Starting out advice needed

I see - good suggestion - its a great board. You should have come to MF - cmaster and I went. - better come next year.

Huh?

You are going to have plenty, don't go away hang around and have some fun. If you need a glide for you wand buy one from GreenGlides.

Check back and use the search function to find out about alot of stuff about customer service stain removal drying times.
Go to this website to find the nearest or soonest courses with the IICRC - you should take the carpet cleaning course and the upholstery cleaning course at a minimum
http://www.iicrc.org/
Get your self a digital camera to use for posting picture so others can help you and to keep pictures of before and after shots for yor customers and a website.

I see you found MikeysBoard and you will see me posting under my real name there - Bob Foster

Hang on its going to be a heck of a ride!

Sounds like a debate to me

One of the reasons to buy a pto

Duh

gimmeagig your right in your logic. Blowers should last 10,000 hours if they are maintained. For each running hour of the truckmount it is putting the equivelant of 30 miles on the truck engine. In other words your truck's engine now has on it 153,000 + 83,000 for a total of 236,000 miles. That's ok as long as the engine has been maintained and that means frequent coolant changes, transmission fluid changes and oil changes.   If the truck has been driven by an owner rather than employees - better yet.

5000 hours is over the hill on a slide in but acceptable on a PTO(CDS) system. Hydramaster is a good unit. As you can tell there are people that speak somewhat negative and there are more that speak positive. Hydramaster is a very strong brand and a reputable company.

Now this is what you need to ask the owner of the unit.
All service history on the unit. Has it had any bearing and shaft replacements. When was the last time it had a rebuild kit put in the Cat pump (I think it's a Cat). The blower size on this Hydramaster is considered a good sized blower that you can use on any size of job you would likely run into.   You won't likely put more than 500 hours on it your first year, if you do your doing darn good.