I know some suggest the Oreck Orbitel for cleaning stairs but it appears to be a little big. I'm I missing something? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

No, for the most part, it fits fine. It may hang over barely, but not enuf to 'not work properly.'
I just dont think that it has the weight to get' down and with it' and that is why i dont use mine much.
personally, i vacuum the hell out of the stairs with my 'backpack vac' since i can't fit my Hoover Conquest on them. That is one piece of equipment that won't fit unfortunately.
Then i usually use a couple of brushes and white towells and do them by hand.
That is my method most of the time.
I am always willing to learn, but also know what works for me.
sometimes we hear the same music, we just dance a little differently.
not worse or better, just different.
nothing wrong with that.
let us know what works for you.
thanks in advance.

Steve


Steve Dobson
ProFloor
Custom Cleaning Services

I've started to use my old T6 HOST machine on stairs. Prevac w/Versamatic, spray w/Realisit, brush. If some visible soil migrates to the surface I lightly vacuum. Steps are done in a fraction of the time.


Dave Bigler
When It Comes to Cleaning - the BIGLER the BETTER!!!

We use Releasit and a GLS. Fits pretty well, but you do have to move it around to get different angles. Did a filthy residential one recently, high pile. Had to do it again with white cloth and extra solution, but came out amazing. If customer wants exact edge/corner done, I find doing it by hand more reliable than trying to fit a machine in.

I wonder if a hand held right angle grinder could be rigged up to work for stairs?? Never tried it but unfortunately for me we get plenty of requests to do stairs on condo buildings, so we'll get plenty of practice, no doubt.

Thought about buying an orbiter from Oreck, but I don't see much other use for it and I tend to like to buy multi purpose machines.

Since you already own a GLS you can do stairs with one of the brushes and get into the corners quite well.
Simply remove the brush and shaft from the GLS, put it in a 1/2inch drill (preferably one with an electric line, otherwise you'll always be replacing batteries) and experiment. Use a drill with reverse and you can do all parts of the stair, including the face and get all sides of the carpet fiber.
Note - a 3/8 in drill is not big enough. It won't take the shaft, the chuck is too small.

you can use a right angle grinder/polisher for stairs. Mine is variable speed. I ordered a brush from braun company and it does a great job especially on the front edge of the stairs where it is the most soiled. If you get one you will need to run it on concrete for a few minutes to break it in.

I also use it on office chair arms that are badly soiled on the edges and welts to work in the prespray, then extract. Saves a ton of time.

If you're going to use a polisher get one that is 1) quiet, a lot of the cheap ones are very noisy, and 2)able to hold one of Rick's carpet cleaning pads. A lot of polishers are the perfect size for the pads. You can also use a polisher along baseboards (not so easy if they're the oscillating kind).
You'll find the pads work better than the brushes.
p.s. When I talk about holding one of the pads I mean that the face of the polisher has the grippy hooks that hold the pads - just like the Cimex holds the pads.

more information - the polisher to hold the pads should be the one with a 7 inch face, using Cimex pads 7 3/4inch wide (standard ones for Cimex).
The polisher should have variable speed, probably one that will gear down to at least 400rpm.

i wouldn't buy an Oreck just for stairs. i would do one of two things :

1) buy a hand-held polisher/buffer as the guys are talking about above. US Products sells one just for Upholstery & Steps. Gary Heacock uses one just for this and uses FiberPlus pads with it. he has posted on this forum about it.

http://www.usproducts.com/toolsaccesories.html

2) pull 1 pad driver off of your Cimex and put a FP pad on it. pre-spray some RTU Releasit on the steps then manually scrub the steps with the pad driver / FP pad (as someone here previously mentioned).

another way i was thinking of doing this is, instead of spraying the Releasit onto the carpet, get a bucket with about 1 gallon of RTU Releasit in it, put a glove on and dip the pad driver / FP pad in it and then scrub. i will be doing some chairs for a commercial account soon and that is what i am going to try.

thanx --- Derek.

Derek's post about a glove got me to thinking. Among the gifts I got for my birthday was a car washing mitt- wax etc included. But this mitt was a thick fleecy one. I wonder if that would work on stairs? Anybody try it? I am gonna throw it in the truck, and give it a shot on the next stair job I have.

AANNNDDD.... today's big job was done with my tm HWE. A tough set of stairs. Not curved exactly, but each step was at an angle to the above one, and that made a 90 degree turn in the whole flight. Ugly, in my opinion, but I don't haveta live there. Anyway, they were filthy. The stair nose was the kind that stick out an inch or so, you know what I mean. One of my toys is a Hugger tool from Magic Wand. I call it a Nose Cleaner. Boy, did that whip the nose clean. POW!! A clean nose!! I certainly recommend this tool for this purpose. In my opinion, nothing beats it for HWE stairs nose cleaning.

Couldn't use the regular stair tool because of the angles, so I used my gun and plastic hand furniture vac for the step and riser. It's good to have lotsa weapons in your arsenal!!

Gary