Paul Luke, Vancouver Sun, November 16, 2008 (VICTORIA)
A small Victoria outfit is poised to become the friend of millions of sidewalks around the world -- and the enemy of billions of dandelions.
Green Steam Inc. has just won a Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters award for a weed-zapping steam gun said to be cheaper, lighter and more eco-amiable than anything on the market.
Partly bankrolled by his mom and brother, Green Steam boss and professional gardener Steve Vaughan hunkered in his Victoria basement to design a tool that fries green-leafed varmints with a blast of steam heated to about 350 degrees Celsius.
Steve Vaughan, president of Victoria-based Green Steam Technology, uses his steam machine to kill weeds on a sidewalk.
The Green Steam gun is a weed-buster's dream. In an era when hundreds of Canadian cities and towns have restricted or banned herbicide use, gardeners need a new ally, he says.
"You've got to control weeds, one way or another," says Vaughan, 54. "If they start tearing up pavement and starting little jungles you can clog drainage systems and then you've got floods after heavy rains come."
Suburbanites tormented by weeds overrunning their lawns are mostly out of luck. Green Steam's gun is made to nuke weeds on hard surfaces. That means sidewalks, playgrounds, schoolyards, sports parks, campuses, zoos, airports, and parking lots.
You could use it to take down a pesky dandelion or a plantain but the steam gun is so non-selectively lethal it will kill the grass within three inches of the vegetative villain.
Still, there's hope for homeowners. Vaughan has designed a smaller version of the gun for domestic use that would sell for $200-$400.
That one would be dandy for handling weeds around trees -- bark is steam-resistant -- and along fence lines, Vaughan says. But Green Steam hasn't got enough cash to bring this model to market.
This may soon change. Vaughan is in the home stretch of talks with an unnamed Canadian manufacturer keen to license the technology, potentially expanding the range of Green Steam products.
Green Steam partner John Jeffrey, a patent agent and buddy of Vaughan since they were 10 year olds blowing dandelions seeds, has nailed down U.S. patents on Green Steam's technology. There are also patents pending in Canada and Europe.
The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters has just given Green Steam its 2008 regional award for technological innovation.
Craig Williams, B.C. vice-president for the CME, calls the company one of B.C.'s low-profile jewels. "Green Steam's innovative work has earned the company a reputation as a leader in developing an environmentally sustainable technology which aligns nicely with emerging trends in society," he says.
Unlike clunky steam weeders that use truck-mounted boilers and heavy, insulated hoses, the Green Steam design delivers a trickle of water to a flash boiler in the gun's barrel. A 20-pound, barbecue-size propane tank provides the juice.
Green Steam's gun sells for $4,850. The price of the truck-mounted competition ranges from $15,000 to-$22,000, according to Vaughan. The company has has sold its steamware in Canada, Australia and the U.S. It also does weed control for four Vancouver Island municipalities.
Organic farmers, grappling with high costs for manual weed control, have shown keen interest in a "broadhead" applicator designed to manage growth between vegetable or grape rows, Vaughan says.
Vaughan, who formerly ran a tree-trimming service in Vancouver, says it cost about $250,000 over the last seven years, to make the steam dream a commercial reality. Success would have been impossible without the help of several small investors and a $15,000 grant from the National Research Council, he says.
In 2003, he quit his job as a gardener at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt to work on the project full time. His wife's nursing job kept them financially afloat.
Eventually, he hooked up with Milroy Engineering, a small Victoria engineering firm, and development began to pick up steam, so to speak.
"I didn't know anything about steam, being a gardener," he says. "It was far more complex than I ever thought it would be."
Steam should have been in his genes. Vaughan's father, a naval engineer, knew his way around around steam but died before the project began.
"When I was a child, nothing was more boring to me than an engine room and, oddly enough, here I am working with steam."