[Mike Osbourne]

Well done Joe,

Yes let us know how it changes things for you over the next few weeks.


Mike

[Joe H]

Keep you informed how I adapt to the change

Clinton, I bought Steve Gunns Citroen Relay in March.
Bigger van then I needed, but got it for the advertising space - cant see why some dont sign their van.
OK may cost a few hundred but its mobile advertising and parked outside a customers house for an hour or few. Perfect.

If you remember Gunnys van had his photo on 

Slowly I started to remove the signs but one of the last things I removed was the Steves photo.
What spurred me on to remove it was when a customer said "thats a good idea putting YOUR photo on the van"   
That was it - photo off! Sorry Steve 

Of course, now I had a van with a lot of space inside..... and it seemed logical to utilise it the best way - a truckmount.
So to keep the thread running - why not a truckmount?
Suddenly though, what was a large space gets filled up.

[francis]

Yes, well done Joe.  Not sure about Mike asking you to let us know how it changes things for you over 'the next few weeks'.  Would assume getting into truckmounts is more of a long term commitment

[lands]

Can I ask what methods of agitation most of you TM guys use? And how often do you use it, if at all.

Pete

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Joe you got a really good bargain I hope you're pleased, John will advise you on tank, fitting and the demand pump and if you snuggle up to him and go up to Newcastle he'll probablt fit it all in and get teh demand pump working properly.

After that it's a matter of getting the work in, doing the work you'll become fat and lazy like Steve Gunn

Shaun

[Joe H]

Hey Clinton - your not far away from me - Warrington.

Give us 2-3 weeks to get sorted proper and if you want to come over and have a peep you can.
email on my profile or tel. no on website

[Shaun_Ashmore]

Joe get a fabricator to make you some framed racking, tomorrow I'll take a pic of mine so you can have an idea of what I mean.

Shaun

[francis]

Pete

In terms of agitation I don't think a tm is so much different than a portable.  It really all depends on what pre-spray you are using & the quality/quantity of the crap in the carpet.   Only use CRB's' myself if required  as anything else to much sweat.

[francis]

Shaun
Fabricator .  Is that another word for a welder?

[carpet_care]

Hi Joe just come in and seen your post .good to see you have made the transition from portie to truckmount.

 It was me who was on the leather course with you and paul last year,didnt realise it was you until  I seen your photo the other week.

 Youve made some posts in just a year am sure I told you about these forums last may.

 Ive not long swapped myself from the ninjas to the prowler ,you will probably hate it for the first day or two but just persavere and you will never look back.


As shaun said John Kelly top bloke will be able to supply the water tank and the demand pump and at afraction of the cost of what some other companies whant .

 Happy truckmounting , Andy Locke

[richie]

You sure got a bargain on that TM Joe.  Good luck with the future,  you wont be sorry you made the leap. 

Richie.

PS
Although this has not tuned out to be a full blown slanging match regarding TM / Porty i do feel the odd post has had a dig at TMs.  Simon worded this thread start carefully so that it was not aimed at been a VS thread. 

MR Gayton.......Gone are the days of Steaming Sam then 

Richie.

[Jason Hedges]

Great post Simon!

Dont think I've ever seen such interest and detailed debate on this issue. Normally turns into a porty vs t/m dabate.

Nice one Joe for your upgrade, you wont regret it

At the end of the day every carpet/upholstery cleaner knows a t/m is the ultimate tool. The answer to buying one depends on the individuals workloads and commitment to their business and achieving the best results and company profile as possible.

Anyone can sit on the fence and achieve good results and earn good money using a portable.

If anyone wants to take their cleaning speed, quality, drying times and earnings upto another level a t/m is the only way to go!

Forget the expence and running costs, they will dissapear quickly after neigbours and friends of who you've cleaned for are ringing for your services....

A t/m is an excellent marketing tool. The best you can get infact!

Not only does it show you're commited to your business it shows your serious about providing the best equipment and service available.

I took the leap last summer and remortgaged to upgrade, best thing I ever did.

Work now rolls in, from past customers and new referrals all keen to see how good my super duper machine performs. Not only domestic but commercial as well.

If you're busy or looking to be, buy one

All the best,
Jason.

[Joe H]

OK - I know its 5.30am and here I am posting .... but just caught up with yesterdays posts.

Must agree that Simon really set off a great debate with Why Not a Truck Mount?
I have not seen a thread before that has generated so much response in such a short time (Wednesday evening start I think).

Glad its not turned into the usual porty v TM stuff, and altough their was a danger at one point of it getting too personal overall the debate has been very civilised ........ must be something in the water 

One of the points mentioned late yesterday afternoon was a fear of taking the step and buying a 2nd hand unit. The fear you might buy a bad un.
Definately i can say I have been there.... recently! 

I bought my unit off Dave Atkins. Now I didnt know Dave Atkins and I dont think he posts on here very much but what I did was this.
On Monday evening I rang him and talked for about an hour or so about the unit he had for sale - Chemspec Avenger 450 (which is the same as Prochem Blazer Plus).
Now Dave is a very soft spoken guy and seemed very nice. Although I dont know much about truckmounts I have some mechanical knowledge ie apprenticeship, used to repair my own motor bikes/cars ( in the days before they got computerised), used to do motorcycle grass track racing and stripped my own engines etc..
So I used my knowledge to ask questions to Dave and see what came back. I got a feeling he knew somewhat what he was talking about.
Onto the internet to find out a s much as I can about Avenger 450/Balazer Plus and that included using the search on here and Clean Talk. This went on until Thursday evening.
Tuesday I spoke to Paul Moss on the phone for a good 30-40 minutes.
Wednesday I had a chat with Simon Gerrard on the phone, another 40 minutes or so.
(Funny, but it was after this chat that Simon started this thread)
Thursday I spoke to Prochem servicing dept, Shaun Ashmore, Len Gribble, and Steve Gunn. All experianced truck mounters, some with direct experiance of the Avenger/Blazer - in fact Len still has his after many many years. (thanks all you guys for the time you gave me).
and finally Thursday evening at about 10pm I spoke to Dave Atkins again.
Went thro some of the points again but also threw in some more questions relating to points from discussions with the others.

That was 11.00pm Thursday evening finished talking to Dave Atkins after agreeing a price, 9.30am Friday morning I was robbing a bank in Warrington   , 12noon I arrived at Worcester (lovely countryside).

Moral of the story.... yes I was afraid of taking the wrong step and buying a pig in a poke BUT I asked questions of the guys in the know .... and as you would expect got a lot of help. Most knew Dave Atkins to a greater or lesser degree and said nice things about him all of which  gave me confidence to go for this unit.

Getting down to Worcester we then went a few more miles to Malvern (the countryside gets better) to his brother in laws industrial unit.
Dave has a new Hydramaster Maxx in his Sprinter and since taking out the Avenger it had been stored about 40' up in the air on racking.
Down it came, various bits attached like fuel tank, dirty tank, and finally battery (that been in storage too). So nothing had been touched for about 5-6 weeks.
First turn of the key and it started. That gave me confidence.
OK - Dave pushed in the choke a bit too soon and it stalled (to be expected), but once started again and up to temperature I got going on a loose piece of carpet with a 12" wide 1.5"dia 4 jet Westpak with a greenie glide, engine sounded good etc  - so a working demo.

Got the unit loaded into my van, most of it connected up again, parted with my money  and started the journey home at 4.45pm.
Took a call on my mobile (handsfree bluetooth through my Parrot Steve Gunn left in the van when he sold it) which gives me a quote to do today...... so the day was a good un overall.

Only downside was I was watching a portable in line spray unit on ebay which was due to finish at approx 8pm Fri evening. Got in at 7.45pm, said hello to the wife and onto the computer.... only to find the seller had ended early (made a deal with the top bidder at a silly low price).
So if anyone has one for sale - Im interested.!!

So yes there may be pigs in a poke out there but doing some homework prior to doing a deal will contribute to you maybe not ending up with one.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

great post joe i too got a secondhand t.m. that was very high on the hours it came in an old transit that had seen better days  after a long talk with hubby we wriped it out of that van and put it to my transit which is still old (w reg) but mint

it run for a month of so befour we took it all thew way to h.m. just for a heath check where it passed apart from a few manor things

ive have just gone out and spend a large amount of cash on a new l.d.v. maxus van which is fully loaded with goodies like air.con and alloys ect ect and spend a few quid on a new install but ive kepted that old max due to it again being sent to h.m. for a full heath check where i told then to be truthful and if its not worth keeping ill buy a new t.m. too go in the van

martin give it the all clear and said its good for years yet !! so its stopping with us

i gt the full set up for the right money (cheap) and never looked back 

[Mike Osbourne]

Joe and Susan excellent posts, I guess the help is there if you ask and it's worth taking that 'leap of faith'.

[nevil]

I got myself an old dog of machine.  Spitfire 4.0. The deal was too good to be true.
1k for machine wastetank 100ft of both pipes and wand.
Even got a manual with it. I had to fit my kohler engine to it as the B&S was very tired. I havn't really noticed a big differance in work volume but speed and quality has gone through the roof.

I reckon a lot are put off by the fear of something going wrong.
Lets face a Tm is a potential money pit unless you can afford a new one. Not everyone can fit a new engine or weld up an exhaust manifold. Or figure out why it's not doing what it's supposed to. If I couldn't do these things an old machine wouldn't be an option. In most cases it's finances that dictate if you can afford a new one.

[MICHAEL_GAYTON]

Hi Richie, the steaming sam days ended 1997 as you know,then it was the genie. i am still doing well gone back to a one van buss ,more happy that way.Why i like using other machines it got a bit boring doing it the same way when i got my first prochem cub t/m  1992 most companys had poryts like prochem metal box thing not vary good,so we market that we used trunk mounts,got ridge of the last one the boxxer found it too big for what i needed but i no longer clean for bass tav or any night clubs evan with the t/m they are hard work (pub cleans etc), I love domestic work and office cleans with encap, the end of the year may look at a spitfire because its small ,but i like cleaning fabric with my CFR 400 not stopping to fill up using the custom: elec etc etc .

what t/m have you got ring me some time mick

[Steve Barnett (Carpet Care Plus)]

This has got to be the best topic I have read on this forum - interesting, enlightening and I've got to say inspiring.

When work and money allows I think I will be seriously looking at a truckmount, especially when my next porty could cost upwards of £2500 with all the extras.

In the meantime I will have to struggle on with my old Prochem 

Steve

[richie]

Hi Mick,

Its a HM Crossfire 4.2.  Ive sent you an emial.

Richie.

[Simon Gerrard]

I think it is great that Joe has taken the leap and I am sure it will be interesting for all the other 'interested but wary' ones to see how he gets on with it.

One of the great advantages of forums is that we have all made contact with other carpet cleaners and become exposed to lot of knowledge, experience and differing views across a whole range of issues and I think that is a wonderful development for our industry.
It also makes possible what I am about to suggest. Clearly the vast majority would, if they could upgrade to a Truck Mount at some point in time. Everyone knows that it makes sense, everyone knows that you will end up reaping far  more benefits than problems, but none-the-less there's still that sticking point, the 'Ah yes but...'
The 'Yes but' usually revolves around money, 'I can't afford one.' And from there the whole issue gets dropped simply because you cannot see a way of affording one.
So here's a slightly different approach that lets you see the benefits for real, the quality, the speed, the customer satisfaction and at the same time have all your questions answered in one short day.
On this forum you are surrounded by fellow members, most situated well out of your area who have Truck Mounts, so why not make contact with them and arrange to go out with them for a day and see them at work on a real jobs and ask all the questions you like. Do that and I'll practically guarantee that you'll go home buzzing with enthusiasm and you know what? Having seen all of those benefits you'll suddenly find a way to afford one, because suddenly it's no longer a matter of 'Oh, I'd like to own one, but I can't afford it,' it's now a matter of, 'My Business needs one!' And when you need something as opposed to just wanting it, suddenly things you once thought were impossible become possible.
Try it, if I'm wrong, what have you lost?

Simon