Water supply is the specification line that decides the machine class
When buyers compare steam cleaners they compare power, temperature and price, and they discover the water supply only when the crew is standing in a car park or a loading bay looking for a tap. On a fixed installation the supply is designed in once and forgotten. On a mobile unit the supply is whatever the site happens to have — and that single variable decides whether a mains-powered fixed machine or a mobile battery-powered unit is the right purchase. Comparing the two options properly means writing the water question into the specification before the comparison begins.
Option 1: fixed machine on a plumbed supply
A fixed unit is the right answer where cleaning happens at a known bay with a water connection and mains power. The buying point is not that it is "stationary" but that it can run continuously: the tank is a buffer, not the whole water budget, because a tap refills it.
- Continuous steam for a whole shift, with no stop to refill or to let a machine recover heat mid-job.
- Higher heating power on mains electricity. Our fixed steam cleaning machine PowerDe HW02 takes a tap-water inlet through a 4-point internal-tooth joint (1/2 inch) and runs on 220 V with 6 kW of heating power, around 160°C steam temperature and about 0.8 MPa vapor pressure, with an 80 L SUS304 tank and dry-steam plus wet-steam modes on the same unit.
- Cost per cleaned object falls as throughput rises, because one machine covers a whole bay rather than a crew walking a unit around a site.
- The constraint: you must control the installation. A bay, a supply point, a drain, and a routing plan for the hose. If the site cannot give you those, the machine becomes furniture.
Option 2: mobile unit that carries its own water and power
Mobile machines exist for the sites that cannot supply you: multi-vehicle fleets washed in a yard, parking structures, mobile detailing, and any round where the customer's tap is not yours to use. The tank becomes the entire water budget, so the comparison shifts to capacity, runtime and how the crew recharges.
- The water carried on the machine is the hard limit. A hand-push unit such as the hand pushed steam cleaning machine PowerDe HMW3 carries a 50 L clean-water tank, with a 4.5 kW PTC heater and dry- and wet-steam modes, and a tap-water inlet of the same 4-point internal-tooth fitting for filling.
- Battery variants remove the cable as well as the hose. Our driving-style mobile units — the driving style steam cleaner PWD02 and the PWD01 and HMW2 models — are listed in both battery and without-battery versions, and offer dry-steam, wet-steam and hot-water modes for indoor garages and narrow outdoor parking spaces.
- Where a crew moves between sites, the same model should be specified across the fleet; mixed tank sizes make scheduling guesswork.
- The constraint: the crew must plan refills and charging into the shift, and the site must be able to accept the water that runs off.
How to run the comparison in one page
Put both options into a table with the same rows. The rows that decide the answer, in order of how often they decide it:
- Water source available at the point of cleaning: plumbed tap, fill point you control, or carried on the machine.
- Inlet fitting required by the machine — for the HW02 and HMW3 that is a tap-water inlet with a 4-point internal-tooth joint (1/2 inch); confirm your site fitting against it before ordering.
- Water budget per job: tank capacity, and whether a tap refills it during the job.
- Power available: mains voltage at the bay, or battery runtime on the round.
- Throughput: objects cleaned per shift, which is where a plumbed fixed machine usually wins on cost per object.
- Access and footprint: aisle widths, garage height limits, and whether the machine has to be pushed or driven to the work.
- Runoff and drainage: where the water goes, which becomes a compliance item in indoor and food-adjacent areas.
Two questions that settle most real decisions. If a fixed supply point exists within hose reach of the work, buy fixed and stop worrying about runtime. If the work moves, or the site does not own the tap, buy mobile and plan the water and charge cycles explicitly rather than discovering them mid-shift.
Figures the product pages do not publish — runtime on a battery charge, hose and wand lengths, accessory sets, consumption per hour — should be confirmed with us at quotation for your actual shift, not inferred from a datasheet. If you send us the cleaning round, the objects being cleaned and what water and power the site offers, we will tell you which class and which model fits before you commit the capital. Our PowerDe cleaning equipment series page lists the mains-powered and battery variants so you can put both options in the same comparison.
