Steam action.

Just saw their ad in the cleaning magazine, water cooled motor, 50 hp, water cooled water pump and blower ?? Wtf ?? Those sounds really good, I'm going to have to seriously consider them when I'm in the market for a new mount, anyone had some feedbacks on reliability and reliability only, I absolutely HATE downtime, I don't mind expensive parts as long as they last a while, also the parts availabilities ? Even prochem parts sometimes had to be drop shipped, but they're usually on my door step within a week - a week and a half, which is not too bad.
I hardly see used mount of theirs, not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing ?
Eddie, you still have the used one for sale you posted a little while ago ?

Is that the same co. that makes the TM powered by a V8 car engine??

I met the owner of Steam Action a few years ago. The machine at the show looked solid and had the suck that your accustomed to DP\

Cool.

But did that look like a Ti wand to you?........I thought it looked more like a reg 'ol SS AW29.

I believe they are made in St Louis....a few hours away from me. It has been on my list for a couple of years, but just never closed the deal for me. From what I hear, they are reliable and good performers.

Okay, I should have watched the whole video....they are in KC, even closer.

I also agree, doesn't look like a Ti wand to me either.

That was a Cal Tools wand

Go back to the beast in my shop. Both of those units are steam action. They are so over engineered that they don't break down often.
When you have a 50 hp motor doing what a 30hp could do then the engine want have to strain as hard to do the job causing less were on the engine.

Care to share the hours and specs of those units Eddie ? As well as price may be ? Just wanna get an idea of how much they are used vs new.
I don't really care for Kubota motor but if you said they're reliable, I trust you !

I haven't worked on any with the Kubota engine from steam action. As for the hours the Tristar had around 4000hrs on lt. Customer traded the older unit in for the new one. The spec are on that thread.

Sorry Dp1 didn't give price info. I was told that trade in was around $15000.00 the new one list for around $55000.00 that's what I was told I haven't seen a price listing.

Wow, 55 k new ? I think I'll stick with prochem everest 650 !
15 k used is not too bad but considering 4000 hours on the unit, it's still a little high I think. Prochem still has a much better resale value.

Just saw an old steam action on craigslist in orange county for 2400.00 looked like crap though

$2,400?......for crap?

I have crap in my backyard, from my dog that you can have for $1,500, DP!

who the hell needs a 55k 6.9 blower TM to clean some carpets?!?  lol  

thats like commuting around the city in a super lifted dodge ram 3500 extended bed with 40inch swampers    

I can see the reason for oversized blowers if you dual wand and bang out big homes all day everyday,    or dual wand huge commercial accounts.      

Other than that its just a waste of gas and money,  

its funny how carpet cleaners will never learn that there is a maximum amount of air that can move through a glided wand,  I believe its about 225cfm

I think they just love hearing the vac relief valve wide open 24/7

the guys who make these machines just laugh and count the money lol

You just need a 48 inch drag wand with a 6 inch tube, then it would be awesome.

The guy has been in business for over 52 years. I bet back in his day they used to quadruple wand commercial

It reminds me of what my Mother always asked me about my pro-street cars. She always asked what the purpose of having a muscle car was when the speed limit was still only 55 (for those that remember those days)?

You might only need about 250 cfm to extract, having all that extra power comes with its own rewards. The speed limit may have been 55, but there was a big difference in how quickly you could reach that speed.

Big machines are like those muscle cars.

And yet you fellows are talk about overdriving your blowers. Thinking how can I get more heat at the wand.
The difference is he just bought a unit that will pull 17in of lift and hold 230 degrees all day long won't break down and no need to Modify it. Or he had the money to buy what he wanted and did must be nice.

ya its looks cool for sure,   just an expensive machine to run and maintain.    Not that its higher maintenance but replacement parts are probably a killer

15in of lift is more than enough for me,   and 240 all day is created with a #4 LG running high flow wand
and then would have 35k for marketing or even 2 more vans.

all I was saying is you just dont need 55 horsepower to get a carpet clean,   its for multi wanding only really

just meant it really has to fit the business model,   if you clean mostly residential and rarely dual wand its not a smart buy because your money is literally flying out of the vac relief valve and doing nothing for the carpet


but then you have to consider that even if you dual wand mostly, why not have 2 smaller TMs? 2 machines with 47 blowers move a lot of air... plus you get the redundancy of a back up, and if not dual wanding just run 1 machine and save fuel

I don't know man, there is a difference with massive airflow, is it needed no not at all really.  It does get the blood pumping though, I look at my TM kinda like a hot rod, we have the right to tweak it, to get the max out of them.
But as with this just like so many other things it is a waste of a lot of money with very minimal changes in the final out come of wet carpet.
But we keep telling ourselves it is better, I know this sounds two sided but yes more air flow does clean different, but it is overkill if just a single wand is used.
I have been cleaning with my PC legend and yesterday I pulled throttle to my max @3150 rpm and with me heat booster I stayed at 205-210 atw, I am over 300 cfm with mods I have done, the reality is, for a single operator this is all you need.
Even with two people you can have such a awesome routine with pre vac,pre spray, to wanding almost no wasted time if done correctly, a single wand unit with a two man crew, can do a POOP LOAD of work in a 8 hour day.
That does not mean I would not love to run a chevy 350 powered TM.....I would do it in a heartbeat

The other thing to consider is the marketing aspect of bigger units.  You and I both know that it is over-kill and not necessary, but the public sees it and thinks "bigger must be better".

We see it everywhere in marketing.  You have upsized food, larger homes, bigger trucks, bigger engines, bigger diamonds and even....um, bigger body parts.

With the exception of one of the above items, they are over-kill and offer no greater value than what was needed.  It just makes it easier to sell your product in the US if it is bigger and more powerful.

oh ya, Im a big fan of marketing the big truck carpet cleanings and it has worked well

put on a show, but the customer has no idea what a 45 blower or a #9 blower is.. all they see is big truck with big hose reels and lots of tools

its weird how it works but if your a portable guy and they know this bigger equipment exists then youll have a much harder time explaining why the scarred traffic lane is damage and not dirt... or why certain stains didnt come out etc

when you run big trucks they just assume it cant really get much better because most have never seen a carpet cleaning machine so big.

side by side with an aero tech, customer has no idea our TNT set up is like 1/5 the price

Isn't that the truth. Even that big ol machine couldn't get that hallway clean so it can't be the cleaners

I only have been doing this for 12 years and I had used smaller units with smaller blower, their heat sucks without any mods and the jobs with dirty carpets most likely will get brown and needs to be re cleaned, with bigger machine and blower, those issues are eliminated, everyone knows come backs are expensive, is it more expensive than TM parts ? I don't know, depends on how many come backs you have right ?
Not to mention on how much faster you can get through a job with a bigger machine and blower.
I personally will not go back to smaller machine due to these circumstances, yes I'm paying more in fuel but if I can get through 1000 sq ft in half an hour instead of an hour, that's also some fuel savings as well as some parts savings.
That's just my opinion.