Vortex or Aero Tech

Ted is 2000 miles from me and ACE has no Western Canadian distributor so they are extending distributor pricing to me.

So if you don't mind dialoging with me and following my logic I would be interested in your opinions.
Paul mentioned them to me and I saw them at Connections. These machines appear to be in a different league by the way they are built. Stainless steel shelves, tanks, plant frame, reels, filter box and most all the parts are as heavy duty as they can source or build. The engine is a John Deere diesel which is one of the very best engines of its type available. I know this engine from marine applications and it has a very high regard. The drive coupling system is stronger than anything else in any cleaning system made anywhere. I am researching the reliability of the company from references and asking a few people who might know without attracting biased remarks.

Look at it with this perspective. An Aero Tech or a Vortex is at least $105,000 landed and has all the right stuff with a warranty and supposed service support.

An ACE in my truck and box is around 80. It has a 59 blower high stainable heat output at high volume with stainless everything with an electric reel. I was quoted 12k mounted for a custom ITB high end aluminum box to my specifications. The truck would be a GMC W3500 diesel auto with air conditioning for 36K. A friend of mine and me would put the thing together. My friend makes his living inventing, fabricating and installing high end electro-mechanical marine scientific research instruments for universities and governments made out of electronics aluminum and stainless. We have access to milling machines, shears, breaks and welders.

I recently went through a service experience that gives me a different perspective about what I can expect out of truck mount mechanics. I have noted comments from people like Doug who say that knowing your own unit especially a slide in is critical in reducing down time. What better way to learn about your unit than to install it and maintain it yourself. I will make up for my wrenching abilities somehow with the mechanical and fabrication help of my friend. I am a person who understands how something works but not the best working with tools.

From the first moment I saw how a truck mount PTO system worked on a van I thought it was crap. I came for cab and chassis diesel units that ran everything including pressure washers hydraulically. I was very much involved in the rig up process of these units and I am not the least intimidated by doing this project if I go the ACE way.

The ACE looks very well built and reliable and it represents a large savings. The plant will burn a gallon an hour and a diesel truck is build to run long inexpensive miles and is a real truck. The turning radius of the W3500 is tighter than an extended van.
   
    
    

Edited by pilediver - 25/February/2007 at 9:36pm

Premier, Mikefest is a cc meeting in San Jose in early March that has been put together and run by a grass roots group of cc posters at www.mickeysboard.com.
If you want to read opinions of some of the very brightest (and controversial) carpet cleaners in North America that is where you will find it. The board is not sponsored or edited by a publisher who is influenced by what is allowed to be posted. If someone says something is a POS then the remark stands and not deleted because you knocked a board advertiser. There are no board advertisers. The board is self supporting through contributions of the members. If you start spouting BS you will be cut to ribbons instantly. There are lots of points of view and good arguments and lots of fun.

If you want to belong you have to fill out your profile completely and you will be checked out to see if it is real. If you don't contribute by asking questions or adding your two bits then after a period of time your user name is simply deleted. It has almost a 1000 members since starting on October 6th. Mikefest has about 70 ccers attending.
    

Edited by pilediver - 25/February/2007 at 9:34pm

PD all is fine and dandy I think you would be making a great decision. Now what I think if you take this over 5 years I estimate you fixed costs for the unit at about $500.00 per week before you turn a wheel give or take a hundred?

Nothing if you don't run it

All I am trying to say is it would be very difficult to make those payments on say cleaning 3 or 4 300 sq ft' jobs a day? You would need a min of 6 to 8 hundred bucks a day with that unit to make it worth while 5 days a week every week. maybe you already do those nu,bers I don't know. Just don't sink yourself I know it is an easy thing to do when you get all tied up in conversations with all the big dogs?? Each area is different and I wish you well abd hope your area can support this unit?

a knife is a knife...but you don't need a butcher's cleaver to butter bread

Personally I think that the machine alone doesn't make the job...it's all the variables.....detergent, dewell time, heat...

Edited by MR. STEAMER - 25/February/2007 at 11:09pm