never done any of this...now with the cimex..and if i ad a high speed burnisher...I figure i can atleast do the smaller jobs....I dont want to do huge stores or anything ...my question is..how hard is this to learn...a average job..how long does it take..say 100 sq feet...or 500 sq feet...what kind of prices are being charged....what kind of prices are the national contractors paying for this...is it worth it??

I'm definetly no expert on this.
A few years back I considered getting into it. I spoke to a few guys that explained how to do it, and they told me what equipment I needed.
They also told me to stick to cleaning carpets. The pay is about the same has carpet cleaning. However to do the job well takes more time and work than carpet cleaning.
After I looked at "what" I was gonna have to do, and how "Long" it was gonna take me,...I took thier advice and dropped the idea.

Joel

I’ll get back to you latter, possibly tonight. I’ve done VCT for about 18yrs. But right now I need to finish up preparing for a six minute obligation that I have tonight that normally takes me six days to prepare for.

David Gelinas

David...you writing a talk or something...lol

let me clarify real quick...I wont be out looking for the jobs...its more when cleaning carpet for the national contractors..they have some small jobs that need to be done..like a stock room...or sometimes the will have a small amount around the register areas like in a video store.....Im not talking about doing grocery stores..or department stores that have thousands of sq. feet....just these smaller areas that come along with cleaning carpet

Hay Joel

If it were only a talk.

It started with a BH. Just before the meeting I get a call to do a Demo with my wife, little stressed over the talk but I say okay. Get there, go over demo & during the song I'm asked to open. With out realy thinking I say sure. Give the Highlihts & go way over, all most a full minute ( not so good ). During the second song my wife & I go sit in the front row so we can be prepaired. As I'm sitting there every one, including me, is informed that I have the next part, a Q&A part. News to me, I never got the assignment. It's okay I'll take it out on my PO when he gets back from camping, guess who that is? LOL For most this probably would be no big deal but for me it takes a realy realy long time to get parts together. But actualy not to many new I wasn't ready so it went over pretty well. It's the first time in tweenty years that anything like that has happened. Maybe next time I wont stress over my talks so much.

With regards to stripping, what follows is a post I put on the VCT board a few months ago when Tony had a simular question. It probably wont leave to much for the imagenation. I think his scenario was for about 2500 sq ft. Of course the area that your talking about is smaller but it's all just VCT. If it's just a little some thing you want to do on carpet jobs than go for it. If you're talking about any thing over 1000 sq ft, I'd strongly sugjest going with a propain buffer. Any thing smaller and an ellectric high speed (1200 rpm +) will be fine. If you have any other Qs feel free to ask.

David Gelinas


Re: Strip and wax job from begining to end!
Posted By David Gelinas on 11/11/2002 at 9:46 PM
Tony,
I’ve read most of the posts that the guys have contributed and they all seem to be pretty much in-line. Much like them, here is the way I’d handle it.

Tools:
Slow Machine / Side to Side (175 – 350 rpm) (Or in your case, a Cimex) along with a Wet Vac that has a front mount squeegee, and preferably w/ a 25 gal. tank.

OR

26” Automatic w/ either strip brushes or pads.

18” – 24” Moss squeegee

48” Scraper (Unger)

Flow-Pac swivel brush or a generic doodle bug, (but not such a good idea).

Preferably some means of dispensing the stripper without cross contaminating it.
This is such a small area you could do it as simply as mixing your stripper in a 5 gal. pail, 4 – 1/ COLD H2o – Stripper, and carefully pour it down the middle of the walkway.
Note: You really DO NOT want to take a bath in stripper if it can be prevented. It’s not real good for you.

A slop-mop for spreading the stripper.

Rinse mop

Finnish mop (Cotton/Rayon blend – blue & white candy stripe)

No more than 3 gals., undiluted stripper, unless you’re dealing with an unbelievable build up. But even so, 3 gals should do it.

No more than 3 gals, & probably only 2, of finish. That should give you a least 4 coats.

Mop bucket & wringer (Down press wringer preferably)

A fan, USED PROPERLY.

And a finish jug, I’ll explain later

Under “normal” conditions, this should take one guy, using a slow machine & wet vac, Aprx. 4 hours to do a first rate job. If your not used to doing VCT or your not using an automatic, I’d suggest stripping no more than one half of the area at a time. An auto is not going to save you a great deal of time in such a small area.

Procedure:
Apply and evenly spread stripper, paying extra attention to edges and not leaving any dry spots.

If the edges have much of a build up you will probably need to scrape them, after you’ve given the stripper 10 – 15 min. dwell time.

Work stripper in a second time using your slop mop and the stripper that’s all ready on the floor or if it has started to dry up you will need to apply a little more stripper or even water. Again paying extra attention to your edges. As you do this you should find that your floor is not as slippery and is just about stripped.

Scrub by hand with the doodle brush any where that you can’t get your machine into, i.e. corners and edges, but by this time your edges should be fairly clean.

Machine scrub and pick up solution.

Rinse well. It is not necessary to go over board with rinsing, just use the spirit of a sound mind. To days strippers, are considered “rinse-free”. That dose not mean that you don’t have to rinse, you just don’t have to go crazy and you don’t have to neutralize.
To days strippers are solvent based not high alkaline based like years ago, that is why you must use COLD water, if not your active ingredients, the solvents, will evaporate.

Apply finish. You could use a mop bucket & wringer like most but I don’t recommend it for a whole host of reasons:
1. In time you will ruin your bucket & wringer.
2. There is a good chance that you will have contaminated finish left in your bucket that should be dumped out when your done, money wasted.
3. If you put your bucket at one end of the area, dip your mop in it, carry or drag it to the other end and start spreading this can cause three problems.
a) You might leave drips or mop lines that will start to set up before you can get back to spread it.
b) More importantly, when you start mopping, your mop will be full of finish, as you work your way back to your bucket your mop will be getting dryer and your coat will be getting thinner, giving you an inconsistent coat and inconsistent dry times.
c) Also across your area (side to side), the finish will be the same thickness. Generally you will want it heaver in the middle and lighter on the sides.
This brings us to the afore mentioned finish jug. Take a gallon jug, preferably translucent, and a cap or better yet the type of cone shaped cap you might find on a ketchup bottle or the kind they have at SUBWAY that they put mayo on you’re sandwich with. Either way make the hole in the cap Aprx. Ľ inch in dia., fill your jug with finish and pour out a large “S” shaped path of finish about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. Pour out about three of these “S’” stop and spread the finish and repeat across the area. You will want to watch two things 1) Don’t pour out more than you can effectively spread before the edges of the S start to set up. 2) Make certain that the finish is not splattering when you pour it out, if it is hold the jug closer to the floor, the splatters will dry before you can get back to them and make the floor look less than it could. If you can hear the finish hit the floor, it’s splattering. Applying finish in this manner on small floors is much better because you can put the finish where you need it heaviest and pull it to where it doesn’t need to be so heavy and you don’t have wasted finish/money at the end of the job.

Finish manufactures say not to use fans to dry finish because the finish can’t cure properly. That may be so but this is the real world not the Lab and time is money. If you use fans correctly you wont have a problem. Ever notice those pretty waves on top of chocolate bars? They get that effect from blowing cold air across the chocolate before it sets up. Those waves are pretty on chocolate, but not so pretty on floors. If you let your mop lines level out before you hit the floor with air flow, generally your finish will dry smooth. I would also be careful about hitting soft wax with direct air coming from a carpet blower. Once your finish is dry to the touch and doesn’t feel soft you can lay your next coat.

Tony, take these suggestions for what they’re worth. For more than seven years I serviced 80 conveyance stores (2000 sq ft) two to four times a month using these very same techniques and they worked well for me, I hope they work well for you also if you chose to use them. If I can help you out in any other way please feel free to ask.

David Gelinas