In my commercial project I am using the Cimex near floor mounted book shelves. I dont see how I can get the Cimex to help me clean the 2 inches of carpet under the 3 inch kick plate of the book cases with the Cimex.
With a god vacuuming I might not need to but I keep thinking..................
Anyone have an experiance with something like that? The deck of the Cimex is too tall to get up and under the kick area of the cases, but I think a standard rotary with pad and Encap shuld fit under the kick and clean that area. I want the Cimex as a one pass machine and dont want to follow and hit under the foot kicks of the cases so it makes me lean towrds a rotary and fiber pad for the whole job so I only use one machine and one pass. I would prefer the Cimex.
Its probably a minor detail, but its a though before I lay my cash down...........

Paul,

you really mapping this thing out and putting the master plan in place before executing. No other way to go! My recommendation is a mini Orbot. Have the vacuum guy to take care of the 3 inch edges. The mini orbot requires that you have a sprayer. the penquin is a execellent sprayer that has been recently upgraded. Stronger punp. 5 gallon tank with 50 t0 75 feet of coiled hose and a long spray nozzle so no bending your back. It doesn't take much to for edges since there's no traffic. so a quick pass with brushes should do the trick. Rick sells both of these pieces of equipment.

I'm set up for low moisture cleaning already Cimex, OP, x-vac, etc.,etc., I also run the Steamin demon set-up as well. So if ever you need to service a client on my end that requires fast dry times or quality results just give me a call. 1-888-DRY-N-2HRS OR Al@KleenOgreen.com


Al Taylor

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

Doodle bug pad holder and cut a few pads to fit it.
You can make some time with it. That is the way I do Shoes Stores, Book Stores any place that has that kind of lip.

Unless the carpeting is lightly soiled no matter what machine you use your going to need to passes wet pass and a dry pass. Paul you may want to look into the scrub three attachment Excellent Supply sells, that might be your ticket for now. It makes a rotary have three rotating scrub heads like a Cimex.
Id like to try one but my rotary's run at 320 rmps which this attachment is not designed for.

Have you considered at 5 man crew instead of 4, when we do multi surfaces in one big building I found five guys makes the project go by with less headaches, two guys doing hard surfaces three doing carpets, the third guy with the carpet crew is also the gopher for the other one as well.


That brought back move theater, and large car dealer memories, or was that nightmares

Paul I like your well thought out level of planning as you look at this project.

Keep in mind that the couple of inches along the racks are not generally all that soiled. Occasionally there's a spill that may need to be treated, but as a rule there's no foot traffic in those areas, so the carpet should be relatively clean. Hence David's idea of using a doodlebug and a sprayer is a good one. And Alex's idea of using a battery sprayer like the Penguin sprayer is good too. A person could quickly spray an aisle of bookshelves and scrub them quickly with the doodlebug.

You could run a rotary machine with an oversized pad driver that extends out from under the base of the machine. This would allow you to run along under the ledges. However you'll be compromising a good bit of performance if you clean the entire carpet with a rotary. I think you'd be moving backward there, especially on a large account. A Cimex has 3 heads versus one, and they spin at 400 rpm's versus 175 rpm's. Three times as many scrubbing surfaces spinning twice as fast equals 6 times the efficiency of a standard rotary machine. And having a 6 gallon tank is helpful too. The CImex really has no equal when it comes to serious commercial work.

My thought would be to clean the store with the Cimex machines. And then simply run doodlebugs along the edges wherever they may be required. I think you'll find the results will be more than satisfactory.

BTW here's an old photo that I found of me running a Cimex in a bookstore. It can be done successfully.






Rick Gelinas

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I agree with David and Rick, doodle bug will get done what you need done. Not much traffic under the display racks so a light cleaning should do the trick.

Like Rick also stated, the 175 would be going backwards. You'll lose cleaning ability and speed that the Cimex gives you. You'll be money ahead with the Cimex.

I'd also get an Orbot so you don't have to HWE on your once a year cleanings.

Hi Richard,
in your opinion, would you say that the Orbot would do anything that a hwe unit could accomplish.?? (Within reason).

A decade ago, I remember reading many posts by John Guerkink about his oscillators and what he could do with them.

His photos always intrigued me as to how good he could restore a trahed carpet.

I did have an oscillator some time back, but it was a pig to use, especially on plush carpets, so I got rid of it.

I've been thinking about an Orbot for to long now, but keep tossing up whether to get another 'Mex; or the Orbot.

Decisions, decisions, for an old fella, these are hard.

Look forward to your valued opinion.

Shorty. Stay with the Mex. I don"t think much has changed from your first go around with oscillating cleaning. Yes there are a few out there that claim it is the cat"s meow, but when I challange them for the data to back up their claims I never hear from them again.

I have 5 23000 sq ft facilities that and several others that are around 15-20 k. I used to do these with a Cimex (helper) and I'd run the rotary. Well when doing large jobs the Production isn't near as good nor does it clean as well. Plus the next day my upper body certainly knows I had a work out. Well last job I hired a guy that had a Cimex and borrowed another so we had three. Usually I'm beat after using the rotary but same job using the Cimex was much easier and my body certainly felt better the next day. I definitely recommend the Cimex for ease of use, production tes and superior cleaning ability

Hi Shorty, I believe it saves us from using HWE, it also dries faster, spraying vs shower fed.

However if you're not running into instances where you think you need more than the Cimex then there is no need for it. The Cimex still cleans faster and seems to be more aggressive.

We use the Cimex's more but the Orbot is nice to have for those instances when when it has to dry fast. It's also great for visually showing where the soil went.

Usually when we do something around 10,000 sf and the building is heated and cooled, then the carpet we cleaned at the start of the job is usually dry by the time we leave the job. So it doesn't take long to dry with the Cimex. Two Cimex's and we routinely clean 10,000 sf in 2.5 - 3 hours. Third guy vacuuming, moving furniture, and getting water. The two guys cleaning have the easiest job. The third guy needs to be highly motivated or he will slow down the entire process. The third guy is the key to your speed.

Kevin,
You say the third man is the key to speed. How many buckets and heaters are you running?

I agree with Kevin, we will run (3) 3-man crews on large projects (6) machines.

The third guys feeds the two machines in his group, spots and moves furniture, it keeps him busy and the machines moving with less down time.

It only makes common sense to keep the machines cleaning, after all most jobs are based on so much per square foot. If it takes a extra person to keep things moving it really does not cost you anything.

Shorty - I am assuming you arnt planning on selling your Cimex to get the OP machine. I have a Cimex, a truck mount, A challenger OP machine, and a Brute OP machine. Brute is Johns Machine that is similar to The Orbot.

In my opinion for commercial carpet it is awesome having a cimex and the op Machines. I prefer the Brute over my challenger But I find that being able to add OP to cimex cleaning can really benefit the high traffic areas. Op can remove more dirt. And then the cimex will encap the rest.