New to business, wife and I purchased an existing business about 6 months ago. Business has always HWE EVERYTHING. We are looking to change that, and offer our customers other alternatives. Right now mostly residential, with a few good size churches w/ gathering rooms attached, and a couple small retail shops. Would like to expand more in commerical, but using one wand it seems it takes too long. I like the idea behind the CCS op machine, which allows you to do encap, pad, grout/tile, decks, brick walkways, vct. I would like to buy one machine for multi uses. Which machine would be the best fit, Cimex,X2,CCS op,challenger. It seems that this forum has many knowledgable people with alot of info, it would be appreciated. Also looking for some sample contracts. Thanks for the info.

JayandJillWhite

Your goal about expanding your commercial market makes sense to me. It can be more profitable when you're using encapsulation.

If you want a machine that will do "encap, grout/tile, decks, brick walkways, vct" the Cimex is the monster scrubber - it's in a class by itself. The Cimex is also the fastest in this lineup - it can encap clean at 2K-3K sq ft per hour.

The X2 is a nice alternative since it's lighter and smaller and will encap carpets very well. It will work as a pre-scrubber for your residential jobs. The X2 can be used as a pile lifter vacuum if you attach a back back vac. And it can clean "grout/tile, decks, brick walkways" very nicely too.

An OP machine won't do a very great job on VCT. The CCS or the Challenger are both good machines. I'd buy the Challenger because I like that company better.

I hope this gives you some help. I'm sure others will also add their thoughts. If you'd like to pick my brain (for whatever it's worth - LOL) just give me a holler 1-800-330-1888.




Rick Gelinas

Welcome Jay to the wonderful world of carpet cleaning!

I've personally been in the business for 22 years now and am IICRC certified to the ying-yang. Up until about 3 years ago, you could give me low moisture cleaning. I had seen a lot of systems come and go and that kind of put my head in the sand to new idea. If it wasn't truck mount cleaned, it wasn't clean.

Boy did I ever have my eyes opened. I can say that in the past 2 years I could probably count on my fingers the amount of times that our truck-mount has moved.

I've always said, if I had to start my cleaning business all over again, I would get, Releasit/Cimex, 1st Envrio Safety Any Floor 123/Challenger Orbital, and probably now Releasit/X2 and laugh all the way to the bank. You'll have almost no overhead, no truck-mount maintenance, you'll take in $100 -$200/hr of which it's almost all profit if your doing it yourself. You'll clean 90% of the carpeting out there to look as good or better than the guys that got a ton of cash tied up in a truck-mount. And the odd job that you know would be better serviced by a truck-mount, you could be a true professional and well respected for refering someone you know that runs a truck-mount and does a quality job. And I'll tell you honestly, there are VERY few that fit in this catagory. But you already have an extractor, so you have that covered too.

As you expand into Low moisture cleaning, I would suggest expansion in this order.
1) Releasit/Cimex System and you'll be the most awesome commercial cleaner and most profitable.
2) Challenger pad system with 1st Envrio Safety's "Carpet 123" & "Dirt Delete" for all your residential. I have both the CCS 3/4 hp. machine and Challenger 3/4 hp machines in our shop and all our guys prefer working with the Challenger. It's smoother operating, has fewer finicky parts like cables, etc. And considerably less expensive.

The neat thing about this expansion is that it will cost you very little and let you quadruple your production and get rid of most of your extraction headaches.

Feel free to call me as well if you have any questions and I'll be glad to give you my 2 cents worth. Of course you will have already talked to Rick G. and he will have given his whole dollars worth, so I'll just be redundant. LOL.

Rick Thode
Releasit/Cimex Canada
(403) 526-2776
rick.thode@cleaneffects.ca

I have the ccs site but can u guys steer me toward the challenger site. Thanks.

BRad

The Challenger website
http://www.challengerop.com/





Rick Gelinas

welcome Jay as Rick G mentioned, the Cimex is the way to go if you want a commercial machine that can clean carpets and other things like VCT. i use mine mostly for CC'ing, but have used it for stripping VCT and it works superbly.

keep us posted on your decision Jay.

thanx --- Derek.