A quotation for cleaning or process equipment looks cheap until the site finds out what the price does not include. Shipping, a foundation, a water supply, an operator, a consumables contract and a disposal route for the waste all cost money, and most of them are decided after the purchase order is signed. The buyer who collects a defined set of site and duty information before asking for prices gets a quotation they can compare; the buyer who does not gets three different numbers for three different scopes and no way to tell which one is honest.
If you are specifying equipment for the outside of cages, vehicles, panels or structural steel at a poultry operation - what the trade usually calls poultry farm cleaning equipment - the information list below is what we need in order to quote a scope that will actually work. The same list applies to any exterior cleaning duty in an agricultural or industrial building.
1. The exact surface, and what is stuck to it
"Exteriors" is not a specification. Send a photograph of the real equipment and say plainly what the contamination is: dried litter and dust, caked droppings, grease and feed residue, mineral scale, or a mix. Then state what the surface is made of and how old it is.
- Material and condition: galvanised steel, stainless, painted steel, aluminium, plastic or composite panels, wooden structure, concrete floor.
- Age and coating state: is the galvanising still intact, is paint flaking, is there surface rust? Coatings that are already failing will be damaged by any aggressive method.
- Contamination type and thickness: light dust and loose litter behaves differently from weeks of caked organic build-up.
- Access restrictions: bearings, electrical boxes, insulation, fans, sensors and gas lines that must not be hit directly.
This determines the method, and therefore the price. A duty involving organic build-up on hard surfaces is a different class of machine from a light dust removal job. High-temperature steam and hot water at pressure soften and lift dried organic residue that cold water and a brush leave behind; that is why our PowerDe cleaning equipment range is built around dry steam, wet steam and hot-water modes rather than plain pressure washing.
2. Area, geometry and how often it is cleaned
Give the number in the unit your team already uses, not an estimate rounded for the supplier.
| Item to specify | What to write down | Why it changes the quote |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning unit | Per cage section, per shed, per vehicle, per rack, per complete house | Sets the working cycle and the crew size |
| Frequency | Between flocks, weekly, daily, per vehicle trip | Sets duty cycle, tank capacity and machine class |
| Time window | How many hours are available for the whole task | Sets required output, and therefore machine size |
| Reach | Maximum height and depth, and whether the crew can get close | Hose and lance length, platform needs, machine mobility |
| Dwell time | Whether the surface must stay wet or hold heat for a period | Mode selection, heating power, tank size |
The time window is the specification most buyers leave out, and it is the one that decides the size of the machine. Cleaning the outside of equipment in a poultry house between flocks usually has a hard deadline, because the next placement is booked. A supplier who knows that deadline can price the capacity to meet it; a supplier who does not will quote the smallest unit that does the job eventually.
3. Utilities you can actually supply
Every quotation assumes utilities exist at the point of use. Confirm all four before comparing prices, because upgrading an electrical supply or laying a water line is often a larger cost than the machine.
- Power: voltage available at the cleaning point, distance from the distribution board, socket type, and whether three-phase is available. A 6 kW heater behaves very differently on a long extension lead than on a proper supply.
- Water: is mains-pressure tap water available, is the supply softened or hard, and what the water quality is. Scale build-up is the most common cause of early failure in heated cleaning machines, and it is a water problem before it is a machine problem.
- Drainage and run-off: where the wash water goes, and whether it may carry organic waste, fat and washing residues into a drain, a soakaway or a watercourse.
- Movement: door widths, ramps, floor slope, thresholds and the surface the unit has to roll across.
The last point decides whether you need a fixed unit or a mobile one. On the vehicle and fixed-unit side of our range, published parameters are concrete and comparable: the PowerDe HW02 fixed machine runs on a 220 V supply with 6 kW heating power, 160°C steam temperature and 0.8 MPa vapour pressure, with an 80 L stainless tank, and measures roughly 1,200 × 800 × 1,200 mm including handles. Check your doorway and your supply against those numbers before you ask for a quotation, not after. Where the cleaning point moves, walking or ride-on units are listed with and without batteries - see the hand-pushed PowerDe HMW3, which works on a 48 V battery supply with a 50 L clean-water tank and a 4.5 kW heater.
4. Constraints that limit the method, not the price
Some answers rule a method out entirely, and they are wasted cost if discovered at commissioning.
- Occupied or unoccupied cleaning: the equipment is usually cleaned between placements, but state clearly whether animals are ever present, and whether the machine has to work around live stock at any point.
- Drying time: how long the surface may stay wet before the house is needed again. A method that leaves the structure soaking wet simply moves the problem.
- Chemical policy: what products are permitted, and what residue may remain on a surface that will again contact birds or feed.
- Biosecurity rules: the sequence your site must follow, and whether the cleaning step sits inside a controlled zone with its own access rules.
- Noise, dust and neighbouring stock: relevant when cleaning happens while part of the site is still running.
- Disease-risk posture: whether the standard is visible cleanliness, or a defined hygiene outcome verified by swabbing.
The last item is worth settling before you choose a machine. "It looks clean" cannot be quoted or tested. If your standard is a swab result, say so in the enquiry, because it changes the dwell time, the mode and the crew time the quotation has to allow for.
5. Who operates it, and how the site will support it
The same machine gives very different results in different hands, and a serious supplier prices against the operating reality you describe.
- Crew: how many people are available, their shift pattern, and their language and training needs.
- Skill: has anyone run a heated, pressurised steam or hot-water machine before?
- Maintenance: who does the descaling, filter changes and hose replacement, and where do spare lances, seals and hoses come from?
- Storage: is there covered, frost-free storage, which matters for a machine with a heater and a tank.
Ask the supplier two questions in writing and compare the answers: which protective functions are fitted - for example leakage, short-circuit, high-temperature, high-voltage and water-shortage protection, plus high-voltage explosion protection as listed on our machine pages - and what is covered if the machine fails inside the warranty period. A quotation that is silent on spares, warranty terms and response time is not a complete quotation.
6. Commercial facts the quotation needs
These are the items that turn an indicative figure into a binding one, and missing any of them reopens the price later.
- Quantity and rollout: one site for a trial, or several houses or farms to be fitted out.
- Site location and access: for international orders, the delivery address, the Incoterm you can actually handle, and whether the delivery point takes a container or a pallet.
- Target date: when the equipment must be running, which drives production slot and shipping method rather than the other way round.
- Standard and documentation: certificate or declaration documents your purchasing or insurance side requires.
- Customisation: whether you need a specific colour, branding, a different tank size or a bundled accessory set.
What to send with the enquiry
A complete enquiry can be assembled in under an hour, and it changes how a supplier responds. Put together:
- Three or four photographs of the surfaces before cleaning, taken close enough to show the contamination.
- A short note of the duty: what surface, what contamination, how often, how many hours available.
- The utility facts: supply voltage, water source, drainage route, doorway sizes.
- Your acceptance standard: visible cleanliness, a swab result, or a defined hygiene protocol.
- Quantity, location, target date and the documentation you require.
If the duty has unusual features - a long run to the cleaning point, a hard turnaround deadline, a coating that must not be stripped - ask for a trial on your own surfaces before ordering, and treat that trial as the real acceptance test. We work this way on custom cleaning duties, where the equipment is configured around the site rather than sold from a catalogue; tell us the surface, the contamination and the time window through our contact page and we will tell you which configuration fits, including where the honest answer is that a machine we make is the wrong one for the job.
