What is the machine fed with, and does that decide the accessories already?
A fixed unit has no tank of its own moving with it and no battery to carry, so the first accessory decision is made where it stands.
The Fixed Steam Cleaning Machine PowerDe HW02 page records a tap-water inlet described as a four-point internal-tooth joint of half an inch. The other rows on that table - heating power, steam temperature, vapour pressure, the tank and what it is made of, the machine footprint and the working voltage - belong to the unit that was measured, and the site should ask for each of those rows to be restated in writing against the exact machine being quoted. Two accessory groups follow from that single row. The first is the water side: the correct mating fitting for that inlet description, a hose rated for the mains supply that will be left connected all day, a shut-off valve at the wall so a burst hose is a valve closure rather than a scramble, and a filter or strainer if the site water carries grit. The second is the siting side: a fixed unit cleans the area its delivery hose can reach, so the accessories are a supply run to the machine or a machine relocated to the supply run, plus a standing position that does not block the vehicle, the bay door or a walkway.
Write the answer down as an installation line on the quotation, not as an assumption. Ask the supplier to state, in the same document as the price, the inlet description they are supplying the fitting for, who provides the hose from the wall to the machine, who provides the valve, and whether the electrical supply at the chosen position matches the working-voltage row of the exact unit quoted. Those four answers decide whether the first day of use is an installation day or a cleaning day, and they are cheaper to ask about before the machine arrives than to solve with an adapter bought in a hurry.
How far does the delivery hose have to travel, and what does the machine weigh in that answer?
Reach is the question that most often arrives as an accessory complaint later. A fixed unit in a car park or a fuelling station has to serve a vehicle standing in one position while the operator walks around it; in a workshop it has to serve a vehicle with the bonnet open and an engine bay that sits some distance from where the unit was installed. So measure the path, not the straight line: the hose goes from the machine, around the corner of a wall, over a kerb or a drain channel, and out along the flank of the vehicle, and every one of those turns takes length. Then ask the supplier for the delivery-hose length of the exact unit quoted. The published table for the fixed machine gives its footprint including handles, but the page for that unit does not publish a hose or lance length, so this is a row to have written into the specification, not a figure to take from a similar model.
Weight belongs in the same answer, even for a fixed machine. The footprint row tells you how much floor the unit occupies; it does not tell you how much mass sits there, nor whether the unit is intended to be moved at all. A fixed machine that is never moved needs a permanent supply, a permanent stand and a hose that is hung rather than dragged, so the accessories are a wall bracket or a rack, a hose guide at the kerb, and a floor marking that keeps the machine out of the traffic line. A machine expected to move between two bays turns the same question into a different accessory set, and at that point it is worth asking whether the site is describing a fixed duty at all, because the same catalogue carries mobile units described for indoor garages and cramped outdoor parking areas.
Which surfaces set the nozzle, the lance and the brush?
The same fixed machine is described on its page doing three kinds of work, and each one wants a different end fitting. Painted body panels want a wide, diffuse delivery that covers a flat area and lets the operator see where the heat has been. Wheel arches, sills, the underside of a bumper and the lip of a door shut line want a narrower delivery with reach into a pocket, which usually means a lance so the operator is not crouching with their hand near a hot surface. An engine compartment wants the opposite discipline: a fine delivery used at short distance with the operator able to see the component they are pointing at, because an engine bay is mostly items that must not be washed.
So the accessory list is written from the surface list, not from a catalogue page. For each surface the site intends to clean, name the fitting that serves it and the reason in one line: a flat nozzle for the large painted faces; a lance for pockets, arches and shut lines; a brush for a textured or coated surface where heat alone will not lift the deposit; a narrow or angled nozzle for the trim line and around badges. Ask the supplier to state which of those are supplied with the machine and which are extra, since the page of that unit records the tank, the operating modes and the inlet but does not carry an accessory list, and an accessory that is assumed is an accessory that arrives as an invoice later.
Dry steam or wet steam: does the mode change what you need to hold?
That fixed machine is published with a choice between dry and wet steam, and the switch itself is an accessory decision. A drier pass carries heat with less water reaching the surface, which suits a film that lifts with heat and suits areas where extra water is a problem; it still needs a cloth to take the loosened residue off, so a supply of wiping cloths and a bucket are not optional extras on a drier method. A wetter pass carries more volume, which suits a thick deposit, and it puts that volume somewhere: on the floor, down a channel, or into the gap under a door sill. So a wetter plan needs containment, and containment on a hardstanding means a mat or a bund, a means of keeping flow away from a drain, and a route for what you collect.
Because the two modes need different kit, the site should decide mode by surface rather than by habit, and the accessory list should follow the mode. Write it as a two-column note next to the surface list: on this face, dry, cloths and a wipe; on this face, wet, mat, collection and a dry-down. Ask the supplier what the machine does when it is switched from one mode to the other, and whether anything at the end fitting changes, so the accessory set covers the changeover rather than only the steady state.
Where does the boundary fall on items that must not get wet?
An engine-compartment job, which is one of the applications named on that machine's page, is defined more by its exclusions than by its cleaning. The items that recur: the alternator and its wiring loom, the air-intake opening, the fuse and relay box, coil packs and connector blocks, the battery and its terminals, the air-conditioning condenser face, the radiator fins, sound-deadening material that has been glued down, any label or sticker, and painted or re-coated panels that have already been repaired. The site names each one in writing and gives an alternative for it, otherwise the crew cleans it anyway and the site finds out afterwards.
Accessories are how a boundary is held rather than merely stated: covers or bags to shield an alternator, a connector block and an intake mouth; tape to hold a cover in place; a low-pressure rinsing bottle for the item that must be wiped rather than washed; a fender mat so the lance does not rest on a painted wing; a mirror and a lamp so the operator can see a shut line before pointing at it. That set is small, and it is also the set that most quotations leave out because nobody asked. The page for the fixed machine lists protection functions as part of the unit's own description; those are machine protections and not permission to wash an electrical component, so the exclusion list stays the site's responsibility and stays on paper.
What has to happen after the pass so the job is finished?
The accessories that decide whether a steam job looks professional are the ones used after the nozzle goes down. Drying matters on a vehicle because water sits in door shut lines, fuel-flap recesses, the gap under a trim panel and the crease of a wheel arch, and it comes out when the car is driven, which is after the operator has gone. So: a chamois or a clean drying cloth, a blower or the machine's own air if the site has it, and a short drive-around check written into the process. Interior work, which that page also names, wants its own cloth set, separate from the exterior set, plus a way of holding the doors open so the door skins dry.
Then the housekeeping set: something to collect run-off under the vehicle, a container for what is collected, a squeegee for the floor, a sign so nobody walks into a wet bay, and a place to hang the hose so it does not lie across a traffic lane. And the record: the cloths, the shields and the covers are only half the answer, and the other half is a one-page standard per vehicle type that says which mode on which face, which items are shielded, how the drying is checked and who signs it. A fixed machine with no standard is a machine whose output changes with whoever is holding the lance.
Does the fixed machine suit the task, or is the task a mobile job?
A fixed unit earns its place where there is one position to serve, a water supply and power at that position, and a reason the machine should not move: a permanent bay, a wall, a supply run already laid. Where the work moves, the accessory list changes character entirely and the machine choice should be re-opened rather than fitted out. The mobile units in that range are placed for indoor garages and tight outdoor parking, and their pages describe dry steam, wet steam and hot-water modes rather than a fixed installation. Comparing them is not a matter of the brochure; it is a matter of which accessories the site has to own: a fixed machine needs a supply installation and a siting plan, a mobile machine needs its own energy and water rows answered for the exact variant.
A useful way to settle it in one page: list the positions the cleaning has to reach over a week, then mark each one as served by a hose from the fixed position or not served. If more than a few fall outside, the accessory list will not rescue the installation. Where the site needs the equipment arranged around its own bay rather than around a standard configuration, the site offers a customization route under customized steam cleaning equipment, which lists washing, steam, foam and dust-collection modules and a mobile platform as elements that can be combined; ask for the module list and the interfaces in writing.
Put the questions to the supplier as one written list
The questions above turn into one written request, and a request that arrives as one list gets one answer back. Ask for: the accessories supplied with the exact unit quoted, item by item, and the price of anything the site is likely to assume is included; the delivery-hose length and the lance and nozzle set offered for painted panels, arches and shut lines, and engine-bay work; the mating fitting for the inlet described on the page of that unit, plus who provides the supply hose, the valve and the strainer; what the supplier requires at the installation position for water and power, and the mass and footprint of the machine so the stand and the floor marking can be decided; the protection functions named on that page, restated for the exact model designation and the exact variant being quoted, so the model name appears once in the document rather than in two forms; and the service position, spares and the parts most likely to fail at the end of the delivery hose, since that is the item that stops the machine.
Where a table row the site needs is simply not published, ask for it rather than inferring it. The pages in that range are not uniform: one mobile page carries a vacuum-suction row that the others do not, and a holding-capacity row tells you what the machine carries, not how long it runs, while a figure measured at the generator is not a figure measured at the surface. If the site is comparing machines, get the same rows back from each page and keep the comparison on the rows the supplier has signed, not on the rows a reader has filled in. For a wider equipment question, the PowerDe cleaning equipment range page is where the catalogue sits, and the request is where the missing rows belong.
What these questions do not settle
These questions define an accessory list; they do not permit a method. They do not say that heat or water may be applied to a vehicle component the manufacturer forbids, to a battery or a connector block, to a repaired or re-coated panel, or to a brake friction surface and a bonded joint. They do not decide whether the site's rules allow steam work in a fuelling area, and they do not decide whether an electrical supply at the chosen position is suitable; that belongs to the site's own electrician and to whoever controls the premises. And the applications written on the cleaning pages of that range describe vehicle, parking and medical work rather than the whole range of cleaning a site may attempt, so the duty is settled by the buyer's own surfaces, the exact unit quoted and one bounded trial: a taped test area on one vehicle, an acceptance standard written before the first pass, and a stop condition written on the same sheet. Where the answers are unclear, they come from the supplier's written specification and that trial, not from a catalogue.
