Steam cleaner

Evening all.

Wanted to pick your collective brains regarding the above. I'm thinking about buying one for cleaning various bits of truck/house and was wondering if any of you had much experience of using them. I've seen a few posts regarding how useful they are, but never used one myself.

So can anyone shed any light on the following:
-Do the "interior" ones that are retailed in the likes of Argos etc double up for cleaning greasy bits of motor too if they have the right nozzle?
-Are they any good for degreasing greasy/oily bits prior to blasting/painting?
-What kind of pressure is considered "reasonable/good" in terms of cleaning power (I'm looking at a 3.2 bar model)?

Many thanks for any thoughts, and yes, before anyone has a minor coronary...I don't intend on using it in the engine bay "cos that's really bad :shock:

"

Cheers

Lee

Be carefull, the last time I used one of those it was to prep a CVRT for painting, it prepped it okay, bugger had half the paint off.

Cheers Snapper - can you remember if it was just a little domestic units, or was it a proper industrial unit?

If you mean the glorified pressurised kettle type things like the one gathering dust in a cupboard then I'd say it's far better at gathering dust than removing it.
You'd do better holding a greasy thing over an ordinary kettle and blowing at it.
Waste of time, effort and money.

mate of mine as 1 of them jml ones for around the house and says they are good
i havent used it myself so can only go on his word

All, many thanks for your comments.

Westo and TWS, can you remember what make the glorified kettles were? I was looking at an entry level Karcher model running steam at about 3 bar. Is this the sort of thing you had?

Wilberforce - I had for a long time thought steam cleaning and engine bays went hand in hand, and when I first picked up the HOS had intended on doing it to make spotting the many leaks it had a tad easier (exactly as you suggest). It was only after reading several posts on here that I picked up the "that's really bad" vibe as some people seemed to have had issues with electrical contacts - I assume due to the age of the age of the trucks many of us are driving? If that's not the case and this is deemed a generally safe practice maybe I'll go for it after all

L

*rummages through cupboards*

It's a 3 bar "prolectrix ecoforce" thing with brushes and various nozzle attachments, a window cleaning gizmo and a cleaning cloth.
The cloth is the best bit!
Only holds 350ml too, so a few good puffs and it's empty again.

A frivolous and wasted £20 impulse purchase that would have been far better spent on a tin of gunk and a toothbrush.

Cheers all - guess I'm better saving my pennies given your responses!

TWS, thanks for digging yours out for me - it's good to hear the experience you've had with a similarly spec'd model.