The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Closer

[Loren Egland]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

I have all the bells and whistles on my Powermatic that save me time and are used as back ups in case of failure and that also moniter operation of the truck mount. It is nice to have that luxury, but of course it is not needed to clean as well as another machine might that is simple but lacking these things.

I understand the draw of only one fuel and the promise of 'free heat', though that is an illusion when you consider the bigger more expensive engines and fuel consumption, the restricting of the vacuum to make the engine work harder to produce more heat but less vacuum, the warm up time, the complexity and associated costs, maintenance & repair, etc.

Unless you have a heat exchange that can keep up with the higher flows, you also lose cleaning performance, so more time is spent for less results. Better results is better for repeat and referral and for higher pricing.

As simple as Judson is, it should still out perform most modern heat exchange systems, cost less, be more easily maintained, last as long or longer, and be every bit as reliable as what some might refer to as newer technology.
Newer doesn't necessarily mean an improvement in cleaning performance at the carpet/wand interface.

But what do I know. I know nothing but a Powermatic that hasn't changed much from the 1970's. Anyone want to challenge its cleaning performance on the carpet with a new technology heat exchanger?

Most cleaners will choose HX TMs. A large manufacturer of truck mounts would seem to be missing the boat if they were not offering this technology to carpet cleaners.

 

[Lyman]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

My butler is good for 5 hrs of cleaning and run time at 8 hrs and maybe 60 miles of driving for 10 gallons of gas. That is what the last 58 out of 63 days tells me. I start the truck in the morning and don't shut it off until I am done.

 

[Leslie Judson Jones]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

I posted the numbers. The 650 runs at the same RPM's of the Hyundai Elantra at around 50mph. Hyundai claims 40mpg on the highway which works out to 1.25gph which is the numbers I have on my spec sheet. The Prochem Peak runs at .75-1gph which most closely matches what your machines are. Les I think you make a great entry level machine I really do. Sapphire makes a good machine, Prochem makes good machines and even HydraMaster gets a good machine to come out of the factory every once in awhile.

Point is if your going to throw figures out don't get pissy if someone points out your wrong and the same goes for me. Bill said I was wrong and if I am I will stand corrected and ask for an explantion why Bill has different documents from Prochem then I have Ivebeensold :shock:

There are more then enough folks that like Kmart to keep you in buisness for a very long time so don't get worried or angry...wait maybe you better be worried .... LOL I crack myself up... :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Just having fun Les you know I love you likle a brother!

John,

I am so glad you posted this information. If the 650 runs the same rpm as a Hyundai Elantra at around 50 mph, this explains what the problem is. I have carpet cleaners who have bought large engine heat exchange truckmounts calling me all the time. They say that when they use their high flow wand the water temperature drops while doing commercial jobs. They ask me what can be done about it. I usually tell them to go back to a standard flow wand or add a Little Giant heater after the machine like a lot of guys do.

The next time I get one of these units in for reengineering like I did with my Project Bluebook video, I’m going to see if I can increase the rpm and re-gear the blower and pump. Maybe I can figure out how to do this so they can avoid adding a propane heater. The only bad thing about doing this is that it will not be a total reengineering where I strip the unit of all the unnecessary apparatuses and devices. So it still won’t be as reliable as a total reengineering job would be. It is going to be difficult to make a heat exchanger match the performance of a number 4 Little Giant heater.

It seems to me the truckmount that does not drop temperature on high flow under commercial carpet cleaning conditions like the TNT with a #4 heater or the C4 would not be an entry level machine. I think the machine that drops in temperature and has less performance would be an entry level machine.

John, I don’t blame you for not liking Judson. I don’t think any distributors like Judson. If I was a distributor I wouldn’t like Judson either. Do you want to know why? Because once you sell a Judson that is all the money you are going to make off of that carpet cleaner for a very long time. We have units that are still running that are over 30 years old and they have never had to come back to the dealership for service. The guys always repair them themselves. That’s a tremendous amount of lost revenue not repairing the units. The worst thing about a Judson is that they last forever. I see guys posting all the time that they buy a new heat exchange truckmount every five years. That means if you sell a Judson and it lasts 30 years you would have lost 6 truckmount sales if you had been selling a heat exchanger. If the heat exchanger cost $25,000 each, that’s $125,000 lost revenue. Come to think of it, maybe I made Judson machines to last too long and that’s the reason I’m not rich.


P.S. Remember…Judsons last forever.

v]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Q7b-vHY3Qv]







.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

I can share some accurate "real world" cleaning fuel use numbers for a 25hp Kohler

direct coupled to 45 blower @ 2900rpm , 12 HG gets 1 gph with wand on the carpet cleaning away
14hg @ 3150 uses 1.25



..L.T.A.

 

[Mike Draper]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

I can share some accurate "real world" cleaning fuel use numbers for a 25hp Kohler

direct coupled to 45 blower @ 2900rpm , 12 HG gets 1 gph with wand on the carpet cleaning away
14hg @ 3150 uses 1.25



..L.T.A.

I have tracked every single hour and fuel consumption on my C4. I use exactly 1.9 to 2.0 GPH of propane. Calculated at every fill up and at 200 hours of usage. 25hp Kohler propane. G&D 409 blower. I run my machine at full rpm's and full heat always. My tap water goes into my fresh water tank every morning at 39winter to43deg summer. 43 degrees as of last week. Thats a lot of heating to get my water to 240. But it does it easily. Wand on the carpet at 14-15hg and 3400 rpm's.

 

[Bob Foster]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Wand was almost too hot to handle. Little giant #4. Tomorrow I will get my fuel reciept and see exactly how many gallons per hour it works out to be.

3 hours residential at high heat
1.5 hours restaurant at highest heat

 

[Bob Foster]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Wand was almost too hot to handle. Little giant #4. Tomorrow I will get my fuel reciept and see exactly how many gallons per hour it works out to be.

3 hours residential at high heat
1.5 hours restaurant at highest heat


TNT + Little Giant #4

Used 4.3 US gallons for 4.5 hours of run time = .95 gallons per hour

Under a gallon per hour for the TNT and LG combined!

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Why couldn't a propane/cnc machine also have heat exchangers? HX technology is proven and relatively bulletproof in our experience.

If a burner water heating system were subsequently added it could be much smaller paired with HX technology.

Thanks,
Lee

 

[Duane Oxley]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

It seems to me the truckmount that does not drop temperature on high flow under commercial carpet cleaning conditions like the TNT with a #4 heater or the C4 would not be an entry level machine. I think the machine that drops in temperature and has less performance would be an entry level machine.

I agree wholeheartedly, Les.

Show me a HX system that maintains single- wand temperature in the above 200 degree range with a #6 or larger jet size running at 600 PSI or more... year- round. I guarantee you that it will cost over $20,000 and more in the vicinity of $25,000.

... and the system's owner will not be able to work on it.

 

[Bob Foster]

Why couldn't a propane/cnc machine also have heat exchangers? HX technology is proven and relatively bulletproof in our experience.

If a burner water heating system were subsequently added it could be much smaller paired with HX technology.

Thanks,
Lee

Because a HX and exhaust diverters has historically proven to be a substantial points of failure.

Running heated water through a pressure pump substantially increases maintenance and likelihood of an equipment failure.

There are very few if any HX units that can run a high flow wand keyed full time without dropping. Those that do are generating heat by compomises that are detrimental to most cleaners interests.

Creating back pressure on the blower (reducing its life)
By using diverters in the exhaust system, also problematic and high maintenance.
Work the engine under higher load to create heat you also have high fuel consumption

A propane heat system eliminates most all of this,

Lots of talk about specs but I for one one to see it proved to me. Full key, high flow, sustained and not gulping fuel or choking the air flow off in the blower and without a diverter........ so show me one and prove to me it doesn't have one or more of these things.

Mine doesn't have any of these things and it is nuclear hot, full key, high flow. UNDER A GALLON PER HOUR

Great simple engineering never goes out of style. Someone please show me (not tell me) what I'm missing here?

 

[Loren Egland]

Re:

[quote="Lee Stockwell":ax8plfpj]Why couldn't a propane/cnc machine also have heat exchangers? HX technology is proven and relatively bulletproof in our experience.

If a burner water heating system were subsequently added it could be much smaller paired with HX technology.

Thanks,
Lee

Because a HX and exhaust diverters has historically proven to be a substantial points of failure.

Running heated water through a pressure pump substantially increases maintenance and likelihood of an equipment failure.

There are very few if any HX units that can run a high flow wand keyed full time without dropping. Those that do are generating heat by compomises that are detrimental to most cleaners interests.

Creating back pressure on the blower (reducing its life)
By using diverters in the exhaust system, also problematic and high maintenance.
Work the engine under higher load to create heat you also have high fuel consumption

A propane heat system eliminates most all of this,

Lots of talk about specs but I for one one to see it proved to me. Full key, high flow, sustained and not gulping fuel or choking the air flow off in the blower and without a diverter........ so show me one and prove to me it doesn't have one or more of these things.

Mine doesn't have any of these things and it is nuclear hot, full key, high flow. UNDER A GALLON PER HOUR

Great simple engineering never goes out of style. Someone please show me (not tell me) what I'm missing here?[/quote:ax8plfpj]

Nice reasoning.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

I eliminated the diverter on my 405s and tweaked a few things like eliminating blower hx cores. Very trouble free machine now and plenty hot.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Why couldn't a propane/cnc machine also have heat exchangers? HX technology is proven and relatively bulletproof in our experience.

If a burner water heating system were subsequently added it could be much smaller paired with HX technology.

Thanks,
Lee

No one answered my question. "Why it can't be done" isn't an answer.

 

[Duane Oxley]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Lee:

It can. We've been doing something similar for years. On our propane systems, the engine exhaust is positioned to run along the side of the system water tank, preheating the water.

A more efficient approach could be used (we haven't done one yet) using our blower exhaust exchanger, coupled with an L.P heater.

 

[Leslie Judson Jones]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

http://www.propanecarbs.com/[/url]

and I will get you the tanks hose and LP reg

 

[Numero Uno]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

First very nice.

2nd my King Butler mod had the unit at huge cfm's whilst burning 3/4 gas per hour.At 1250 rpm,ruffly 530 cfm-2.5 inch.At mach 2 or high flow standard setting we were around 700cfm at 100 feet or so.

With a high heat butler this number is still same whilst running higher temps.Any who felt I had to answer above question on gas used.Archive some where here .

Les, your fathers left a legacy whose shoes you fill. Well Sir !

 

[Mike Draper]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

ceaser, get real. :roll: :roll: :roll: Your figures are so far off its funny. First off, your butler wont get anywhere close to the CFM's you are quoting. The 407 blower is not even capable of running that directly at the machine. however, the 407 does show those figures ( 430cfm's) from the factory with absolutely nothing on it running at full rpm's. Hook up a tank, hoses and then run an extremely restricted blower HX and then an even more restricted blower exhaust and it makes less than half the CFM's you quoted at 100' of 2.5" hose. about 230 CFM is where you'll be. I've tested it many, many times and my butler was modified more than yours guaranteed. I even cut all the restriction out of the blower exhaust to create less back pressure, and use less fuel. You butler will not hold 200 atw year round either. And unless you live in an extremely hot climate it wont hold it in the summer either and your blower is running at max rpms and your lift is set higher than it should be to create the heat. However, could be wrong in all my testing. You should prove us wrong and make a video for us showing the crazy heat with a temp gaugge at the wand, and show us your 700+ CFM's on a cfm gauge as well. BTW, my butler testing was done with all 2.5" hose and 3" hose up to the tank, no filter, and redline RPM's. Your gas figures are bullshit as well. unless you were cleaning upholstery.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Here's the future of TM fuel

SALTWATER






k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf4gOS8aoFkk]



this is TRUE and no hoax



what's generally left out of these reports is that the space ray uses more more energy than what it can make from saltwater



..L.T.A.

 

[steve frasier]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

The Prochem Peak GTX and the Legend GTX and both will hold 220 no problem.The 650 only burns 1gl per hour and 1.25 gallons on dual wand and will hold 230+

have a hard time believing it will hold 220 + without small jets

 

[Ron Werner]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

[quote="Bob Foster":ez7xs1ge]Wand was almost too hot to handle. Little giant #4. Tomorrow I will get my fuel reciept and see exactly how many gallons per hour it works out to be.

3 hours residential at high heat
1.5 hours restaurant at highest heat


TNT + Little Giant #4

Used 4.3 US gallons for 4.5 hours of run time = .95 gallons per hour

Under a gallon per hour for the TNT and LG combined!

[/quote:ez7xs1ge]

Now that I put a new airfilter on, just cleaned a condo, 4halls and stairs,
4.4hrs running time, 13L or 3.44 USgal, $28.00
2.95L/hr .78gal/hr or $6.36/hr

Running the 25hp Kohler on propane + 4HT

 

[Bob Foster]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Ron the rates that I showed were in AMERICAN gallons. Were the rates you are showing in American or Imperial? If in Imperial please convert it so these guys relate to the numbers.

 

[Ron Werner]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

1g=3.78L

 

[floorguy]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Why couldn't a propane/cnc machine also have heat exchangers? HX technology is proven and relatively bulletproof in our experience.

If a burner water heating system were subsequently added it could be much smaller paired with HX technology.

Thanks,
Lee

While I know the water cooled motors SEEM like more maint.....

I stripped out my exchangers on the everest (missing the preheater, and the other 2 where plugged solid :x :x :x :x ) So now all i have in the heli-coil to preheat before it hits my heater....

and this shit is hot.....as you saw in my why +240 post.....it holds that at 15 flow and around 600psi...running a 360 or rx is just plain sick, due to the constant heat....

I talked to Les about that heli coil he took out on his project blue book.....but i like mine...I like CUs setup as well with Les exchange technology similar to the heli-coil....


Its all very simple and helps keep things cool, while also heating the water....So what if i have a few more hoses, and have to mess with the antifreeze once a year....

 

[Leslie Judson Jones]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

Well I'm back from Fla what's been going on ?

 

[ruff]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

I don't know if I am representative of the majority of Mikey's board cleaners.
However I am sure most carpet cleaners that live in an urban areas, pretty much feel like me.

• I don't want to fix my machine by myself. I wish I had the talent, but frankly I am too busy cleaning carpet. I have no wish to learn it and will gladly pay someone to do it.
• I don't want a two fuel source machine. I want to fill it up and be done with it.
• I don't really give a damn if my machine heats to 220 or 235. Both are plenty and will do great cleaning.
• The cost of gas is but a very small percentage of our expenses. Nice to save some if possible. Not a deal breaker.
• Happy to pay more for a machine if it's worth it! What makes it worth it for me is only one thing- DEPENDABILITY!!! A machine that will cost me an extra $10,000.00 but is dead on reliable for a long time is well worth it for me.

I don't particularly relish buying from ProChem, Hydramaster, SS or any big manufacturer. I'd rather support a small manufacturer like Les or Dwayne. However, I do need support, which for me means service. That is why I'd rather buy my supplies from my local distributor (even though I can get it cheaper on the net) and pay their mechanics fees. They are a small business too.

However, they'd better be there for me when I need them. Some are absolutely great. Not all are.

Now on with the regular programming...................

 

[Mardie]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

It is easy to convert from Propane to Natural gas or the other way around.
Big advantage of both sources of fuel is that there is no pollution and both are legal to run indoors.
Fork lifts for example.

The next big change in our energy will be the switch from oil to shale gas. Large truck fuel suppliers ( truck stops ) like Pilot and trucking companies will soon be switching to shale gas.

As long as TMs are burning polluting gasoline or desil fuels to clean carpet,they cannot make a legitimate claim that they are providing an environmently safe service...

Propane as a fuel for indoor forklifts is being rapidly replaced with hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen Fuel cell is now common place for indoor fork lifts (for big warehouses that run 24/7)

If you T/M guys really wanted to make a significant impact. I would suggest to explore the fuel cell powered industry. This technology would only pay for the operators that are running balls out 24/7. ooooh but just think of the marketing aspect. Although this technology is not feasible for TMs yet it would be good for a company to put together a prototype if for nothing else so that they could stake the claim that they are innovators and all the rest that will follow are just that followers. ooooh more marketing.

It is my opinion that as the price on fuel cell technology comes down it will be the future for TMs. But only if TMs have not become obsolete by then. LOL

 

[Art Kelley]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

This is a more likely picture of the future of the carpet cleaning industry. A high powered portable that rolls easily to the house and cleans as well as a TM when using a rotary machine. You will use your TM only as a last resort.

 

[Out of Character - 0]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

As long as TMs are burning polluting gasoline or desil fuels to clean carpet,they cannot make a legitimate claim that they are providing an environmently safe service...

I'd rather do right for the indoor environment we are paid to clean then not burn fuel for the planets sake. BTW most tm operators probably spend more on fuel to get to the job than to complete it. Is your foam extractor pulled by an ass...in transit J/K

 

[Mardie]

Re: The Future of the Carpet Cleaning Industry is Getting Cl

As long as TMs are burning polluting gasoline or desil fuels to clean carpet,they cannot make a legitimate claim that they are providing an environmently safe service...

I'd rather do right for the indoor environment we are paid to clean then not burn fuel for the planets sake. BTW most tm operators probably spend more on fuel to get to the job than to complete it. Is your foam extractor pulled by an ass...in transit J/K

Mini Van

Are you saying that the only way to do right for the indoor environment is to hire a guy with a TM??? LOL

 

[Lee Stockwell]

This is a more likely picture of the future of the carpet cleaning industry. A high powered portable that rolls easily to the house and cleans as well as a TM when using a rotary machine. You will use your TM only as a last resort.

Kentucky thanks you very much for promoting green clean electric truckmount technology!

...powered by COAL!!