I am in Florida and we have been hard hit with water shortages during the past decade. So the post below about water usage for HWE cleaning got me thinking about overall water consumption with various methods of cleaning. It seems the average listed below fell somewhere around 40 gallons of water for HWE cleaning a 3 bedroom house. That got me curious so I did a little research and learned that an average household washing machine consumes about 40 gallons of water. Hence washing a load of bonnets/pads apparently consumes about the same amount of water as HWE cleaning. I thought that was an interesting comparison because encap requires about 5 gallons to clean a similar amount of carpet (1,500 sq ft). I'm wondering if cleaning with less water will become more of a concern in the future as water conservation efforts become more prominent around the country.









Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

How many gallons of water does a Cimex use to clean three bedrooms ??

Cheers,

Shorty

Shorty,
Encap cleaning would use about 5 gallons of water for that amount of carpet.

P.S. I'm not trying to ruffle feathers or start an argument about methods. Just raising a thought about the issue of water consumption and how it might affect the way we clean in the future.







Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Hey Rick, you not going to sell many Challengers or Ventos posting truthful info like that.

Yes, Mr. Customer the Challenger is a great machine, but when you wash a load of pads your going to use about 40 gal of water.

Rick, You need to stop being such a nice guy and being so damm truthful. LOL

We have had all our rivers at flood stage for sometime now
and they are not going down any time soon our water resivors are at some of the highest levels I have seen in a while, guess we have some Of Ricks water up here after all the earth has the same amount of water on it or in its atmosphere as it always has the water just shifts around.

With that info I might as well HWE instead of padding I get to use the customers water that way, or use the commercial washing machines at some of the places we do instead of bringing the dirty stuff home.

the new front loaders use about 1/2 that if my appliance guy was straight with me???

i'd looked into the same thing not long back...

a front loader uses 40-60% less water though... and now there is something you can use that nixes the need for bleach, hot water, or detergent.

Yes Joe, I know that what I posted flies in the face of 2 machines I sell. I'm just making an observation, nothing more. Trying to find ways to reduce water consumption and reduce waste water disposal makes good environmental sense IMHO. I think that is something worth pursuing.

Truth be told, I am concerned about water consumption. I'll tell you a story that made me scratch my head and say huh. I was in Dalton Georgia one time, home of the carpet industry. Dalton is the carpet manufacturing capitol of the world. And why is that? Water. It all started with water. It takes a lot of water to make rugs, and that's how the carpet industry began. Long story short - Dalton has plenty of water! So I'm in Dalton and I went into Kroger's, and sitting there on the shelf is Zephyrhills brand bottled water. Now Zephyrhills Florida is located right smack in the middle of some of the driest area in our region. And yet the Zephyrhills water company produces bottled water in Zephyrhills. And they then ship it up to Dalton Georgia where there is plenty of water. Go figure, how stupid is that? Or take for instance yesterday at Connections - the Clearwater Beach Hilton was serving bottled water that was imported from Italy. Italy! How wasteful is it to ship water half way around the globe? Putting shortsighted profit ahead of the interest of our planet doesn't make sense to me.







Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Hey Rick, keep talking about water conservation but also start selling these new front loader washing machines. They use about a fourth of the water of regular washing machines, and clean twice as many pads as a regular washer also. So there you go, talk conservation, sell OPs and pads. I won't even charge you for that sweet piece of advice. (but a free case of Punch would be nice.)

No Rick it was the bottle that was from Italy. Some guy in the Hilton kitchen named Jose was filling it with a garden hose and selling it as water from Italy.

Hey Joe,

We have enough SKU's without adding washing machines to the list LOL

Actually we are not selling a lot of cotton pads, even though we're selling the Ventos at a rapid clip. So how are our customers using the Ventos? Sure, some of them are being used for OP pad cleaning, but a lot of our customers are using them for bonnet-capping. Bonnet-capping doesn't use nearly as many pads/bonnets as traditional OP pad cleaning. A couple of the Thin-One bonnets will cover a pretty good sized area doing bonnet-capping.

















Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Imagaine a 5 gallon water container from Zephyrhills on top of your cimex. As long as they keep making that cool spring water, Florida will never run short.

The carpet industry got started in Dalton, Ga., because it grew out of the chenille bedspread cottage industry, The road from Chatanooga, Tn. to Atlanta came thru Dalton and women would hand tuft bedspreads, hang them on a line and sell them to the motorist passing thru the area. I remember as a teenager going with my mother to purchase chenille bedspreads from these women. My mother spent most of the day as we went from home to home to get just the right ones for us and all the relatives. I guess that is the reason to this day I hate shopping. The first carpet mill was Evans mill that grew out of the tufting machine that Cathrine Evans Whitefield and her brother had to speed up the process of hand tufting all of these chenille bedspreads. The area covered about 60 miles around Dalton for the selling of these bedspreads and was huge, around 10000 women doing this until the peak in the 1950s. That is the reason the carpet industry headquarters is located in the Dalton area. I respectfully don't believe water had anything to do with the location.

Ray is correct though I never realized he was such an old coot - must be close to 80 to be a teen in the 40's, lol. Dalton was a good spot as it was right on the way from wealthy northern cities to northern florida where folks like Flager spent their winters.

However, Rick is also correct in that there is large amounts of water without which the bedspread cottage industry could never have grown into what it is to-day. Final factor was the good supply of white Georgia clay which was needed for mixing with latex to bond the carpet backings together.

Cheep electricity was another factor in the industry staying there according to Shaw and C&A.

Any where but KanaDUH!!!

BTW Danny, Dalton is the largest single user of electricity in the state of Georgia.

Tony, we have Georgia "red" clay here, none white. And that is not what they use in making latex. They use Georgia "marble dust" (which by the way is white)in the latex and we have plenty of it in this state. Stone Mountain just outside of Atlanta is the largest outcroping of marble in the United States. I am not as old as you think, but I am the oldest full time Carpet Cleaner in the state of Georgia and I was a teenager in the 40's. I was a 13 year old in 1949, go figure. I love this business and have no plans for retirement (BTW, retirement is not Biblical) I now try to work only 5 days a week,and am working down to four day weeks. I'm off today and just got back from the golf course. I have three grandchildren working in the business and we only hire women on our larger jobs. CCing is the least stressful thing I have ever done and it pays very well too. Why would you want to quit something like that.

Tony, Ray is right, ( not Wheelwright ).

Ray is not old.

Crikey, he is the same age as my ex;

What a lot of changes you two must have seen over the years, and stories to tell.

Wasn't there a song about sweet Georhia clay ??

Cheers,

Shorty.

Ray, I have seen miles and miles of red georgia clay and thanks for setting me straight about the white marble dust - someone was bs'ing me
I think it was Danny. Your great age explains why you can drink Odin under the table, lol.
Who said anything about retiring, as you say its a great business and like you, I enjoy the grandkids and doing specialty work and inspections which I can do with a walker if I ever need one.

"we only hire women on our larger jobs." What kind of equipment do they run for you and why only woman, not that I disagree with that, just curious.

ps You're older than I thought but since age is a state of mind it don't much matter - just look at Shorty.

Thank you Shorty. Tony, we mainly run Cimexes (15" and 19") and GLS (15" and 20") Women are more detail oriented, easier to manage, are plentiful, Do not complain about the pay as much, show up on time, are more dependable, and easier on my eyes. I am not a sexist, just old school. If you want to see a recent picture of me just go on my web site. www.moodyscarpetcare.com

Ray is one heck of a nice guy to talk to. We had a good talk a few days ago over the phone.

I learned a lot in that 30 min phone call.

Thanks Ray,
you're not nearly as scary to look at Shorty, lol....

Just questioning the 40 gallons of pad cleaning water per 3-bedroom house assertion. The number of pads used to do the job will vary, of course, depending upon the soil load in the carpets. But in any event, it is unlikely that it will ever be necessary to use 40 gallons of water after EVERY 3-bedroom house. You might well do 3 such houses before accumulating a load of pads to wash out. There is still water consumption involved, but hardly the volume suggested originally.