Lesser Known Uses of a Steam Vacuum Cleaner

A steam vacuum cleaner is one of the best cleaning machines for hard surface cleaning. There are few better machines than steam cleaning machines when it comes to grout cleaning, concrete cleaning, and other kinds of floor cleaning.

However, a steam vacuum cleaner is renowned not just for this kind of hard surface cleaning task but other types of cleaning as well. These machines can be used for other relatively lesser known cleaning jobs, such as window cleaning and chewing gum removal. This article provides a brief overview of these cleaning tasks as well as some tips to choose the right steam cleaning machine for each task.

Cleaning Windows
Steam cleaners work by ejecting hot output onto surfaces. A major per-requisite for the use of these machines is that the surface to be cleaned is hard enough. The surface should be capable of withstanding high temperature output. Some modern steam cleaning equipment provides an output temperature as high as 386°F.

Precautions
The high temperature output of the machine necessitates some precautions. If the surface is not hard enough, the use of a steam vacuum cleaner is not at all recommended. Similarly, it is important that there should not be any soft surfaces in the vicinity of the machine.

This is particularly important for window cleaning. Most of the windows sport curtains or other soft materials. Such soft surfaces should never be exposed to the output of steam cleaners. Cleaning workers must remove curtains or any other soft surfaces before they start using steam cleaning machines to clean windows.

Use of Squeegee Tool
Basically a steam vacuum cleaner is designed for floor cleaning. These machines melt the dirt and stains present on the floor and then extract the molten dirt through the vacuum attached with the machine. These are designed for melting and extracting dirt that are closer to the machines.

However, windows are mostly located high on the wall. To access and clean the window surfaces, cleaning workers require a squeegee tool. Some suppliers do not provide a squeegee tool with steam cleaning equipment. Other suppliers provide it as an optional accessory. If your job list includes cleaning windows and screens, then it is better to opt for a steam cleaner with optional squeegee wand.

Gum Removal
Gum removal is another lesser-known task of portable steam cleaners that does not strictly belong to the hard surface cleaning category. These machines are tailor made for removing chewing gum.

A steam vacuum cleaner both melts and extracts chewing gum residues in quick time. The most important thing to check when buying vapor steam cleaners for gum removal is the nature of the output of the machines.

It is better to opt for machines that provide dry vapor output. Dry vapor means the output does not contain liquid water content of more than 5%. Portable steam cleaners with dry vapor output, ensures that the liquid water content passed to the surface is low. As a result, the surfaces dry up quickly after cleaning. Another advantage of vapor steam cleaners is that these machines ensure that the water wastage will be very low.