Which is best for me?

[Terri]

I have just begun my search for the perfect carpet cleaning machine. I manage a 17,000 square foot home. This home has stone floors and wool carpeting. As we have a full time maintenance person living in the home, we would like to supply him with a carpet cleaning machine or possibly a dual purpose machine for the carpet & the stone flooring. In addition, we would like to use this machine to do upholstery cleaning. I have looked at the Olympus M3-200 for the carpet only. It seemed as though if I wanted something to do the stone floors as well, I would really have to step up in price so I settled for just the extractor for the carpet & upholstery. Anyway, the salesman indicated that heat was not really that necessary. Do you concur? And can you recommend a system that would work for me? Thank you.

[Donald]

Finding a machine to clean tile, stone, capret, upholstery

The order of importance on upgrading a machine is listed at

The issue is that you want a machine that will also clean tile and/or stone floors. Most tile and stone floor attachments use lots of water and high pressure. This means considering an auto fill and dump extractor with at least 1000 psi. If you want a heater, then you can only have a machine with 500 psi. How much hose do you want to run? Many of the auto fill/ dump 1000 + psi extractors only have dual 2 stage vacuum, but some do have dual 3 stage or more.
HTTP://www.steam-brite.com/forum/sho...highlight=hoseTo narrow down your search, you need to answer these questions.
1. Do you want a dual 2 stage machine (4 stage), a dual 3 stage machine (6 stage), or a quad 2 stage (8 stages).[how much hose do you want to run]?
2. Do you want auto dump or a regular machine to fill and empty? Remember an auto fill and dump machine is hooked to your sink so you will not be able to roll it around the house so the vacuum is going to need to be fairly strong.
3. How much pressure do you want? You can still clean stone and tile with 500 psi machine, but you will need to prescrub the floor with a buffer with a pad or a brush and then follow behind with your extractor to rinse the floor. Pressure is a form of agitation so you will not need to do as much prescrubbing with the 1000 to 1500 psi systems.
4. How fast do you need the machine? Some manufactures take a week, yet others can easily take a month to build your dream machine.
5. Do you want a machine with a heater. Heated machines out clean non heated machines during low flow water use. For example, during upholstery cleaning work the water has more time to absorb the heat from the heater and will get super hot. Using a heater on a tile cleaning job, you will not notice as much improvement because the water is flying through the heater not giving it much time to work.
Please email me back.

[Terri]

Thank you for your reply, Donald. I think I've narrowed down what I want. I believe that I will sacrifice the tile & stone cleaning & just focus on cleaning the carpet & upholstery. After much research, my thought is to go with a 2 stage machine unit with no heat - also, while the auto fill/dump seems like a great feature, I don't like the limitations it presents. Sooo, based on these factors, which machine do you recommend? As far as how fast I need it....I don't really want to wait months however, I am somewhat flexible. Thank you.

[Donald]

Finding a machine to clean tile, stone, capret, upholstery

I think what you meant to say is you want a dual 2 stage machine or 4 stages total.
What you are not telling me is the tank size or the water pressure you want to use.
Is you comment about only using a 4 stage machine without heat because you only want to use one power cord? If you want a little bit of heat added without using electricity you can use a machine that uses the exhaust motor heat to boast the water temp. This does not use any electricity at all and still keeps the machine on one power cord.
Please see
HTTP://www.steam-brite.com/forum/showthread.php?t=33&highlight=narrow