Truck mount carpet cleaner

A truckmount carpet cleaner is a carpet and upholstery cleaning unit that is generally mounted to the floor of a van or trailer. Its cleaning method is hot water extraction. The operator would park the van near the premises, connect the vacuum hose and solution line hose into the machine, bring the hoses into the building, and connect a carpet cleaning wand to the end of the hoses.

Typical small machines start off at 16 horse power and range up to 60 horse power. Van powered Power Take-Off (PTO) units are available on the market.

Truckmount units heat their water by one of two methods:

Heat Exchanger

The heat exchanger method uses heat naturally generated by the normal operation of the engine and in some cases, vacuum pump components of the system. Typically, water is routed through a heat exchanger, which consists of two separate sections. In one section, the heat is routed. In the second section, the water passes through. The two sections share two sides of common surfaces inside the exchanger; therefore heat is transferred from the "heat side" section with higher temperature to the "solution side" section with lower temperature.

There are two basic types of heat exchangers. One, named, "shell and coil", has fluid passing through a coil of tubing which is contained in a "shell", or container, through which heat is routed. The other, called "shell and tube", contains several parallel tubes running from one end of the "shell" to the other. In the shell and tube configuration, heat travels through the parallel tubes and water travels through the shell.

Traditionally, truckmount carpet cleaning machines have been more powerful than portable carpet cleaning units. although Recent changes in technology have allowed portable manufacturers to""" approach""" the unsurpassed power of truckmount carpet cleaning machines, to date truck mounts are more powerful as they produce the cleaning power from an engine and electric portables generate the cleaning power from a 240v socket in the customers home. In many cases the more powerful electric plug in machines use more of the customers electric.

The primary advantage of a truckmount lies with the carpet cleaning customer, as truck mounts do not need to use your electric or hot water so it means no costly electric and gas bills in the post long after the carpet cleaning company have left your home, truck mounts have a waste tank fitted so the technician can take the dirty water away and it does not end up down your sink or toilet, quick setup and easy use of the truckmount makes it preferable among professional cleaners. Regrettably only a small percentage of carpet cleaning companies use truck mounts as the cost is usually between $10,000.00 to $35,000.00 US, and is therefore out of reach for many small companies and professionals. Currently it is estimated that only 28% of professional carpet cleaners use truckmount carpet cleaning machines. Many truck mount manufacturers are going ( green 4 carpet and upholstery cleaning ) and are doing things like LPG conversions or improvements to make the machines use less petrol or diesel which makes them more environmentally friendly

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Wikipedia