Portable options

jwfoulk12

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Justin Foulk
So I've been wanting to pick up a portable for a few years now. I wont need one often but it will definitely be nice to use. I plan on using it with my 360xl for carpet as well as with a hard surface wand for rinsing floors after stripping, after i suck up all the slurry crap with my dedicated shop vac. To this end im thinking id like to have at least 500 psi. Also Ive been looking on the new rotovac website as they have 25% off till the end of the month. I can get the Enduro with dual 3 stage vac motors and 500 psi pump with auto fill and auto dump for around $2500 before the discount. They also told me I can have a Sandia unit custom built with 2 6.6 vac motors and a 500 psi adjustable pump for 2695 but idk if i can get the discount on this as it would be custom ordered and not listed on their website. My third option is the cfx15 ranger 1200 psi. This way I could just use the cfx15 occcasinally and not have to bring the whole unit if its not needed. This unit is 4G before the discount. What are you guys's thoughts on these? Or anything else actually that I might have missed?
 

Bryan Thomson

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Justin.....good idea on purchasing a " dual surface portable" for tile & grout as well as carpet.
I recommend that you consider an adjustable high pressure portable which can be adjusted from 100psi to 1000psi. And obviously with an auto pump out for tile and grout cleaning.
Some cleaners prefer portables with heat and other know if they have the right pre spray and include proper agitation that you can do a great job without heat.
Legend Brands has a line of portables under their "Versaclean" line of equipment from 200psi with or WO/ heat......500psi (adjustable) with or WO/ heat and a high pressure 1200MS ( multi surface) fully adjustable with auto pump out. Versaclean has an industry first by using the "General pressure washing pump" for the 1200MS which has a much longer life expectancy and is much more robust then most other high pressure portables......they also use the larger 6.6 Ametec vac motors with 140 cam and 140 inches of water lift.
You can see the full line at www.legendbrands.com and look under "brands" and then click on Versaclean / extractors. If your interested in finding out more I'm going to talk about it this Wednesday night on Mikey's board webinar at 6:00pm Pacific along with many other topics concerning hard surface cleaning.
 

Desk Jockey

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4k huh.

Damn...just DAMN.

how often do you plan to use it? If infrequently I'd rent or pay a buddy to borrow his.

Ebay, Craigslist? Plenty of dust collectors available for pennies on the dollar. Pretty much whut they are worth! :winky:
 
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GeeeAus

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Just upgraded to a HF Nautilus. Only 500 PSI.

Does tiles great
 

Cleanworks

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There is no magic bullet. You really can't buy a machine that is as good for carpets as it is for hard floors. The problem is amperage. How much available power do you have. If you go with something with a 1,000-1,200 psi pump, you will lose on the vacuum. They really only want to make a 2 cord machine at best. One cord is for the pump only, the other cord powers the mediocre vacuums. If you're not looking to clean hard floors, look for a machine with dual 3 stage vacuums (aprox 13 amps each) with 2 inch interior plumbing. Not all 500 psi pumps are created equal. You want something with a 1/2 hp dual capacitor start motor. Pumptec m58 205 series. Anything less will not have adequate flow rates. You will have to turn the pressure down to about 100 psi when using the rotovac to prevent damage to the pump. You can use it for rinsing the wax slurry of vinyl floors as you describe with a hard floor tool. Dont't buy a machine with heat, again, heat comes at the sacrifice of something else. Buy an external heater with a separate extension cord. Take a look at the Mytee portables. I have never seen one up close but it does appear that they use 2 inch plumbing and you can order it with vacs in parallel. Mytee m5 I believe. Their machines sometimes may be over powered, needing 1 20 amp circuit and 1-15 amp. Better just to have 2-15amp cords. Easy to find power. 20 amp can be difficult at times. Try before you buy. I mean try on a job you would normally use it for, not in the dealers showroom or someones garage. Good luck.
 
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jwfoulk12

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4k huh.

Damn...just DAMN.

how often do you plan to use it? If infrequently I'd rent or pay a buddy to borrow his.

Ebay, Craigslist? Plenty of dust collectors available for pennies on the dollar. Pretty much whut they are worth! :winky:
Only 3K if you figure in a 25% discount. The problem is there is nowhere around here to rent one. My closest Supplier who doesnt carry much is almost an hour and a half away. I have Pembertons but they are 3.5 hours from me.

There is no magic bullet. You really can't buy a machine that is as good for carpets as it is for hard floors. The problem is amperage. How much available power do you have. If you go with something with a 1,000-1,200 psi pump, you will lose on the vacuum. They really only want to make a 2 cord machine at best. One cord is for the pump only, the other cord powers the mediocre vacuums. If you're not looking to clean hard floors, look for a machine with dual 3 stage vacuums (aprox 13 amps each) with 2 inch interior plumbing. Not all 500 psi pumps are created equal. You want something with a 1/2 hp dual capacitor start motor. Pumptec m58 205 series. Anything less will not have adequate flow rates. You will have to turn the pressure down to about 100 psi when using the rotovac to prevent damage to the pump. You can use it for rinsing the wax slurry of vinyl floors as you describe with a hard floor tool. Dont't buy a machine with heat, again, heat comes at the sacrifice of something else. Buy an external heater with a separate extension cord. Take a look at the Mytee portables. I have never seen one up close but it does appear that they use 2 inch plumbing and you can order it with vacs in parallel. Mytee m5 I believe. Their machines sometimes may be over powered, needing 1 20 amp circuit and 1-15 amp. Better just to have 2-15amp cords. Easy to find power. 20 amp can be difficult at times. Try before you buy. I mean try on a job you would normally use it for, not in the dealers showroom or someones garage. Good luck.

I agree and I dont feel that I really need 1200 psi as I have never in all my years needed a portable for t&g, But i do see wanting the 500psi for rinsing post stripped floors. I can also see wanting the bigger vacuums for extraction as the majority of its use will be for carpet cleaning hooked to a rotovac. Ive already decided I dont want heat but you confirmed what I was already thinking. How will having the pressure up and using a Rotovac damage the pump? Will having a pump capapble of higher pressure alleviate that?
 
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Cleanworks

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What happens when you use a larger flow tool than the pump can handle, as I have been told, the pump cavitates resulting in premature wear. For example, if you have a 4 flow tool hooked up and the static pressure is 500 psi, when you pull the trigger you may see a pressure drop of 50-100psi. If you hook up a 6 flow tool the pressure may drop all the way down to 100 psi. You want to adjust the regulator as you have the trigger pulled until the gauge reflects your actually pressure. I'm not sure of the flow on a rotovac, but you don't need high pressure as you are depending on the extra agitation. When using using the rotovac, do the same thing, pull the trigger and see where the pressure gauge ends up. Adjust the regulator to that pressure. A 50 psi drop is about normal, a 100 psi drop probably means the flow is more than the pump can handle. Stay away from the so called 500 psi pumps with the little white motors. you will be lucky to get 500psi with a 2 flow. I actually use my old ninja with a 150 psi diaphragm pump to rinse my floors with a hard surface tool.
 

J Scott W

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Willy P

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I really like the ease of converting the vacuums. Nice manifold! Do you sell them separately or do you get a free machine with each manifold purchase?;)
 
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jwfoulk12

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Nautilus models allow you to switch between series and parallel in a minute. Several other great features to make them easy to use. Nautilus Xtreme 500 PSI with 2 8.4" vacuums for great recovery - $3700 - http://interlinksupply.com/index.php?item_num=MXE-500M

You can it with Two 3 stage vacs for $3100.

If you don't need the special features of the Nautilus, you can get an Olympu 500 PSI Two 3 stage vasc for under $2800 - http://interlinksupply.com/index.php?item_num=M3-500
Any Discounts on these coming up? Im having a hard time justifying 4G on a tool that wont get used very often.
 

Cleanworks

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You really have to evaluate how often you are going to use your portable and do you really need it to have similar to truck mount performance. If you are only using it once in a while for small apartments that are not accessible to a tm, you may want just a basic portable. If you take your time, you can still do a good job and dry times will average 8-12 hours for moderately soiled carpets. An Edic Galaxy with the 220 psi pump (160 psi on 3 flow wand) and 190 inches of lift will do an adequate job. You can also add an Edic heater to the outside of the machine with it's own power cord. When you start looking at larger machines, not only does the price go up buy so does the weight. A 150lb machine is not going to be easy to get up a staircase. As for the Nautilus, take a look at the amperage specs. 1 cord is 21.48 amp wide open, (nothing attached to the machine) 11.58 under full load (with your hand over the hose.) You will need a 20 amp circuit to power this no matter what anybody says. Lamb 8.4 vac motors are indeed powerful but they need 14.1-14.6 amps to power each one according to Lambs specs. So where do you get the power to run a 500 psi pump. If the vacs are run in series, this will lower the amp draw on the first vac, allowing a pump to be hooked up to it. a 500 psi pump with a 1/2 hp motor will take 2.75 -5.5 amps depending on flow. Take a good look at the types of machines on the market and try to talk to people who have personal experience with them. It's nice to have a lot of power but really, it's the tech who actually cleans the carpet.
 
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J Scott W

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Any Discounts on these coming up? Im having a hard time justifying 4G on a tool that wont get used very often.

No specials or discounts coming up that I know about. But I do not always know whats ales are coming. There will be a mailer with specials coming out in about 5 weeks. Some Nautilus models will be on sale during our annual Black Friday sale in November. You can always stop into your local Interlink Supply and see if they will negotiate. Some will. Some won't.
 

Tim Page

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Its essential that any portable you purchase has heat .
We resently bought the Nautilus 500h and found its a good all round machine . Quality build , easy to service and looks impressive to custumers .
 
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Its essential that any portable you purchase has heat .
We resently bought the Nautilus 500h and found its a good all round machine . Quality build , easy to service and looks impressive to custumers .

We in the US don't have the available power like you guys have down there.... Our standard electric here is 110volts.... Rarely can you find 220volts available without a hassle or moving appliances......
 

Cleanworks

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Its essential that any portable you purchase has heat .
We resently bought the Nautilus 500h and found its a good all round machine . Quality build , easy to service and looks impressive to custumers .
heat is better added on, not in the machine. Makes more versatile. You need one dedicated cord just for the heater. Although heat is nice to have, you may not always have the power available to use it.
 
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Tim Page

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In Australia we have 240 volts and can run a heater and pump of the same circuit , vacs on the other .
If there is only 1 circuit available we dont run the heater .
Build in heaters are the way to go here
 
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Cleanworks

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In Australia we have 240 volts and can run a heater and pump of the same circuit , vacs on the other .
If there is only 1 circuit available we dont run the heater .
Build in heaters are the way to go here
sounds like luxury to us, especially in Canada where we struggle to find clean 15 amp 120 v. circuits.
 

jwfoulk12

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Definitely not concerned with not having heat. I can always add that later if I decide. It just has to have enough suck and a decent pump to provide good rinsing capabilities. Ron you definitely have opened my eyes a little to things that I wouldnt even have thought about. I agree it needs to be able to operate on 2 15 amp breakers. I would like to have a decent enough pump to really get a good flush on hard surfaces.
 

shadygrady

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I have found when using portables over the years, that most of the heat you need is available at the kitchen sink or laundry room. Use the available heat on site, even if by some slim chance you have to increase the thermostat at the water heater. Send it to the PSI pump and clean away. I sometimes would run to an electric heater then to the cleaning tools. I have had great results piping available hot H2O to the RVjr without any pump at all. The one drawback is that some water heaters can't keep up to the demand of the RVjr. I choked it to 1-1.5 jet and that works OK.
 
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jwfoulk12

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Anybody here have any experience with Sandia or with the Jaguar portables? Still trying to narrow this down.
 

Willy P

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I can honestly say Ed Valentine was head and shoulders above the rest for customer service of any company I've dealt with. Also, the Sandia vacuum system is series which really lowers the cfm. Higher cfm gives you better recovery in electricland.
 
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Sounding a little broke back mountainish..... But who am I to judge......


I've been using 2 Sandia portables with 2-3stage vacuums in parallel for the last 8 years... Works for me and my high rises over 7 floors tall....:lol:

My first Sandia had a 200psi pump no heat, my second one has the 500psi pump and heat.... I rarely use the electric heater and really want to take it out of the unit to lessen the weight.... Sh!ts heavy but not as heavy as a TruckForce...... I use a LG #2 heater for my portable work where I can...

I'd really like a unit with a bigger fresh water tank... The Sandia has like 11-12 gallons, not enough for use with a RV360i...
 
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