I would seriously save up for a while and get at least a 5gpm or larger machine.
When you do the math, it cost more than the small machines at the store but will increase your work speed a lot more and the commercial equipment is better constructed.
Sure, you can buy one of those units and use the little 12" surface cleaner which is a little bit faster than using a wand but with 5gpm you can run a Classic 19" surface cleaner which is commercial quality and you clean larger areas faster.
Do you want to work a little bit faster or a lot faster?
Read on the forums how many times guys bought the smaller machines and right after buying them wanted the larger unit so they can do larger properties faster.
You can always find a used larger hot water skid on ebay or craigslist but sometimes they want almost new prices for used equipment and don't understand that probably 90% to 95% of people will not pay new prices for a used machine, that is just how it is.
Nobody can make you make the choices for your business but look at some of the older threads where guys bought small machines thinking it would make the jobs go a lot faster and then bought bigger rigs, I don't think anyone bought one of those small rigs and stayed with it for long, they all bought larger rigs.
You might buy the smaller rig but when you want to sell it slightly used, nobody is going to pay new prices even though you did not use it much before you realized you wanted at least a 5gpm machine or larger and now you are stuck with it trying to sell it for what you can get out of it. You can bypass all of that and just buy a larger hot water skid.
One of the things you need to think about is where are you going to put it?
Is it going into your softwash truck or on a trailer by itself with a tank, reels, etc.....
If you want it on your truck, you want one of the narrow frame hot water skids so it does not take up too much room so you might want to stick with a Landa, Shark, Powerwashstore.com unit, Hydrotek, etc.... The Hotsy are large square footprint skids, the Largo are also large and I think the Alkota might be the same.
If you decide to buy new, don't make the mistake of over-paying for local, call the great vendors that post here like Russ and Paul and see what they can help you with to make it fit into your truck so you have room for your softwash equipment. If it will not fit, you might have to put it onto a small trailer by itself.
Call me if you want to chat or ask questions.
