Hot water extraction carpet and floor cleaning machine

Claim 1

A hot water extraction carpet and floor cleaning machine, comprising: a canister-type wet/dry vacuum cleaner including a power cord to be plugged into a source of AC line voltage, an outlet for providing the AC line voltage when the power cord is plugged in, and a relatively rigid wand one end of which is connected, via a suction hose, to a recovery tank in the vacuum cleaner; a cleaning head, attached to the other end of said wand and having a pair of wheels to facilitate rolling of the cleaning head, by the operator, over the carpet material or floor material to be cleaned, and further having a suction tool to facilitate extraction of liquid from the material and delivery of that liquid to the recovery tank; a supply tank, partially wrapped around and attached to and supported on said wand, for holding a relatively large quantity of a hot cleaning solution; a spray nozzle included in said cleaning head and mounted adjacent to said suction tool; an electric motor-driven fluid pump attached to and supported on said wand and positioned above said supply tank in order to preclude the possibility of the hot cleaning solution being accidentally spilled on the pump motor when the supply tank is being filled, the pump motor having a power cord adapted to be plugged into said outlet on said vacuum cleaner in order to receive AC line voltage to effect energization of the motor, thereby permitting both the pump motor and the vacuum cleaner to be turned on and off at the same time merely by operating a single switch on the vacuum cleaner; means, including said fluid pump and a liquid supply line, for supplying cleaning solution under pressure from said supply tank to said spray nozzle in order that a jet of atomized cleaning solution may be sprayed onto an area of the material to be cleaned, after which the solution and the entrained dirt therein may be drawn off from the material and sucked into said recovery tank as said suction tool is moved across the sprayed area, at least a portion of said suction tool being transparent to provide visual observation of the amount of dirt entrained in the cleaning solution removed from the material and vacuumed into said recovery tank, the position of said spray nozzle being adjustable relative to said suction tool to vary the area of impact of the jet of atomized cleaning solution on the material to be cleaned; a retaining wall, included in said cleaning head, which at least partially surrounds the impact area of the jet of atomized cleaning solution to minimize any splashing of that solution onto adjacent areas; a primer, in the form of a resilient ball, in series with said liquid supply line and which may be squeezed by the operator to prime said pump; and an adjustably positioned plastic bracket, supported by the end of said wand which is adjacent to said suction hose, for permitting the wand, and the apparatus attached thereto, to lean against a wall or to rest on a floor when the cleaning machine is not in use.