Vacuum Surface Cleaner recommendations please

Christopher

Christopher

Moderator
Hello People, I am ready to purchase a Vacuum Surface Cleaner system and was wondering what some of you have and what you would recommend.

I have talked to some of you about this and I cannot find my notes for some unknown reason.

Please let me know what you would recommend and where to get it. Feel free to PM me if you want.

Thanks.
 
christopher--Call Tom Vogle from http://www.acrproductsinc.com/ and tell him that John Tornabene from Clean County Powerwashing sent ya. Tom is a bigtime hydrotek dealer. One of the biggest in the country. His Prices are reasonable and his knowledge is second to none.. there was a reason why Tom won the highest award in the PWNA when is was a member...the very top award is Toms.. Walters Award winner Tom Vogel---PWNA’s Vendor Member of the Year!

Give him a call and at the very least he will give u a wealth of instructions.

Good Luck
 
The aluminum deck is not the vacuum surface cleaner. Steel Eagle is as good as they get, but still not perfect.
 
I have a couple of the Steel Eagle 24" machines and the 19" Classic and the Big Guy but now I need to look into the Vacuum recovery setup and I have seen the pics and info on the Steel Eagle, Mosmatic, and one other brand that I cannot remember the name.

Just wondering the pro's and cons of each before I spend the money. I will use either my 5.6gpm hot water skid or the 8gpm cold water skid depending on the surface and oil/dirt conditions.
 
Hydro Teks are great especially if you're going to recycle the wash water.
 
I recently purchased a commercial carpet cleaning van for this purpose, ive got a older hawk pump pushing 4GPM. its a super set up because it has the suction and lift i need and it has the pump built right into the system..Its the total package and the bonus is that I can clean commercial carpets too and such out flooded basements.

You can also check out this neat little machine i picked up last year its a cartcher FRV 30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxIvtOcRtc0
Ive upgraded the discharge hose to a 1-1/4 heater hose and made two 25 foot lengths that connect to make 50 feet with a cam lock system...Ive cleaned some costco wholesale vestibules/foyer areas with my FRV's I have two of them and they have made me lots of $$$. i did the flat work of a costco with my two hotsy 1260's running both my FRV's and put the end of the discharge hoses in a drain in the floor of the area we were cleaning. The job took the three of us approx 5 hours, and billed out 1500.00. and the best thing is that they were so amazed with the job and how clean everything was the next day that when i asked for faster payment, they told me to come back later that afternoon and they had a check ready for me....

When you have excellent equipment and it is well maintained, your jobs go smooth and fast and you make more money in the end...

Richard
 
How many feet of discharge hose do you think you could run? How many gpm would it handle? There was a video here of an industrial version from Australia.
 
Richard, were you using hot water with those machines?

I would be afraid of using hot water with those as they are plastic but I don't know if they are the kind of plastic that can handle the hot water.

I saw those videos on youtube and it looks like it left the areas a little wet, not totally dry or mostly like vacuum surface cleaners but it looked like there would not be any puddles left behind. How dry/wet was the area when you were done?

It looks like interesting technology, and I am guessing that with your 4gpm machines, there was no problem pushing the water through 50' of the 1 1/4" hose?

I also wonder how far it will push the water?

I have a sludge pump using basically the same technology but instead of the jet being horizontal spraying out the back of the surface cleaner, the sludge pump has a jet spraying vertically causing suction but using all the flow of the pressure washer to do so. After about 1' high more or less then the hose starts to lay over and lay on the ground. I have 100' or 120' of the pool hose (not sure if it is 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" hose) but it will suck the puddles down to about 1/4" or 1/8" quickly and push it out the hose no problem, even on a slight grade up hill.

I think if you had a separate pressure washer hose for that nozzle that shoots out the back of the surface cleaner (need to modify that surface cleaner plumbing if possible) and keep all your flow for the cleaning, you could probably run longer hose for discharge.

Or

Run a larger pressure washer or just "T" the 2 machines together and put a larger nozzle in the outlet port to flow more water and put nozzles slightly larger into the cleaning nozzle fittings so you can clean a little bit faster.

I would like to see a video of this surface cleaner cleaning larger areas like outside parking lot, sidewalks or other areas to see how wet the area is as it is cleaning.
 
I ended up getting the Steel Eagle 24", Steel Eagle 12" vacuum surface cleaners and then I got the Mosmatic 12" vacuum surface cleaner then got the Sirocco 21" vacuum surface cleaner.

I sent the Steel Eagle 24" vacuum surface cleaner, Steel Eagle 12" vacuum surface cleaner and the Mosmatic 12" vacuum surface cleaner to Jerry at Sirocco to modify to work better. They got the Steel Eagle 24" and the Mosmatic 12" vacuum surface cleaners modified but the Steel Eagle 12" could not be modified.

The last time that I used the Steel Eagle 12" vacuum surface cleaner with my Hotsy 5.6gpm 3000psi hot water machine, it worked good. The vacuum system was my Nikro electric system but the pump out was not working so every 5 or 10 minutes or so I had to have the helper go and manually empty the Nikro drum. I installed a 2" Brass ball valve just in case there were any problems and it worked out good, there was only about 2" or 3" of water/sludge in the drum that would not come out but at the end of the job I took the Nikro lid off, layed the drum on it's side and rinsed everything out, no problem.

I will be installing a better sump pump to pump out the wash water so the system will be a better system. It has 110" of water lift, 230cfm of air flow and when I install the new sump pump it should pump out no problem under vacuum so I will not need a helper there babysitting the system anymore.
 
Christopher said:
Richard, were you using hot water with those machines?

I would be afraid of using hot water with those as they are plastic but I don't know if they are the kind of plastic that can handle the hot water.

I saw those videos on youtube and it looks like it left the areas a little wet, not totally dry or mostly like vacuum surface cleaners but it looked like there would not be any puddles left behind. How dry/wet was the area when you were done?

It looks like interesting technology, and I am guessing that with your 4gpm machines, there was no problem pushing the water through 50' of the 1 1/4" hose?

I also wonder how far it will push the water?

I have a sludge pump using basically the same technology but instead of the jet being horizontal spraying out the back of the surface cleaner, the sludge pump has a jet spraying vertically causing suction but using all the flow of the pressure washer to do so. After about 1' high more or less then the hose starts to lay over and lay on the ground. I have 100' or 120' of the pool hose (not sure if it is 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" hose) but it will suck the puddles down to about 1/4" or 1/8" quickly and push it out the hose no problem, even on a slight grade up hill.

I think if you had a separate pressure washer hose for that nozzle that shoots out the back of the surface cleaner (need to modify that surface cleaner plumbing if possible) and keep all your flow for the cleaning, you could probably run longer hose for discharge.

Or

Run a larger pressure washer or just "T" the 2 machines together and put a larger nozzle in the outlet port to flow more water and put nozzles slightly larger into the cleaning nozzle fittings so you can clean a little bit faster.

I would like to see a video of this surface cleaner cleaning larger areas like outside parking lot, sidewalks or other areas to see how wet the area is as it is cleaning.
Click to expand...


My 1260's are pushing about 5GPM factory setting is 4.3 and yes ive blasted up to 175 degree plus water through my FRV's thus the reasof for upgrading to the heater hose, I hae the two 25 foot lengths and could easilly add another 25' or possibly more. the units do leave a small amount of wetness but for interior jobs like kitchens or tile and grout work its a super system to use...
I also have a sludge succker as I call it It came with 15' of 1-1/2" discharge hose and Ive added about another 25'to it as well and could go as much as 100' im guessing if i wanted too. if you are sucking and your discharge hose is horizontal or a little elevated it works great for reclaiming large volumes of water. however it does not have lots of lift if your hose is more than 4 or 5 feet above your nozzle...

As for doing large ouyside jobs the FRV's are not really designed for large outside jobs, thus why ther are larger flat surface cleaners with the vac systems....

You could certianially use the FRV outside but for large jobs would take a long time....and a business wont want to stroke a cheque for a job that someone else could do in half the time for the same money..just my thoughts

The FRV is more for interior work wher you have a drain or a door way close by so u can rid of the dirty water, ive got some video of my FRVs in action, just have to download them to my PC....
 
Thanks for the info.

I was wondering if they would leave the ground drier than using a vacuum surface cleaner or close to it. I am sure that a lot of us here on the bbs could modify a regular surface cleaner, add a port and spray nozzle and hose and have a duplicate machine, only a lot bigger but I would like the ground to be a lot drier if possible.

I am thinking it would probably be better to stick with the vacuum surface cleaners since I already have them.

Thanks for your info, post the videos when you get a chance.
 
Christopher said:
I will be installing a better sump pump to pump out the wash water so the system will be a better system. It has 110" of water lift, 230cfm of air flow and when I install the new sump pump it should pump out no problem under vacuum so I will not need a helper there babysitting the system anymore.
Click to expand...

Chris you have $100bucks, get a cfm meter and check the vac and tell me what you get for the flow.
 
I don't know if I have $100 bucks Nigel, where do you find the cfm meter? Don't tell me Grainger. hahahahaha Seems like they have everything in the planet there. hahahahaha

Where do you want me to check the cfm's, at the outlet of the drum? after 50' of hose?
 
I had seen that video before and the surface cleaner does a good job but it does leave some water behind, maybe the rubber seal is not in good shape?

I would put a separate ball valve so you can stop the flow to the spray bar while still pushing water back through the hose so when the water starts getting away from you, kill the spray bar and vacuum up the water or in this case, venturi it up. hahahaha

I think with more flow through the discharge hose (larger nozzle and/or separate machine just for this if you are not running 8gpm or better) would make this surface cleaner work better but also check the rubber seal on the bottom and make sure it is in good shape for a good seal.
 
Christopher said:
I don't know if I have $100 bucks Nigel, where do you find the cfm meter? Don't tell me Grainger. hahahahaha Seems like they have everything in the planet there. hahahahaha

Where do you want me to check the cfm's, at the outlet of the drum? after 50' of hose?
Click to expand...


Chris C, buy one or borrow one from your HVAC friend (well make one if you don’t have one...lol),

I have built and tested so much pw stuff last year, I pass the torch to you for 2012.
 
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