I've read hundreds of posts on this great forum but this is my first post.

I've recently took over my father's carpet cleaning business. I have a portable extractor (that I rarely use) floor machine, 15" Cimex, and a 24" Cimex. I also always use Releasit DS.

All his clients were professional offices (doctors, physical therapy etc). These were always very easy and the carpets came out very well.

I needed more business so I started targeting restaurants. I read about every post on this board on doing restaurants and felt I could do it.

The first restaurant I got booked was the most popular mexican restaurant in town! The manager said he normally has the carpets cleaned every 1-2 months but he is not happy. The carpets looked like they were never cleaned! The sludge of grease under the tables was so thick, I could scrape it off.

My game plan going into the job was to vacuum very well, prespray with Punch and then encap with Releasit DS. If this didn't do the trick, I was going to extract it.

I get there and vacuumed the whole place. I moved every table, booth, chair etc... I then filled up my prespay jug and went to start prespraying BUT my prespayer broke! The seal on the plunger went bad!

I said ok... no problem. I remember a post on here about a restaurant where the guy also said his presprayer broke but he did ok anyways...

So I dumped some of the prespray into my 24" cimex along with some strong DS mix.

I started cleaning...

I had the trigger pulled all the way and walked slow but I had NO foam! I always get lots of foam at that speed... I figured that I didn't get any foam because of the anti-foamer in their cooking oil and maybe the other guy that use to clean there used to much anti foamer in his rinse water. Has anyone else had this problem before?

So I did one wet pass followed by 2 dry passes and then overlaped about 1/3.

The very heavy black sludge that was on the carpets, dissapeared!

I was amazed!

I never touched my extractor on the job.

The next morning the manager liked the job and I should be cleaning their carpets every month or so.

Personally, I was hoping to get the carpets a little brighter but I figured that there was so much grease on the carpet that it will take a few times of cleaning them right to get them looking really good.

I kicked myself for not taking my digital camera to the job...

Anyways, my point is that Releasit can clean filthy restaurant carpets!

Michael

congrats Michael.

remember, if you need to remove some excess "slugde", you can do it with your Cimex or Rotary by using the bonnets like Rick sells.

thanx --- Derek.

I would like to see some before and after pictures from anyone that cleans a greasy Mexican restaurant with a Cimex only. We have a Mexican restaurant that we do every 3 months, here is what we go through. First we pre-vac. Then we scrub with the Cimex using Max pads and strong mixture of Punch and DS. Then we spray the carpet down with Grease Eraser boosted with Citrus Solv. Let that dwell, then clean with truck mount at 230 degrees with 400 psi. After all of that the carpet is still not completely clean. I suppose we could post pad but we don't because it would probably ruin any pads that we used and also this is a big restaurant and we are talking a lot of time for the money. So you can see my confusion when I see where someone says they get by in one of these grease pits with a cimex only. Somebody give me some tips, I'm all ears.

Michael and Joe:

all i can say is:

one BIG thing i've learn't from the VLM forum is that:

VLM is always fun and innocent until:

you come on the job where you wanna pull the wand out.

then you can figure out your true worth as a VLM'er.

the true VLM'er will make due WITHOUT his HWE tools and do the job with VLM.

and the true VLM'er will MAKE DUE with his VLM tools.

1 thing i am SLOWLY learning in VLM is, there are SO MANY tools. be it scrubbber or bonnet.

get creative and learn. the reward is SO much more...well...rewarding.

thanx --- Derek.

Edit: Joe and Mike both might need to hear this...

edit #4:

my best advice is to email vlm central over at the VLM forum. this fella (mark Stanley) is very glad to help and has tried it all. this forum, along with the VLM forum has it ALL!!

REGARDS --- Derek.

Hi Michael,

I have a Mexican Restaurant I clean once a month using the cimex. I spoke with the owner and stressed how important a maintenance program was. The first time I cleaned it it took me 6 hours. I had to make 4 dry passes after every wet. I just cleaned it for the 2nd time last week. 3 hours, 1 wet 1 dry pass. $425 job complete. I clean it now the last Friday of every month.



Ralph

what Derek said

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