Diablo Fire

I just received a call from a friend who just lost his van and mount to a fire. The El Diablo caught fire and it took everything along with it and he now has to look for a replacement. He targets small commercial and pushes encap cleaning, so the mount isn't heavily used under his business model, but he still can't survive without one.

Fortunately, it is cold right now so he only carried the minimum amount of tools and chemicals in the van, so he still has something to rebuild with, but losing your van and mount is rough. Sounds like it was the coupler that started the fire, but he did use kerosene to run the heater, so it didn't take much to make a big disaster.

Now he is looking for a replacement while the insurance adjusters hold him hostage with paperwork. He is looking for something that would be easy to maintain along the smaller mount lines since he doesn't do anything large these days. He has even considered an electric at this point as it sounds safer to him right now. If anyone has any good leads, I would be glad to pass them along.

I think I can open my garage of history and set him up with hoses, tanks, a reel, and some other accessories, but I don't have a spare mount laying around.

Dave has a spare small prochem mount he bought from ummm I forgot his name, the guy who invented the rotary on the stick thingy, anyway I'll text him and ask him if he wants to get rid of it, where is your friend at ? What state ?

He is located here in Nebraska, about 2 hours from me.

I think I just found him a deal. A late 90's Ford van with no rust and a Steam Genie Hydro Sizzler mount with less than 2,000 hours....under $5,000.

Not really impressive looking, but those units always seemed like pretty good ones and the van seems to be in good shape. Mileage is around 123,000, so he really can't go wrong.

Still looking for other options, but this one might be worth checking out.

Isn't Master blend  goink to do anything for this guy.  I mean damm it's their TM that caught fire and capped on this guy's life.

From what he has told me, there has been no support thus far. It has only been a few days, but it sounds like he is on his own.

That seems to be a pretty decent deal, Dave hasn't responded yet.
This industry is probably the worst in terms of after sales service, don't know when is that going to change ? Prochem is pretty decent but I doubt they will do something for a burned down unit.

They all do a good job at selling a mount, but only a few will help you after. Prochem, Butler, and Judson sure come to mind as some of the good ones left. I have owned all three and they have been there for me every time, but probably not for a fire.

It really is another good reason to have a back-up unit as he will be without a unit for at least a few weeks if not a month.

Every carpet cleaners nightmare. I guess if thats going to happen it good that it happened this tie of year. Biz starts to slow down and good deals to be had

That's true Mo ! Perfect timing to burn your TM down, lol.
If he wants to spend $ 25 k, my van is still for sale, it's got an Everest in it, 60 k miles, 2010, turn key unit, I even throw in a rotovac 360 in and drimaster upholstery tool, I'll deliver too ;-)

There is a Vortex around here going cheap as well, but this guy is 80% encap cleaning so he doesn't need a lot of power.

That would make a great deal on that Everest, wish I had some cash laying around.

Sucks, wondering how the coupler caused the fire? A lot of things can go wrong and cause a fire on these units. But the coupler. I have intimate knowledge of these units. The only thing I can see causing this is the coupler started to disinegrate and shed rubber. It got thrown on the exhaust- which is right there- and caught fire. It may have been mis-aligned, they have to be installed level and plumb. Massterblend has always been great to me, they even replaced a waste tank for me, no charge, and always give me free technical advice.

I never got to see the burned van, so I wondered the same thing. On a direct drive, it sure could....had a couple of fires myself this year that could have sent the van up into a fireball if I didn't act like I did. On the El Diablo....don't know if it could have though....just going by what he told me.

Masterblend has been good to me over the years as well, I wouldn't be afraid to buy from them again either.