I have the good fortune of cleaning for a major retail store chain.. I have 38 stores in New England with mostly carpet, some VCT and ceramic tile and lots of free standing book shelves. I need to be able to clean approx. 10,000-20,000 sq ft of carpet in time for it to dry for the store opening. This is a set time based on the store closing (11pm) and the time people will be back in to walk on the carpet (8am). My planned procedure is something like this:
1) Vacuum, 3-4 men for an hour (?) then split guys off to start the Cimex machines. Vacuuming to continue until complete with one man.
2) Two Cimex machines at approx 2500 sq ft per hour I can be done in 2-4 hours with 10,000 to 20,000 sq feet. That should leave me with plenty of drying time. Two machine operators and one person laying out buckets of water and working on VCT, ceramic tile in between.

So the first thing is:
A) Do you think my carpet production rate is too high?
B) I plan on Vacuuming rates of 2000-3000 sq feet an hour using 17 inch Powerflight vacs, does this sound like a reasonable production??


That takes me to my next issue. I love Encap cleaning but the retailors dont vacuum unless there are dead bodies laying on the carpet. In my perfect world...once a year I would do some HWE or some type of rinse on the entrances and high traffic areas (carpet at entrance to receiving, carpet in front of hallway to restrooms, etc), but I am worried about drying times.

So the second issue is:
A) I want a good plan to achieve some type of extraction or removal process for my once a year restorative work. The retailors do not vacuum. The Cimex will do great to move the dirt, once a year I need to get some POST SCRUBBING dirt pick up of some kind. I am not interested in a truck ount yet so my equipment/process must be portable. The carpet must dry in 2-3 hours max no matter what the conditions are( IE: Humidity, HVAC tunred off,ETC). This is a big box store chain.

I was looking at a HWE portable. Do a prespray, HWE probably with an Encap, then since I will already have Cimex machines I can have the Cimex scrub accross the extracted carpet with no additional liquid. This is only in the highest traffic areas, in the New England states, once a year only. Must dry in 2-3 hours max no matter what.

Well that gets me started...........give me your thoughts please.

Paul,

congrats on that account. awesome! So is this a once a month cleaning , a quarterly? I have an account not quite as big but its a monthly. I mex it with max pads. But before that I use conquest to Vacuum thoroughly. its a high traffic place.

At any rate I began to OP it every so often after mexing (Highest traffic areas) Takes a little more time but it works for me. And it works great. My magnify glass tells me so. Its Glue-down very tight looped carpet. One other thing i suggest, Don't skimp on the vacuuming do a nice thorough one. Even using a pile lifter on the higher traffic areas for your restorative work.

pile lifter (X-VAC)
Mex
OP
GREAT COMBO!


Al Taylor

To find fault is easy. To do better may be difficult.

HI Al, I will have two partial cleanings a year (power isles/no hard surfaces) and two full cleanings a year (all carpet/tile/vct).
I am looking more into OP, I wanted to do hot water extraction of some of the major walk areas but I just dont want the extra dry times or fans to set up.
So as a restorative, do you Cimex with liquid, then OP to scrub and dry or do you use more liquid with the OP?
I am thinking about Cimex the whole store for a full cleaning, and then some use of OP on the major walk areas instead of wet extraction. I was just not sure if your OP after the Cimex was presprayed or anything?
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PRODUCTION SQUARE FOOTAGE IS FOR THE X-VAC? IT MIGHT BE TOO SLOW FOR THE ENTIRE STORE EVEN IF i HAD MORE THAN ONE?. I USUALY USE 3-4 POWER FLIGHT 17 INCH MACHINES.
Thanks for your input!

Paul,

Have you ever considered doing you vacuuming with a Pyle Lifter? If you were to do your vacuuming with the Kleenrite X Vac then you would have optimal dry soil and polymer removal. This would enable you to do the Encapsulation low moisture method for a longer duration of time before needing Hot Water Extraction.

http://www.excellent-supply.com/X-Vac-Pile-Lifter_p_133.html

One great machine to consider is the Steamin Demon, it deliver high volume extraction with great dry time!

http://www.excellent-supply.com/Steamin-Demon-XL-20-Carpet-Extractor_p_266.html

We routinely clean 10,000 sf in a church in about 2.5 to 3 hours with two Cimex's and three guys. The third guy is the furniture mover, refill guy.

Kevin, wow 3300+ sq ft/hr is very cool!
How about the time to prevacuum?
I was looking at the larger Cimex, some of my green carpeted retail store is open space, some is book isle, and some can be tight around displays but it should all be handicapped accessable.
Thanks Kevin

Hello Drew, I like the idea of the X-Vac, any experiance with its sq FT/Hr production rate?
Do you have experiance with the Steamin Demon? Watching the videos its hard to belive I can be sure its 3 hourts or less to perfectly dry with the equipment? I would have to use a portable to feed and drain it.
Thanks Drew

You can always throw on some "bonnet-green stripe pads" to post pad w/ the mex or if you have a few op units.Air movers too.Combine/alternate any combo with Hwe,encap,ect..

Sounds like a nice account Paul. Congratulations!

I have done LARGE book stores too. The Cimex / Releasit system is awesome on an account like this.

I think your plan of running the Cimex at 2,500 sq ft per hour in a large retail setting like this is accurate - (I've done it a lot myself). There's no reason why you should get any less than that if you have an extra person getting water.

Doing a good pre-vacuuming with the X-Vac or a decent commercial upright will take you nearly as much time as the actual Cimex cleaning. So my advice would be to really focus some extra attention vacuuming the entry areas, the power aisles, and areas around the back-room and restrooms - and try to hustle on the lower traffic areas.

Yes, you could add HWE to the mix. In fact periodic HWE is recommended by the carpet mills. And in a perfect world that's a fine idea. But you are not working in a perfect world. There will be many constraints working against you. So if you do choose to implement HWE - make sure you can do it efficiently, and also avoid wicking issues and get quick dry times. It will be a challenge, but it can be done. Post-bonneting the HWE areas and using fans will help to achieve better results.

Another alternative would be to perform much less HWE cleaning, and add some OP cleaning or bonnet cleaning to the mix. With OP or bonnet cleaning you can get some extra low moisture soil extraction. You can have a person running an OP or rotary machine with a bonnet right behind the Cimex machine in order to lift some additional soil. You obviously won't extract as much soil as you would with HWE, but the post-bonneting method will pull some additional soil.

Hope this gives you some food for thought. These kinds of accounts can be very profitable. I've done several the big bookstores in the past, and there's good money to be made. So I wish you success! If you want to pick my brain I'll be happy to help any way I can. Feel free to shoot me an email if you'd like.









Rick Gelinas

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Ive gone to the local big box book stores, and they basically told me its "done thru corporate"...and their store has coffee spills everywhere! I would blow them away with the cimex but cant even get my foot in the door....

How did you get this one?

Thanks

Joe

Big accounts like this often come from another relationship. I do other work for this company and it let me in to be considered for carpet cleaning.
Wish I had a magic formula but its not what you know, but who you know on accounts this size.
Good luck in your ventures

Many times these big stores deal with one company for their cleaning and maintenance needs, this company then takes their cut and hires out subs to do geographic routes.

Retail Maintenance, Custom Services, City Wide, Horizons US Maintenance just to name a few.


Also DWM which is Pauls reply to email address.
http://www.dwminc.com/Home.aspx
http://www.dwminc.com/Staff.aspx?id=3

David

You got it perfectly right David, I already sub out carpet cleaning in several states. I have a choice to sub out or self perform so we decided to self perform in the region closest to where I am in Albany NY.
Getting the contract for this work is very much who you know.
However you are 100% correct, I already have a service contract for several other stores in different states the led me to my self performing some of the work.

Thanks David

Another idea is to split each store into 12 sections & HWE one section each time you visit so that at the end of the year the whole store received an HWE

After much thought and allot of help from Rick I know I can handle the stores needs with just agressive vacuuming and Encap cleaning. I can add some cleaning value with some spins of a damp bonnett in the traffic areas.
HWE is just to slow and complicated for the speed I need.
I am working on equipment to do something like the following:

Pile lift and vac (X-Vac?) the power isles/main traffic issue areas (Once a year or as possable).
The rest of the store will be commercial up right vacs that can work with some speed.
Cimex all the carpet
Damp bonnett or cotton pad and OP machine the major walkways once a year if possable.

Along with the carpets I still have some VCT (strip and wax) and stone tile floors (as much as 4500 sq ft) to maintenance clean(not deep scrub). I dont get to go back and vacuum again after the carpets are dry, by then I am long gone and sleeping somewhere before the next nights job. Thats the nature of big box commercial work.

More to follow as I scope things down more.
Thanks for the comments