tinkering with ideas about building a carpet cleaner cleaning solution heater

[Jus' Joe]

I've got a old carpet cleaner that I sometimes use to clean carpets in rentals. I don't clean enough carpets to justify large expenditures for modern equipment.

My old rig is ok .... but has no heat at all. Frequently the rentals I service don't have power/water on to obtain hot water from the faucet .... so I thought about building a low-power solution heater.

If I take a 1000 watt water heater element and install it in a 2" diameter galvanized pipe, I can somewhat control the temperature with a water heater thermostat strapped to the pipe (set to 160F). Problem is, I need a (cheap) serial sensor to measure pressure and close the circuit only when the line has pressure (a no pressure reading means out-of- water).

What cheap water pressure sensor/actuator would work for this?

[gregz]

1000 watts isn't going to do much with flowing water.

Greg

[nestork]

Jus' Joe:

You really don't need to heat your solution tank. You don't want to be shampooing your carpet with ice cold water, and warmer is better, but as long as your water is tepid or better, that's all you need. I have a commercial carpet extractor that cost me about $2000, and it doesn't have a solution tank heater.

If I were you, I would just buy a couple of insulated plastic coolers and take warm water with you in them to job sites where the water is turned off.

Are you not getting good results with your machine and feel that the water not being hot enough is the cause? Maybe if you can explain exactly what the issue is, I may be able to help.