WOW,

I had the job today where Murphy's Law not only kicked my butt today, but he piledrived me and kicked me while I was down (BUT I AIN'T OUT!!!!!).

Small residential job- 402 Sq Ft- $90.22- HWE cleaning only, no protector (did that 6 months ago).  It is a friend of mine and regular client.  He and his wife left me to clean and went to run errands before Murphy found me- Thank God.

I vacuumed with my Bissell Clearview (best $89 I ever spent).  All is good.  I have the bucket heaters going, the Olympus Portable and RotoVac out and set up.  I begin to prespray and agitate with my Sprint/Punch.

I get one little squirt out of the Sprint and then nothing but brush action.  Turn it off, and check it out.  Turn it back on, can hear the pump working but no fluid.  Pull the hose at the head of the machine- Spurt- fluid everywhere.

Put the hose back, pump sounds, no fluid squirting.  So I decide to get the old pump up sprayer and pre-spray then work it in with the Sprint.  Pump up won't squirt either.  Troubleshoot and remove the small filter in the wand handle- works- YEA.  I can now pre-spray.

However, it seams the outlet that I plugged my bucket heaters into had enough juice to power the light on my power strip/surge protector, but not enough juice to power my bucket heaters- what the heck????  Now I have water that is cooler then from the tap I started with- GREAT!

Go to work it in with the Sprint- brushes don't turn now.  Sprint is deadsville.  Back out to the trailer to the carpet rake- what fun.

Worked in all the luke warm Punch pre-spray.  Go to extract with my RotoVac and Olympus portable.  I am noticing that I am not getting good flow of dirty water through my sight tube attached to my RotoVac- hmmmmm.  Can't get the water up- not good.

Play with it for a minute and discover that my sight tube has come "unglued" and I am losing my seal at the joints and thus my vacuum.  Remove the sight tube.  I have never HWE'd without a sight tube so I am basically cleaning blind.

The carpet still is not popping clean like it always has in the past.  Feel the floor still too wet, for some reason I still don't have good vacuum.

At this point, every piece of equipment I have used has broken (except for the Bissell- cheapest thing I own) so I am just thrilled with my day so far.

It's 4th down and like 25 yards to go so I decide to get the Cimex out.  Mix some DS and in like 10 minutes I am done cleaning.  There was even a spot where she had spilled liquid laundry soap all over the carpet in front of the washing machine.  I really wanted to extract that area- but fate would not allow me.  It cleaned up very nicely with the Cimex/DS though I have to say.

Raked the carpet when done.  The carpet looked the same as when I HWE'd it the last time.  Looked around and have to load all my broken equipment into the trailer to go home and work on it all.

So I survived (and was actually not throwing anything when done either).  But it took over 3 hours in all because of all the breakdowns.  A hard $90.22 there.

Oh yeah did I mention it is 105 here today too????

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

The band on my watch broke on the job too.  That's like adding insult to injury there.

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Wow,

          Not more i can say ....

Makes my day all that better!!

I had a call and they dropped a litre of stain on a wool area rug. She was in tears. What can i do?

I told her to drag it to the drive way, get your hose out and rinse rinse rinse. She called me back with good resaults for the most part.

She asked want next!! i said dry dry dry. This client then asked can you clean it, i said sure i can. well it;s in the drive way. I picked it up cleaned it up. Alot of stain tranfered to the backing so i had to do alot of blotting. It came out well.

No break downs to laugh at later, but hey, I'm sure they will come.

 

your friend

Steve

 

Wow Del,
It's a good thing you had backups..I'm the same way always carry more than you think you will need so you can go to plan B,C,D etc. Murphy's Law has kicked my butt more than once.

Wow Del, what a day! I admire the fact that you kept your head and a good sense of humor. It speaks well of you.

It sounds like the jet on the Sprint is plugged and needs to be cleaned out. I'm not sure why the brushes stopped turning. Did you check the reset switch?

Give me a call on Monday and I'll assist you with it if you need help.

Hang in there and keep smiling







Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Sprint fixed now.

Sight tube glue drying.  WARNING- Do Not get Gorrilla Glue on human hands.

Pump up sprayer back in business too.

Now just have to check out the RotoVac and porty to ensure nothing else wrong with vacuum issues.

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care