rotovac 360 and portables

[danluke319]

has anyone used this to clean tile with a portable machine?..hows it work? thanks

dan

 

[danluke319]

come on guys help me out a little. i am new to the business, although i have cleaned with a couple different companies in the past. what do you think is the best way to clean tile and grout without a TM. I will get one in the future, but its not possible now. I was told teh 360 would be great with a porty. then i had another guy tell me to get a water hog and a tile wand. I would prob. say $500-$700 on the HOG & wand but Im not sure which way to go.

 

[RickL]

Depends

Which are you going to clean commercial or residential. If residential you could get buy with buckets, mops, good chems and a shop vac.If it was me I would go with a t&g portable and a turbo hybrid. I have not heard good things about the 360 on t&g it's a godd tool just not the best on t&g. No matter what you do you have to scrub with a T&G brush on the grout lines. I have treid everything and you just can't skip it. Good luck

 

[danluke319]

thanks rick,

i want to do mostly residential. Just too many of my clients have mostly tile in their homes, except for the bedrooms. Thats just florida i guess. I dont want my clients going elsewhere for their T&G service. what is the turbo hybred?

 

[danluke319]

never mind, i found the turbo, looks like it would work well for me...if i was pushing more psi's. one salesman suggested buying the water hog which is basically a stand alone pressure washer, but will hook up to the turbo hybrid or a brush wand (which he suggested).

buying another porty is not really an option at 3K+.

 

[joey895]

I clean a fair of tile and grout in high rise condos where I have to use my portable and I've been getting very good results. I simply pre-spray, lots of dwell time, scrub the tile with my rotovac brushes, scrub the grout lines with my grout brush on a stick, and rinse with the portable and glided wand.....repeat as necessary in the really bad areas. It's definitely not as fast as using my spinner with the truck mount but it gets the job done. I may add a water otter at some point but only to speed the job up.

 

[duckster]

I use the standard two motor Rotovac with a Mytee 1001 porty. I mainly use a rotary showerfeed shampooer and only if heavily soiled or stained use the Rotovac/Porty combo as a rinsing machine. It adds time to the job but it is easier on the back to use a Rotovac over a straight wand anyday. However, I really do avoid using HWE.

 

[Larry Cobb]

danluke319;

The RotoVac 360 is a good rotary extractor for carpet.

The stock head for tile & grout needs more impact for high productivity.

We have modified the T&G head with Spraying Systems narrow angle WashJets for better grout cleaning.

Urethane squeegees also increase the durability.

Larry

 

[MarkE]

First, click the link from Mikey's homepage and you can read some great success stories from several people who started with a mop, bucket, brushes and a shop vac.

Before my TM, I used a "Grout Hog" I got off Ebay, brushes, shop vac and a floor machine. The floor machine is key because you can buy a 3M brush (Cobb has them) and use it to scrub and then you can use a buffing pad to remove any sealer that drips onto the tile.

Many people who do tile with a porty use a 1200 PSI hard surface machine with auto fill/dump and a spinner/turbo tool. It is a lot faster than scrubbing and shop vac method but you still have to do quite a hose/chord dance.

By the way, I have the RV360 and RX20 and use them for carpet only. I couldn't ever see using the 360 for tile but that is just me. TM, SX-12, deck brush, grout brush, mop to apply chems, sealing stuff and floor machine if I need to buff.