I spent three hours with Peter Holt and Todd Jordan yesterday. It was a nice break from sitting on the phone with pad manufacturers. Peter Holt is the managing director of Truvox in England. Truvox is the new owner and manufacturer of Cimex in England. Todd Jordan is the importer of Cimex in the USA. They paid us a nice vist yesterday afternoon. We went to lunch and they took a look at our humble operation. They're a couple of super guys.

I learned all about Truvox. Their a top-notch manufacturer of equipment. They make machines under the Truvox name which is popular throughout Europe and Australia. They've also been making machines for Nilfisk-Advance, Power-Flite, Hako, and others here in the US. Their manufacturing facility is impeccable (at least from the pictures I saw).

I also learned about the strategy of Truvox toward Cimex. Truvox had been wanting to acquire Cimex for several years. Now that they own this product line they have hopes of developing the brand even further. Since March they've brought the Cimex line fully into the Truvox facility. They brought in some of the old Cimex people to work for Truvox. They really did an excellent job of making a smooth transition with the product line. I can't tell the difference between the new machines and the ones from the previous manufacturer.

I also learned something I didn't know about Cimex. I knew from talking with various people in the industry that the Cimex was at least 50 years old. It turns out I was off by 20 years. The Cimex was first launched in 1933. So the Cimex is now 70 YEARS OLD!

We talked a lot about encapsulation. They wanted to get a better grasp of the encap process since they recognize the potential of the Cimex in this application.

I also urged them to consider working to get mill approval for the machine. The Cimex has been around for 70 years but there's never been a big push by the previous owners to get the machine into the mills. This requires considerable diligence from a machine manufacturer to get their machines tested and mill approved. In some cases it can take years. They agreed that they will consider working to get the Cimex pushed through the mills in the future. But in reality we all know that the Cimex is safe for fiber so this is really kind of a moot point. To be liable for damages to a carpet, there would first need to be PROOF that damage had been caused - and damage to a commercial carpet is simply NOT going to happen with a Cimex (I demonstrated that at Connections).

All in all, I enjoyed spending the afternoon with these gents, I got the strong impression that the future for Cimex is good! We'll see where we stand 70 years from now

Rick Gelinas

So true Rick, Cimex has been cleaning carpets long before any of us ever thought of it. I have been in the business for 35 years and heard about the Cimex back than, have a book written by Dr Eric Brown has a picture of the cimex cleaning wool carpets back in the 70's.
Truvox people are great folks, had a chance to meet Todd a week ago real good business people

Hey Rick,
Could expand on your comment that one cannot dammage commercial carpet with a Cimmex. I proved that at Connections. I'm am interested how you done this?
Thanks.

In our booth at Connections we allowed the Cimex to run on the same spot continuously for hours. I was actually doing this to attract attention as the crowd was walking by. I would turn on the Cimex and let go of the handle and just let it run on the carpet. This GOT PEOPLE's ATTENTION as folks walked by and saw the machine spinning on the carpet with nobody holding the handle. And folks were also impressed to see that this wasn't damaging the fiber.

During normal cleaning the Cimex will come in contact with a square foot of carpet for possibly a second or two. Allowing the Cimex to scrub on the spot for hours would certainly have done damage to the carpet if any damage was going to occur; a rotary floor machine would have shredded the carpet. But there was no damage, nada, zip. There wasn't even any staple fuzz being generated.

The counter-rotating heads are the reason why a Cimex doesn't damage the fiber. As the cleaning heads spin in one direction - the drive deck that their attached to revolves in the opposite direction. So it's turning left and right simultaneously. To put it another way, it's un-spinning as it's spinning. We all would expect that running a scrubbing machine for hours on the exact same spot would result in considerable damage. The fact that there was no damage to the fiber is pretty solid proof that normal cleaning with a Cimex will not do any damage at all. By comparison, in another area at Connections a different style of machine was being demoed that was creating a considerable amount of carpet fuzz.

In conclusion, I'd have to say that damaging a commercial carpet is just about impossible with a Cimex. This was demonstrated for everyone that stopped by our booth at Connections.




Rick Gelinas

We have a commercial account that we have just completed the 52nd cleaning of a main employee entrance with the Cimex machine,[ every week for i year] no visible damage to the carpet, as a matter of fact they where going to replace the carpet about a year ago, but this system has made a dramatic improvement to the appearance of the carpet it looks like replace will be delayed until they do a complete office renovation in 2005.

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the update. That is good info to have.