The GreenSteam Story

Steve Vaughn, founder

After many years working with municipal and federal parks departments, and running his own business, Steven Vaughan, a Canadian horticulturist, retreated into his workshop to address a growing problem.

He recognized that Canadian municipalities were increasingly restricting the use of pesticides despite the lack of viable alternatives. This trend was leaving professional gardeners with huge increases in labour costs as their "power tools", herbicides, were disappearing at an alarming rate. Steve believed he could create a clean, cost effective and environmentally friendly alternative. His plan was to create a fully portable steamgun system.

Emily, Dusty, & Steve

He wanted a tool that would work like a typical herbicide sprayer, but apply steam instead of chemicals. Rather than producing a chemical residue, he was convinced the weeds could be be controlled while leaving only moisture behind. After years of prototyping, research and testing he succeeded with the now patented steamgun, which utilized a small flashboiler system in a compact steamhead design.

First portable steam weeder

His break-through steamhead concept worked safely and effectively. When the steamgun was combined with a cart he was able to transport a practical quantity of the key ingredients (water and propane). And thus the first viable, portable, weed steamer was born.

Trials and demonstrations with parks and public works departments, school boards, military bases, golf courses, organic gardeners, and landscape contractors proved the design to be both popular and effective. With the concept proven Steve went on to patent his designs and earned a prestigious Innovation Award from the Canadian Manufacturers Association.

Production at last

With accolades and a working product, Steve began taking orders and building systems in his garage workshop.

Recognizing practical limitations and wanting to grow the business beyond the garage Steve struck a deal with an acquaintance to take the reins and commercialize the invention.

Erik Djukastein was a successful entrepreneur who had recently sold his consumer electronics manufacturing business. His greatest success was the Scarecrow motion activated sprinkler. It kept pest animals away with a directed spritz of water and is widely available at retail today.

The GS-5000 as envisioned on the drawing board

On arrival, Erik's first order of business was to polish the design for manufacturability. With help from a team of talented designers and engineers our product underwent a wholesale makeover in 2009. It emerged as the product you see today - robust, reliable, intuitive, safe, attractive and easy to use. And more versions are planned for the years ahead.

Now it's your turn. Your contribution may be to pass the word to a few of your friends, share a post or two about us online, order and use a system in your organization or perhaps talk us into licensing and building your own novel weed control invention. Whichever it is, we thank you for your interest in us today and hope you'll become part of the ongoing GreenSteam story.

GreenSteam Solutions Inc. is dedicated to a cleaner planet through the replacement of chemicals with environmentally friendly technologies. GreenSteam's steam weeder machines deliver clean surfaces without regulatory burdens, drift issues, manual weeding or suspicious glances. Our residue free treated surfaces are always safe for children and pets.