I am giving a final proposal to a school system tomorrow. They have 190,000 sq. ft. total in all buildings. A few of the custodians want to know where the dirt goes. Their HWE system is leaving a musty odor and teachers are complaining. They are having problems understanding the concept. The administration is very supportive and I believe I will be awarded the contract. However I need the support of all custodians to be successful. Many times custodians run the school.

If I can tell the custodians how many sq. ft. of CGD is being maintained by a cimex/releasit system per year across the nation if will be helpful to win them over. So.. How many sq. ft. per year are you using releasit on commercial carpet?
Thanks for your help.
Jamie

Jamie, I know this doesn't answer your question, but Rick posted some info a few months back re: mold reduction in similar settings using encap. Seems like that info would arm you better to tackle this one, along with more information.

Kevin Kluth
Pinnacle Cleaning
www.dryinonehour.com
www.fullerdirect.com/0704120

Thanks Kevin. I'll do a search for it.
Jamie

Explain the two different types of soil: Dry and Sticky.

Dry soil is eliminated by vacuuming.

In Hot Water Extraction the sticky soil is broken down and removed during extraction and taken away at that time.

With Encapsulation the sticky soil is broken down then encapsulated and turned into a dry soil which is then removed by routine, scheduled, vacuuming.

They will see immediate results with the Encapsulation Cleaning and even improved results with more vacuuming. That is also why Encapsulation can be done at a lower cost as it is less labor intensive.

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Hi Jamie:

As a Canadian distributor for Releasit/Cimex, I have sold a tremendous amount of Cimex's to Schools in Canada. Both the school administrators and custodians are singing its praises. When we did the trade show for the school administators, several came up to me to shake my hand and couldn't say enough good things about it. In a lot of the public schools in Canada, the carpets are done in house. The have spent huge amounts of money buying expensive truckmounts, trying to do the best job possible. But they still had huge complaints from the teachers. Some of the problems were drying issues, others were chemical and moldy smells. In one school they thought they were growing a lawn due to a thick crop of fresh mold growing on the carpet. ( Now thats got to be healthy, especially since it was in a kindergarten classroom.)

Anyways, they told me that ever since they had started using the system, 2 years earlier at that point, he didn't have to deal with a single complaint related to carpet cleaning.

You think those administrators were happy


Rick Thode
rick@bclean.ca
Canadian distributor of Releasit/Cimex Products

Jamie-

I would print out the preceding reply and give it to the decision makers. Sounds pretty authoritative to me.

Kevin Kluth
Pinnacle Cleaning
www.dryinonehour.com
www.fullerdirect.com/0704120

Jamie,

We don't publish the total sq ft of carpet cleaned with Releasit. Keep in mind, our competition would be very interested in knowing how much Releasit we are moving in a year, and if we published square footage - simple math would easily indicate how much detergent we sell.

However here are some things I will say:
Releasit successfully cleans BILLIONS of square feet of carpet each year.
It is extremely popular in the USA, Canada, and Australia.

What I would be focusing on with the custodians is RESULTS.

Make a list of pros and cons for HWE/steam.
Make another list of pros and cons for Releasit/Cimex.
It's not very difficult to demonstrate CLEARLY that HWE falls terribly short on CGD carpet.
And it's not difficult to demonstrate CLEARLY that encap EXCELS on CGD carpet.

Next demonstrate the system for them.
Clean a BUSY hallway - one side with Releasit, the other side with their HWE system.
The Releasit side WILL blow the HWE side away!

You might also mention that some of the major carpet mills have their own branded versions of encapsulation.
Shaw has R2X, Collins & Aikman has Syon-5, Dupont/Invista has Resistech. If encap wasn't effective technology, would these mills have their own versions of it?

Explain to the custodian that you are a professional cleaner, and you keeps abreast of changes in the cleaning industry. This new technology is successfully cleaning MILES of square feet of carpet all over the world on a daily basis. It is superior for cleaning CGD carpet under just about every possible condition. And because you CARE about providing the BEST possible service, you will be bringing this new technology to work to clean their carpets.

And lastly, acknowledge that if their HWE system was working as it should be, the school administration would not be looking for an alternative. You have the alternative! So now the custodian can step back and relax. Groundskeeper Willie can now focus on what he's good at - replacing light bulbs, mowing the grass, mopping the floors, cleaning the toilets, and keeping Bart from blowing up the school.





Hope it goes well for you!

Rick Gelinas
encapman

That should have just about kept your stuff out of any school where the janitors read this board. After working at a school 3 years, I know that thier not limited by thier knowlage, but from what equipment you can talk a school board into buying that you can use. If its a choice to rebuild the football field or buy a autoscrubber/cimex/anything else, you can bet the football field will be done. While they're cleaning toilets and changing lightbulbs, they're laughing at the doofuss in the wifebeater pickin his nose while running a cimex with the other hand. Remember a school could go alot longer w/o thier carpet being cleaned than w/o what the janitors do ever single day after your spoiled little brats have been there.
Just a heads up on what the world looks like from the other side
BTW thats why I quit 6 years ago!

Brian Vanous

Sorry Brian,

I have to apologize for my sense of humor. The remarks above were intended as tongue in cheek sarcasm over the fact that a good cleaning decision could be forfeited on account of the custodian. It would be purely foolish to consider that a janitor with a piece of junk portable could come close to the Cimex/Releasit system. It's laughable that that type of mentality is going into the decision making. That was the meaning behind what I said. No offense intended to you or any other person who has ever worked as a custodian. Just for the record... I started my first business (Pioneer Building Maintenance) back in 1982 - so you could say I've been in and around janitorial/custodial care all of my adult life. Peace out.



Rick Gelinas
encapman

yes i was a turd technician for 13 years. i always made fun of it. if ya can't laugh at cleaning toilets than what can ya laugh at.

the only term i could never say was "janitor"...ewww i still hate that word

I even cleaned a few toilets for Derek so he could go to the Caribbean a few years back...those were the days, right Derek?

Kevin Kluth
Pinnacle Cleaning
www.dryinonehour.com
www.fullerdirect.com/0704120

hey yea, i remember. that was back in '94, the last time we got a week off . i remember Eric Brewer helping out with that to i think. that was a wonderful week in CanCun.



yea the good old days. i sure don't miss them

glad you had a hand in my getting in this biz Kev!

have a great weekend all --- Derek.

For any of you who are not familliar with Groundskeeper Willie...



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Groundskeeper William "Willie" K. MacMorhan (a.k.a. G. K. Willington, Esq.) is a fictional character on The Simpsons, voiced by Dan Castellaneta. He is head groundskeeper at Springfield Elementary School. Willie is a Scottish immigrant, and immensely proud of his homeland. He is easily identifiable by his flaming red hair and beard, as well as his exaggerated Scottish accent. His alias was invented by Lisa Simpson in episode "My Fair Laddy" from season 17.

Willie is a stereotypical Highland Scot, and The Times reported in late 2005 that "he is the most instantly recognizable Scot in the world: better known than Billy Connolly or Ewan McGregor, even Sean Connery." The same article quotes Simpsons creator Matt Groening as saying "We wanted to create a school janitor that was filled with rage, sort of our tribute to angry janitors all over the world".








Rick Gelinas
encapman

I to am as of now a full time school janitor been one for the past five sad years of my life (or as our school calls us Custodians) because I have a boiler lic. The poor slobs that dont have one are called cleaners. And make less money. Our school does not use the term janitor.

Janitor: French word meaning gate keeper. Many years ago this would be the guy who controled the draw bridge or main gate to the castle. I guess one day someone got pissed off at the guy and said hey king your gate keeper(janitor) is standing there with his thumb in his ass and I have to clean the horse barn. So the king said give that guy a broom and he will now sweep when there is no one at the door.

And remember if you are a teacher, never piss off your janitor. I can tell you some stories. Janitors do get revenge.

I wasn't being pissy, just reminding you that as a carpet cleaner, your no better than the pot scrubber, floor sweeper, window washer, or anything else. I always figured I was just there doing my job like the teachers, principles, or anybody else. If ya don't think of yourself as any lower than the rest, they won't treat ya that way either. I was the "door keeper" HA HA to the suppliers that sold to the school, and I'll tell ya, after a day of cleaning boilers, fixing a plugged pot or mopping 5 miles of snow tracked hallways for the 3rd time, any body who showed up in thier pressed khackies, polo shirt and loafers, and was gonna tell me about how good they were, got showed the door. BTW, why would the "janitors" want to give up the gravy job of cleaning carpet? that was one of jobs ya looked forward to.

Brian
Chillin out at minus 10 in Iowa

i never heard or seen the Simpson's character. Ewan McGregor i know.

LOL, Joe. i like that definition!

good thread, we all work hard on this forum.

have a rgeat weekend all --- Derek.