Danny,
The GLS is a wonderful machine for digging up dry soil and lint from the carpet. However that's not what I was commenting on. What I said is that the Cimex scrubs more deeply. The Cimex does scrub more deeply - that is a fact.
Steve,
The soft shampoo brushes will create less drag than the pads on a plush carpet. We always recommend brushes if folks want to use a Cimex for residential carpets or for rug washing.
Bogging down has not been a significant problem with our 19" Cimex machines. We run 3 of them in our business. Occasionally it might bog just a little when it first starts running on a plush carpet. But this is very easy to correct. Simply lift the head slightly when you start the motor. (That’s the way you should always start it) Give the solution valve a quick squeeze to wet out the pads. Then ease the head back down as you begin walking the machine forward. Although there will naturally be increased resistance on cut pile carpets, it's never presented a challenge for us - and we clean a ton of it.
Wait. We did have a problem on one store once that had worn out circuit breakers that were overloaded. My tech had trouble getting adequate power. But I think of that as a building problem rather than a machine problem.
Regarding electrical current I was cleaning a store last night where I had the machine plugged into the same circuit breaker with the bucket heater. As you probably know, bucket heaters draw some current. I was thinking that might blow a breaker but it didn't. Normally I try to give the machine a dedicated breaker wherever possible. Last night this was toward the end of the job and I was honestly just being lazy. It worked.
I will e-mail you the phone number for a cleaner in Florida who uses a 15" Cimex machine for residential. He uses it to pre-scrub high-end residential accounts and then he goes behind the Cimex with a Steamin Demon. He sell this dual residential service very effectively as "restoration cleaning" and he gets top dollar for it. He also does some encapsulation cleaning on commercial accounts with his Cimex. He's also got a friend in his area who’s using a 15" Cimex machine for residential cleaning. The two of them have said great things about using the machine in a residential setting.
There’s also a fellow out in Washington State who was using GLS machines for residential and commercial cleaning before he discovered the Cimex. He has now switched to the Cimex for commercial encap cleaning. He still likes to use his GLS for residential because his tech is a small woman and he's got the 19” Cimex machine which is big for her to use in houses. However they have used their 19” Cimex on residential jobs and they say it scrubs very well. I’ll e-mail his number to you also.
The Mist & Brush machine doesn’t offer the accessories. If you buy a GLS machine they have the tank and sprayer option that you can buy. If I were going to use the Mist & Brush scrubber I think I’d want to go with a good battery powered sprayer.
For the record, I haven’t normally recommend encapsulation for residential cleaning. I feel encapsulation is best suited for commercial carpet cleaning. However I hear of folks who use the process for residential carpets.
Any of these machines would be a good choice. I still think that residential carpet cleaning is not the best match for encap cleaning. But Danny is doing it successfully in his business - so he's basing his decision on his own experience. That's why my advice to Danny is simply if he’s going to purchase a machine, why not get the one that can accomplish the deepest scrubbing? And since the 75 pound 15” Cimex is being used successfully in homes – that machine would make the most sense IMO.
Or Danny could just do like Tome Rowe and the fellow out in Washington and have both.
Rick Gelinas
