One of the most common questions we get is the Rotovac really that much better than a traditional wand. The answer is not quit that simple. Is a sledge hammer better than a regular hammer? YES! Obviously it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. If you have deeply soiled carpets the Rotovac is going to get your carpets cleaner. If you have lightly soiled carpets a traditional wand is going to clean faster and get similar results.
Pros and Cons
The Rotovac use much more water than a traditional wand making your carpets drying time much longer. Schedule your cleaning time wisely as you do not want to walk on carpets when they are wet. This goes for either wand or Rotovac. A wands dry time is around 3-6 hours a Rotovacs dry time is 6-12 hours. Though your carpet may feel dry to the touch after only a short time the fibers are still wet down below where you can not feel.
The traditional wand cleans much faster than the Rotovac on lightly soiled carpets. This means the tech can generally get in and out of your home and you can get back to the daily grind in only a couple of hours. The Rotovac is going to take a significant more amount of time and $ money. Fortunately both process can be mixed and matched to save a few dollars. If you have a room that is lightly soiled we can use the traditional wand and if there is a room that is heavily soiled we can use the Rotovac.
The Rotovac gets very dirty carpets much cleaner than the tradition wand in most cases. On some but not all commercial carpet the traditional wand does an equivalent job or even better. Commercial glued down carpet will require some testing to see who the champion of carpet cleaning will be for the day.
Video of A real life example at St Thomas Square in Panama City Beach.