Rick, I am seriously thinking about getting a Sprint, but just have not pulled the trigger yet. I think you have mentioned before that you would be formulating a Tile and Grout prespray that would be designed for it? Is this still in the works? I may be getting alot of tile and grout to maintain on a quarterly basis and was wondering if the sprint would be good for this. I also plan on using it to prespray and scrub before HWE on residentials, and figure it will work great with punch for that. Maybe your March special should be Sprint oriented. (hint hint)

Howdy Tracy,

I'd love to tell you that the Sprint is the end all of tile and grout restoration tools - but that would be overstating its purpose. The Sprint is an excellent tile & grout cleaning machine for tile and grout maintenance. For daily cleaning of T&G it's the bomb. And it could probably be used for some light restoration with a potent cleaner and some dwell time. But it's not heavy enough for true restoration of T&G.

The heavy duty tile & grout cleaner we've been working on is on hold. Why? Because I can't really see a benefit to producing it. Do I have you confused yet? Let me explain. I had two T&G guys do some testing on the prototypes of our heavy duty T&G cleaner. Guess what they told me? It works great --- but then they both added --- so does FLOOR STRIPPER. Maybe I shouldn't have had guys test it that do a lot of floor stripping. So here's the question. Do you want to use my expensive cleaner formulated for T&G cleaning, or would you prefer to use a dirt cheap floor stripper that works just as well? It all comes down to what makes the most sense for you the customer. My advice would be to go buy yourself some rinse-free floor stripper. Mix it as directed and let it soak on the floor. Scrub with stiff brushes. And rinse the floor with a SPINNER type tool.

Now for your last question about using the Sprint to pre-scrub before residential HWE cleaning. YES! That's a perfect application. There are a number of cleaners using the Sprint now to apply their pre-spray with the Sprint prior to HWE cleaning. And if you're using Encap-Punch, you wouldn't need to wand the entire carpet, you can just wand the more soiled and more heavily trafficked areas (several cleaners are doing this now). That enables you to HWE clean the wanded areas more easily because of the added agitation. And you don't necessarily need to wand the less soiled sections of the carpet, which saves you additional time. You can even run back over the wanded carpet with the Sprint to groom it when you're finishing up. Some cleaners are also applying their Soileze protector with the Sprint. And then as you're leaving the job you can say to the home owner - "Mrs. Jones, I can clean your ceramic tile foyer for free as a way of saying thank you for your business today" (this will take less than 5 minutes and it's a nice little perk for the customer).


There ya have it






Rick Gelinas
encapman

Thanks Rick! I am definintly adding a CRB to my arsenal soon. I currently have a TM, Cimex, and a 175. Just having trouble deciding if I want the Sprint or Pilemaster. Thanks for the info on the tile cleaner. I currently just use viper venom so I may give rinse free striper a shot.

the rinse free stripper ain't a big secret. chlorinated degreaser and a couple peroxide products from Spartan Chemical work very good as well.

I have a port-a-scrub from Minuteman Intl, basically the same machine and it's a great tool to have in your box.

DAnny