I just bought a steam cleaner from Aldi.

Perhaps you just bought the wrong one. There are a lot of them on the
Sky shopping channels which have the thin, whispy steam you describe.
I bought a Shark Portable on eBay after watching the Sky demo every
night for a week, and being convinced by it.

It arrived 2 days ago, since when I have cleaned vinyl floors,
grouting, a microwave oven, 6 square feet of concrete, 45 of rendering,
an emulsioned wall, several gloss painted doors and about 90 square
feet of corrugated fibre glass roofing which was thickly coated with
algae.

And used approximately one gallon of water in the process!

The blast is terrific, and you really would not want to get any flesh
near it.

The only reason I'm here, now, is because I'm too tired to do any more
today, but tomorrow is another day!

It's one of the best puchases I've made in the forty years since I got
married, and the number of ideas I have for its use (spot weeding?) is
almost limitless.

Tony.