BUYER GUIDE · COMMERCIAL FLEETS
Commercial wet dry vacuum fleets,
bought for the second year.
Cleaning contractors, rental firms and facility managers do not buy a machine — they buy a fleet that has to run tomorrow with no heroics. This guide covers the three decisions that decide whether a commercial wet dry vacuum programme still makes money in year two: shift sizing, serviceability and the first-container mix.
STEP 1 · SIZE BY SHIFT
Size the fleet by the shift,
not the floor plan.
Floor area alone misleads. Two 5,000 m² sites with different shift patterns need different fleets: a day-shift contract cleans around people, so drums move constantly and mid-band sizes win; a night-shift industrial site fills drums fewer, heavier times, where a 40–60 L anchor with a drain valve earns its keep. Because every drum in this line is mains-powered, runtime is not a battery question — the constraint is sockets and crew time, which is why corded barrels dominate commercial tenders.
| Programme | Fleet pattern | Why it holds |
|---|---|---|
| Office & hotel contracts | One 15–20 L stainless per crew on shift, plus one standby per site | Day-shift, multi-storey trips — weight per move beats raw capacity |
| Industrial & logistics sites | One 40–60 L per zone, top motor option | Fewer, heavier empties; drain valve removes the lifting |
| Rental & leasing pools | Skew mid-band, one 60 L hero per branch | Mixed renter base, simplest fleet to maintain |
| Fit-out & construction | Wet · dry · blow 3-in-1 per project crew | Blow function clears debris before handover walk-throughs |
STEP 2 · SPEC FOR SERVICE
Duty cycle and the parts
your technician can reach.
A commercial fleet is judged on downtime, not on catalogue specs. Three serviceability questions belong in the tender pack alongside the price: which wear parts are user-replaceable (filters, float valves, hoses, floor heads), whether the motor is a sealed unit or a serviceable assembly, and how fast a wear-parts order can follow a production order. Every model in the barrel line ships with its consumable set written into the specification sheet, so the service plan is known before the first machine lands — not after the first breakdown.
STEP 3 · FIRST CONTAINER
Total cost, one container
at a time.
Fleet TCO is unit price × downtime × parts availability — and freight is the quiet multiplier. Mixing drum bands inside one 40HQ lets a fleet programme cover every site type on a single freight bill: a 12 L wet·dry·blow entry loads 2,292 units, the 12–25 L stainless mid-band 1,092–1,914 depending on drum size, and the 40–60 L anchors 355–443. The exact mix is calculated with the quotation and written into the PI, so the fleet arrives as a programme rather than a compromise. The container arithmetic behind this is worked through in our container loading guide.
BUYER QUESTIONS
Answers before
you ask.
What contractors, rental firms and tender writers ask most about commercial barrel programmes.
How many drums does a cleaning contract actually need?
What documents does a commercial tender need?
Can the fleet carry our own brand?
What happens with wear parts after the first year?
NEXT STEP
Send the shift plan, get the fleet.
Send your site types, crew counts and destination market — you get a fleet mix with loading plan, the tender document pack, wear-parts list and a 30-day valid quotation, inside 24 working hours.