6-2300-H (6 gallon) which only weighs 104 or so, and see how long it takes for the 6 gallons to fill up based on my upholstery and possibly rinse/extract needs for tile, and employ the bucket brigade as needed. Still need to think through this one. Please feel free to pass along any other solution/ideas.


Barry