How Would You Price This?

[TheCleaningDude]

Greeting Gents,

I'd like your feedback please.

Had a commercial bid fall in my lap today. This is a huge furniture wholesale gallery and they want the 'exposed' carpet cleaned. The showroom is loaded with staged furniture and they do not want the furniture moved.

Overall the carpet is not dirty at all. It's just spotted in places. They host parties for various retail buyers and there occasional drinks spilled, etc. and this is the concern.

The place measures a total of 13,326.5 sq. ft.
956 are admin and sales offices that will be cleaned fully.
The remainder is 12,370.5 sq. ft. of sporadic spots with maybe 35% (4,330 sq. ft.) 'exposed' at best.

At first she talked about cleaning the 'exposed' areas. Now she is suggesting spotting only. Spotting only does make sense, I cannot disagree with her thought process. Also, the place will most likely need to be vacuumed.

I'm thinking of putting the bid in with spotting and vaccing only (with the exception of the admin/sales office).

How would you price the spotting and vaccing? Hourly average? If so, how do I guesstimate this?

What machine am I best off using (My fear is over cleaning an area and having it not match up)?

Thanks!

[NJP]

If you do just spotting, I would use a 12" Oreck orbital or a crb machine. Real e asy to get around. Spotting would take you longer if your looking for spots than just doing the walkways. Pricing depends on what your location. Some will do it for .07 sq ft. spotting hourly. JMO

[Charles]

When they say spot cleaning , it would mean to me that they want "cheap".
You spot clean with encap and the end result will be a
bunch of clean spots that stand out. Then they will call you back
to even everything out. Have you ever done some test spots in a business
to show the owners what you can do? Then when you go to do the job the test spots really stand out. You need to tell them it is better to clean evenly than to make a bunch of clean
spots that will stand out. Price the open areas & if they don't like the price
then just walk away. 5286 sf @ .14

End of May I had a girl call for spot cleaning an apartment.
I told her that I don't clean spots. It will cost just as much
for spots as it would cleaning the whole carpet. Went to look at it
right across the street from us small area of 200 sf. Gave her a price
and when the job was completed got a $10 tip. This job was commercial carpet.

[Rob D]

If this was a regular customer I would crb spots, prespray with punch grind in some compound and put renovators on to extract. The compound makes blending easier. But since this may not be a repeat I would punch the whole thing and scrub with crb then vac when done(still using compound on bad spots) I would charge .12 a square ft because I know I'm breezing through most of it.. If I wouldn't get it at those terms goodbye!

[Blue Ridge Floor Care]

What Charles said. No way I would spot clean.

[Derek]

nice Damon!

i agree with the fellas above. def clean all open areas, "spot" cleaning is bogus imo. it leaves clean spots...plus, then you miss a few spots or "shadows" that you didn't notice, but the D.M. sure noticed and now you gotta go back for free.

as for pricing, you said exposed carpet is about 1/3 of total? it's going to be a pain cleaning around all that stuff, plus i bet there are some areas that your machine wont fit into?? i'd cut the sq.ft. in half and charge for that at full price.

as for machine, i think your CRB will clean some spots, but there will be some / a lot that it may have a tough time with. i guess you can try it. if it isn't cutting it, bring in the Cimex or Orbot.

just my thoughts

[ScottMoody]

Guess I'm going to have to disagree.

I would price the administrative/sales offices separately.

But for the rest of it, I would do the following

1. When she mentioned spotting only, I would respond with the following, " I fully understand with your need to control the costs of cleaning such a luxurious showroom and I would be happy to clean all of the spots. Would you be interested in a FREE demonstration of what you can expect with spot cleaning?"

2. If she says no, I would decline to offer a quotation for spot cleaning only and just quote for cleaning all "accessible" areas of the carpet in the showroom. The refusal to allow you to give a free demo is usually a bad sign.

3. If she says yes, I would pick a large spill and use painter's tape to divide the spot in half. Apply Hydrox to the 1/2 of the spot. Use the CRB machine (you do have one, don't you?) to go over the spot and work the Hydrox from the spot outward, away from the tape you have applied to the floor. After a few minutes (at least 5), I would apply dry compound to the spot and use the CRB to massage it in and work my way away from the tape. Do not over-apply the dry compound, it is the biggest mistake made when using it.. Allow the compound to dry and either use the renovator trays to clean it up or use your vacuum. By dong your demo this way, you can show you ability to clean the spot and blend it in, without just doing a free cleaning for them.

Then offer a quote to spot clean BY THE HOUR ONLY with an estimate of how many hours it will take to do this, and if you do this job, have them inspect all of the areas you have cleaned to make sure you have addressed every spot. By using encap and dry compound, you can clean all of the spots and wait until the end to vacuum up the remaining compound (which will be really dry by that time). The dry compound will allow you to easily blend the spot cleaning into the rest of the carpet--something I learned to do in the late '80s using HOST.

**At the same time, also offer a quote to clean the "accessible" areas. After doing a demo, some people do change their minds about having it all done.

By doing this, you will give them the ILLUSION of CONTROL, but still be in full control of your income potential.

The CRB will clean the spots, with the right brushes. The stiff brushes work wonders on CGD, which I am assuming this carpet is.

[encapman]

I would price the entire showroom and plan to clean all of the accessible carpet.
Here are the reasons I'd take this approach...

1. Spot cleaning is probably not going to be sufficient.
   
2. And frankly, working around furniture is a pain and it's time consuming, almost as time consuming as cleaning an empty building.
   

So I'd give 'em a lowish price for the entire place.
13,326.5 sq. ft X .06 per sq. ft. = $799.59

That is a fair price for them, and it's a fair price for you.
I think that number should land you the account.

And if you clean it with a Cimex, you should be able to clean it in 5-6 hours (maybe less).

[TheCleaningDude]

It's not so much a money issue as it is a matter of practicability.

The reason spotting makes sense in many respects is because the place is totally cramped with furniture.

In the living room and dining room section there would be stuff to move in order to get the machine in. This is the problem. The carpet really isn't dirty, spotted mostly. The facility is open only twice a year for buyers conventions.

Also, I don't own a Cimex. Sure wish I did. Instead I'll be using the Orbot. Regrettably, I Don't trust the CRB enough on its own as a stand alone.

Bedroom section which happens to be the most accessible and almost half the carpeted area, but also virtually no stains:



How most of the carpet looks:



The chairs that in many cases would need to be moved in order to clean exposed areas or at minimum get the machine in. This is just one area, it's a lot bigger:



A spot, most are more or less about this size:



Another spot:

[infamous dave]

My guess is there is still plenty of dirt in the non spotted areas of the carpet. I would give them a lesson in how to protect their large carpet investment by keeping it clean and if I did a demo I would do it on a "clean" area and then show her the glad pad that used to be white.

[MikeB]

That much area to cover would be very time consuming to do spot cleaning. Much more time than just cleaning all accessible areas with the orbot.
I would just walk the areas off and get approximate sq footage of all the spotted carpet areas, tally up, price it at a price that works for you ( Ricks prices sound reasonable to me) taking into consideration the struggle of getting the bot in and out of everywhere and doing it that way you can "blend" areas to get a uniform appearance whilst removing the spots, thus combining efficiency with effective cleaning and acceptable results.
I think once you start spot cleaning it would be a time consuming nightmare resulting in clean "spots" that will be noticeable. Unless of course you are dealing with really, really clean carpet and could get away with spot cleaning and get good results. It's hard for anyone else to determine that from the pics though, that would be your own professional judgement.
Try some spots and see how it goes. If a no go, then it's orbot time.

[Hoss]

I don't like the idea of spot cleaning when encapsulation will help to prevent spotting and create uniform protection for the carpeting. Also, if you are walking the floors to find spots you could be walking the floors with a machine that would clean and treat the spots along with creating uniformity to the carpet - which would do more with greater effect. But, it seems that the problem comes down to cramped areas, moving furniture to get to those cramped areas and maneuvering the machine. It seems that the best case scenario would be to use one of the 12" head Orbots or similar machines.

[TheCleaningDude]

Did the job last night.

They had the place vacuumed and chairs put up before I arrived. Still had to spot vac a few areas, but was quick. Less than five minutes.

For the spotting I basically walked around with a hand sprayer and Oreck Orbiter. Took maybe an hour and a half to two hours and about an hour and a half for the general carpet cleaning.

[MikeB]

Sounds like it went well? Glad to hear it. 😀

[Lefty724]

Did the job last night.

They had the place vacuumed and chairs put up before I arrived. Still had to spot vac a few areas, but was quick. Less than five minutes.

For the spotting I basically walked around with a hand sprayer and Oreck Orbiter. Took maybe an hour and a half to two hours and about an hour and a half for the general carpet cleaning.

Nice! I love my Orbiter for jobs like this.

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