Life with a cold water portable..

Shane Deubell

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Used them for several years before finding rick's magic potion in the early 2000's.
Can't even stand that high pitch sound anymore.
 

ruff

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Ofer Kolton
I pretty much share Richard's love for portables.
I charge $50.00 more for having to use a portable ($100.00 more than what I call easy set up). And would still rather run 225 feet of hose (my reel capacity) than use the portable. You can still do a good job with it, its just a hassle. You have to slow down, do more agitation, dry passes etc. Results are decent, hate every moment.

That's why I have a golden framed picture of Saint Willy of the portables :winky:.
 
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FB7777

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I often times think we give heat much more credit than it deserves. It has it's place, but as we all should know, it's only one part of the overall equation.

I do as well Marty

When I switched to the Max heat Butler, I didn't notice any difference regarding cleaning at the higher temp, typically in the 220-230 ATM range

What I did notice was that on commercial jobs the temp gauge would stay above or around 200 degrees where the older Butler temp dropped to 150-170 when there was higher water usage

I've never used a TM that got above 240 so I can't speak to the blazing hot temps, but if something is rat nasty, we just soak it down with high ph prespray and rotary extract the heck out of it
 

hogjowl

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That's basically what I said in my post. Portables are too time consuming to use. So, unless you can get paid more on the job, to compensate for the extra time spent there, a portable is NOT a good business decision, in most normal cleaning environments.
 

bob vawter

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bob vawter
Personally I think I'd rather by a VLM pad hack (great liar) than a Portable slave.

I know of one BB rock star that has to use a damn Cimex to scrub residential to over come the lack of cleaning ability that great suck and heat gives us Premium Cleaners.

If I had to lift a Cimex everydamnday, out of my minivan and up staircases ( can't help but recall Steve Dobbs and his "I'm a strapping young lad, it's no big deal comments who had a truckmount and still felt he needed to Cimex in his prespray) I would move to Detroit and work for Hagopian.

i still got all my contacts...and my three year non-compete wit CRASH is over......COME ON DOWN...errrr OVER...
of course these lil' old Detroit black ladies would eat you up...........dear!
 

Mikey P

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anything over 180 degrees really only helps if you're trying to eliminate the prespray/scrub steps and just melt dirt off with your wand.

OR cook a tough spot out that your pre spray/scrub technique left behind



But I would imagine that some sort of sanitizing effect is happening under 220 with a slow back pull.
 

Jimmy L

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Ah I remember the days when I started out using a EDIC 10 gallon , 100 psi, 2-2stage portable.
I think I used it for two years.
And I remember when I "Discovered" those farm supply bucket heaters.

I had a home I had to clean on a sunday..............they were moving in on monday.

I dragged my portable up the stairs and took two 5 gallon buckets and put a bucket heater in each one.

Now I had HOT water!

So I'm squirting and sucking and when it came time to refill my tank I poured that steaming hot water right into that tank!

And 30 seconds later.......I find out.......that that HOT water..........had fried my pump!

So no more bucket heaters for me!

But after that I was considering buying one of those castex "magnum" portables.
Went to wisconsin and met my relatives who ran WM PTO's.
Told him what I was going to buy and he convinced me.............to buy a TM.

By going to a TM it cut my time in half on a job with NO bucket brigade!

PORTABLES suck!
 

hogjowl

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You are reading more into what Jimmy said, and missing the whole point of what I said, Richard.

Jimmy never said heat was good or bad. All he said was a TM cut his time in half.

Which is what I said.

If you'd like me to simply say what you want me to say, you need to start sending me prior notices.
 

Goomer

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The only guys running cold water portables all the time are the dumbasses who only fill them with cold water.

Most pumps offered today will handle inlet water temps of up to 140 degrees, which is most likely just as hot as the water used to wash your dishes, your laundry, and your asses.
 

Larry Cobb

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. . . It had no heat.

I had a couple of brothers who were around my age now, back then, and they were my mentors, somewhat. One brother told me to buy a TM, the other told me it would be a waste of money. The one advocating a TM won, of course, but all I experienced was a drastic decrease in time on the job. I really didn't notice a great improvement in my cleaning.

I often times think we give heat much more credit than it deserves. It has it's place, but as we all should know, it's only one part of the overall equation.

Thanks, Marty for saying that.

It takes courage to state that position on a board of TM users.

With the significant performance increases in portable vacuum motors & pressure pumps,

high performance portables of today can clean carpet much better than machines of a few years ago.

I do think a good TM cleans better & faster,

but they cannot clean many high rise carpets.

Larry
 
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Lonny

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Oct 2, 2008
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Bucket heaters are good for adding a little heat. I found after using them that I was better off to simply use the customers hot water, from the laundry if possible. Some of the newer washer and dryer sets are friggin large, and damaging them becomes more of a reality when trying to move them solo. The cleaning results were not noticeable. I never had a problem with a fried pump, unless i let it run dry. The biggest thing about cleaning with a porty is more agitation, 175 on every job, and SLOOOOOWW strokes.
I could max out at 3 jobs per day, but that was never often.
I am happy as I can be with a truck mount these days. I see the old porty in the corner the office storage every few weeks now, collecting dust.
 

Willy P

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You don't get the freaking water boiling because it does fry pumps but you can preheat water enough to get a serious temp spike when it passes through my 3250 watt heatrite. I've also swapped out the thermostats from 190 to 240, the only downside is the switches go faster. It pops, you can get burned, but you have to learn how to use it to the best of it's ability- feeding it , like Frank said with hot water, allowing it to get to temp before running it, having your heater inline, and not burning the machine's guts, learning the curve for the heat to recover IE how much to clean before doing dry passes to allow the heat to rise again, etc. Maybe I'll make a video of a high rise job set up and you can actually watch the process.And the very best part is my fuel bills. Gas is around $6 a gallon in Canuckistan.
 

Willy P

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Slashing my wrists would be much faster! I know you portable lubbers would love that.....well too F-in bad! :winky:
I'm just walking over to the kitchen right now. Would you prefer butter, paring, serrated, ginsu, bread, steak, cleaver, or plastic?
 

Willy P

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If I go out to my shed I've got an Olfa and a banana as well as a really nice Scandinavian fillet for your dining and dancing pleasure.
 

Desk Jockey

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I'm just walking over to the kitchen right now. Would you prefer butter, paring, serrated, ginsu, bread, steak, cleaver, or plastic?
I'd prefer the suffering of a dull plastic knife over cleaning with a portable.

It would be less painful......but even more.....I can keep my dignity! :biggrin:
 
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jack zerkie
Today I the best of both worlds. I used my orbot on of the carpets of a very high end hi rise. The carpets were set in the halls with slate in most areas, fast drying with the orbot. The other rooms that get most of the use being a party room with a light beige berber very dirty. I used the new porty with the heat. I changed the wand jets smaller for more heat. I parked my van infront of the building, but the main doors are always locked from the inside, no hoses allowed. The job went very well and great results with both systems. I don,t think that the party room would have cleaned as good without extraction and hot water.The carpets had many black spots and many spills.I have been all truckmount for the past 30 yrs. but this old dog is learning new tricks and they work. jz.
 
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Art Kelley

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May 19, 2007
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Rainbow Carpet And Upholstery Cleaning
Lets say your truckmount takes a dive and you only have a 500 psi, 2 vac but cold water portable to get by with..


How would you compensate for lack of heat and vacuum?
How less productive would you be with the set up, constant dumping and filling, moving the machine, over agitating etc..?
How much more chemical do you think you would be using (and leaving behind in the carpet)?
How fast would you sell your car, home or kids to get the truckmount back up and running asap?
Every TM whether slide-in or DD will punk out on a job at some time. It's rare but it will happen. You will not be able to complete the job with the TM. What will you do? Once I passed the 8000 hr mark on the Pro1200 and 100K miles on the Express my anxiety level increased on each job. This is why I started carrying a porty in the back of the van. I used it on a few jobs and the results were fantastic; equal to the TM when used in conjunction with the 360i. There is unlimited hot water when hooked to the home faucet, and most of the homes I do have 80-100 psi pressure which is perfect for the HF and 360i and light wanding, and if I need more I connect a 220 psi flojet pump inline. I could also hook up a Water Hog for up to 1200 psi tile cleaning. There is no filling and dumping with the APO on the Air Hog Plus, no moving it around since it easily pulls 100 feet of vac hose. I enjoy using it whenever I can instead of the TM. There is no increase in chemical use, very little productivity decrease.
 
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Mark Saiger

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Dec 26, 2006
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Grand Rapids, MN
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Mark Saiger
I typically in our area prefer to stretch out hose vs run a portable, but in today's day and age, I would probably search out social media sites such as Facebook for information on how to be a great COLD WATER portable cleaning specialist...:stir: I think I came across one early this morning on Facebook...LOL
 
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juniorc82

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Jefferson City missouri
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Jon Coret
I have a mytee 1003 dx. I never use the heaters . But at 25 feet away it does as good of a job as my old white magic with the #3 blower. I would much rather encap if I had my pick.As a matter of fact I had a puke mess to clean in a hotel room today on the 8 th floor. Hooked up the mytee and busted it out. Aside from that Im truckmount all the way. Truckmounts have made such a difference in my operation that within 9 months of getting my first truckmount I bought a second one and put it on another van and left it in storage as a back up. This was one of the smartest moves I have ever made. I have 2 truckmounts now , a teeny weeny steam action 14 horse 33 blower as a backup with only 800 hours and my new big block 47with 120 hours so I doubt unless the lord feels lke punishing me o he iinfractions I committed as a teenager I will ever have to deal wit bing without a tm. I will say the 33 blower machine doesn't feel like much compared the 47 but with th nortstar diesel heater that 33is a helluva ot greater than any porty I ever had
 
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