how many square feet should the pads last on the Cimex? it seems i'm going through them pretty fast. i noticed they really wear out in the center of the pad. i'm being sure that i see white film on my passes, so i believe i'm leaving enough cleaner down. what could i be doing wrong (if anything)?

it varies quite a bit for me....depends on a few things such as amount of soil which means more passes whether dry or wet, which means more wear on the pads.

Forest, did you make sure you cleaned out the Cimex solution lines as Rick explained on this thread last week? http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=228309&messageid=1097518444

that has helped my pads to last longer.

then read this thread that was posted last week about this topic of holes in center of pads : http://www.network54.com/Forum/thread?forumid=228309&messageid=1097637898

hope it helps --- Derek.

yeah, i cleaned out my solution lines (they weren't even clogged at all)... i must be going over the areas quite a bit without realizing it.

We found that on larger jobs, especially if the carpet is not very soiled, that they last a good long time.

But if we do a small job, esp. a small residential job, we will not really 'use them up' when done. But we hate to bring soil from the last house to the next house - so we start with brand new ones, even if the old ones are still usable. That's the only situation where they last very few square feet.

But if I felt that were a financial problem, a few bucks more on the charge for service would handle it. (Well, sir, we could bring clean equipment and new pads to your property, or for $8 less, we could bring the older, sorta dirty ones.....you pick!)

good idea about using new pads Clay. dont forget to keep the "dirtier" used ones that still have plenty of life...they can be used on those BIG commercial acct's.

thanx --- Derek.

I have found that my company averages 10,000 sq ft per set of pads. We clean at 2K-3K sq ft per hour. So your numbers may be different if you're cleaning slower. Also, different textures of carpet will wear the pads at varying speeds, so it's impossible to give concrete numbers. I guess the best way to look at it is that you should average approximately 5 hours of run time per set of pads.

Let's crunch the numbers...

A box of 15 pads costs $30.
And a box will clean an average of 50,000 sq ft.
Now if we charge just 9 cents per sq ft - we'll generate $4500 with that $30 investment in pads. And if for whatever reason you were to arrive at even half that lifespan with your pads, you'd still make $2250 with your $30 box of pads. Not a bad return on your investment.




Rick Gelinas

Rick I think you hit it right on the head. Five hours of run time seems to be the magic number. From there it depends how much square feet you can per hour.

Kevin Pearson