[Kev Martin]

I have just traded 2,Airflex machines in a Storm and a Turbo.  I am thinking I will hang on to one and put it on our hire fleet.  What would be a fair and sensible rate to pay for renting a decent portable for a week?  What would you guys pay if you needed one ?

[from edge2edge]

£100 sounds a good price..........................Alan

[Kev Martin]

£100 sounds a good price..........................Alan

That sounds cheap to hire a £4K machine to me

[Mike Gwilliam]

£101 then? 

[from edge2edge]

kev it would be secondhand so circa 2k?

[Mike Halliday]

How much do you charge to hire out your other £4K machines? .........Charge the same.

 but what you have to consider is if I hire a £4K grinder that earns me £2000 within the hire period then I would pay happy to pay a % of that amount.......... if I hire a  carpet cleaning machine and earn £1000 then I might not pay the same hire charge as the grinder.

You can ask any figure you want, if you feel £100 is too low that's fine but You can only ask what people are willing to pay

[Kev Martin]

Mike

Yes I get all that.  But, I am looking to see if there is a call for this sort of machine.  I can calculate what floor / grinding machines rent for to the penny.  Is there anywhere you can rent / hire this level of professional carpet cleaning machine in the UK?

[Mike Halliday]

I don't think there is, I rented a machine a few years ago and the best I could get was a Newmatic  single vac machine, it was no better than the Hydramist machines you used to Be able to hire from supermarkets before Rug doctor cornered the market.

The problem with a high performance machines is it will need high performance tools which are not cheap and require a certain level of knowledge to use,  you could only rent out to professional carpet cleaners who a familier with the machine and not general cleaners, this migh limit your market

[Jonathan Evans]

I think Kevin was only considering renting to professionals, and if not then forget domestic renting for lots of reasons not least looking after the machine.
There may be a market for long term lease but imo not for the odd week if something breaks down.
Most of us have either back up machines or friends or suppliers who will help out if you are stuck.
Mike as usual hits the nail on the head regarding cost and price and as also said above £100 a week would be top dollar for me.
There is however a significant market for 2nd hand or leasing agreements if that interests you.
But a daily or weekly rental would be hard to go. Grinding machines cost a lot more than a good porty.
Hope this helps Andrew

[Kev Martin]

Andrew

Thanks for that!  I think I am reaching the conclusion that a professional portable carpet cleaning machine has no rental potential then.  Because these things are around £4K New.  Even 2nd Hand they are around £2K so would need to rent one out for around 25 weeks to even get my money back taking into account servicing and spares of around £500.  Then we have to rent for the same again to look at making a profit.  I think I will just sell them both and forget it.  Mike now I understand why you couldn't rent one.  Christ it costs £33 to rent a rug doctor for a couple of days so I am certainly not going to rent an expensive portable for less!

[Kev Martin]

I was looking at the Rug Doctor last night in our local 7-11.  I chatted with the guy and he said it was the XL version?  He then said it was unusual for it to be there as it was out in general over 20 times a month.  They had a diary for the thing.  That's over £600 a month that thing earns.   I may buy a couple

[tim handley]

theres a lot of money being made hiring the rug doctor out.............
why not have a slice of it...........
i often think of it.....