[Tom.m]

Afternoon Chaps

Currently window cleaning and everything that goes with window cleaning.

Myself and my business partner have decided to add a cheap carpet cleaning add on to our business services. we've got a budget of roughly 500, we are thinking of buying a floormac 13" and a rug doctor portable for sofas and stairs ect.

Would this be a good buy or is there better equipment for this price?

Any advice would be appreciated

Cheers
Tom.

[Hilton]

 

Who wants to go first.

[heritagecleaning]

Can't we just paste in the replies from last time it came up? 

[wayne zabel]

Is this a wind up?

[heritagecleaning]

Myself and my business partner have decided to add a cheap window cleaning add on to our business services. We've got a budget of roughly £5 and are mentally defective.

I was thinking of simply gobbing on the windows and then smearing this in with an oily rag. It won't be the best job, but then we're skint and it's a bit of money, innit?

Any advice?

[Tom.m]

Cheers for the advice chaps

Let me know when your down my end, i'll buy you all a pint!   

[Simon Gerrard]

Cheers for the advice chaps

Let me know when your down my end, i'll buy you all a pint!   

You asked for it, mate.
£500 is a joke and so is a Rug Doctor, but it's note a 'smear' campaign😃

[Lewis Newby]

Tom, £500 will barely cover a basic course for you and your partner. Upon completion of said course you will know what kind of equipment,  chemical and marketing you will need etc.  You ideally want £5k-10k,  though you could get away with less marketing since you can offer to existing customers but remember you won't be doing monthly work like you are with Windows so you need many more customers each month

[Radek Jablonski]

If somebody has only 500 in the pocket, then my question is why is his window cleaning business only saved him that small amount. So if you cant get much profit from cleaning windows you will not get much from carpets.
Better to concentrate more on windows first.
If you will start doing bad job on your customers carpets you will lose them.

[Tom.m]

Cheers for the advice chaps

Let me know when your down my end, i'll buy you all a pint!   

You asked for it, mate.
£500 is a joke and so is a Rug Doctor, but it's note a 'smear' campaign😃

I asked for serious advice, not for a load of BS jokers. I understand all you chaps have ten of thousands wrapped up in gear.

Unfortunately I don't have that. I'm looking something small that I can start out with then progress on to the mega expensive stuff.
The only reason I ask is because we've had a lot of interest with our regulars.

[tim handley]

if you are on a low budget youd probably need to look on e bay, see what machine you can pick up there to get you started, (not ideal) but its a starting point.
Probably still struggle to get owt for £500, but worth a look..........  once you get a bit more dosh behind you you can upgrade to better kit and  you will see the difference..........  i was nearly talked into getting a rug doctor when i started out, but after hours trawling the forums i soon realised it wasnt what i needed, i eventually  stuck a machine on my credit card to get started....
spend a couple of grand on machine and basic set up and started slow, best thing i ever did. Ive since upgraded and never looked back........ You will definately need to do a course or two when starting off........

[Buckland]

Myself and my business partner have decided to add a cheap window cleaning add on to our business services. We've got a budget of roughly £5 and are mentally defective.

I was thinking of simply gobbing on the windows and then smearing this in with an oily rag. It won't be the best job, but then we're skint and it's a bit of money, innit?

Any advice?

Now that's what I call sarcasm - underrated skill that - to give him his credit he did get the hint!

[Radek Jablonski]

Tom, save more, get better equipment and dont lose your customers. You no realy need 10k but few thousand will give you some start.
Get yourself into some training. It will open your eyes, on what you need.
If you have good amount of customers and you will let them know about your new service you will even cover loan or leasing expenses.
Telling you, you are going to lose your customers if you clean their carpets with what you want to buy, unless you are working for realy low end of customers.

When I started I was using similar machine to the rug doctor, nearly none of these customers are coming back to me now.
When I got training and proper gear, even grupon voucher customers are still coming back on my regular price.

Spend once but good.
 I also didnt want to listen to the guys on the other channel when they were telling me what you are being told here. But all is a true, listen to the guys here and you will be making 500 a day, at least in november and december

How big is your customer database, are you long in business, is your business growing or strugling. If is not good then try first to fix your curent problems, adding even few extra services are not going to help.

[Stoots]

whislt you may struggle with 500 quid, you dont really need to blow 10 grand either. there nothing wrong with starting small and building up.

I also started off window cleaning and have now added carpet cleaning, i have been on a couple of courses and picked up a second hand extracta exel. bough a few oher bits and bob that you will learn are required and off i go...

ive spent about a grand and at the moment am just getting the odd job off facebook which to me is fine as i still have a part time job and at the minute im building my website and practicing.

yes the machinery is important, but what is more important is knowledge and how to use it, after all it only carpet cleaning as long as you know what your working on and what effects what you are doing will have its pretty idiot proof

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

A good idea is only a good idea if you can execute it.

Carpet cleaning is a good idea for making money but as previous posts make clear there are more wrong ways of doing it than right.

Our enquirer hasn't been trading long, and hasn't been on this forum for long, so doesn't have many posts to his name.

Having read through them I regret to say that for him at present carpet cleaning as a way of making (any/good) money would appear to be beyond him at present.

Just my opinion and nothing personal. But aspiration is a good thing, so who knows.....

I wish him well.

[Aquakleen Restoration Services]

Tom, If I was you and only had £500 to spend I would go the low moisture route...

Second hand rotary for £100 - £150 (At least 150rpm)
3 or 4 Pads £100
Second hand Kirby/Sebo vacuum cleaner £100 - £200
Encap cleaning solutions £100

Zero Dry Time are one of the biggest players in the UK making big money with the Encap low moisture system.

I use two differing systems one for domestic (hot water extraction) and Encap for commercial work. But low moisture will get you up and running in both environments with decent results on a shoestring budget...

[Hilton]

Tom, If I was you and only had £500 to spend I would go the low moisture route...

Second hand rotary for £100 - £150 (At least 150rpm)
3 or 4 Pads £100
Second hand Kirby/Sebo vacuum cleaner £100 - £200
Encap cleaning solutions £100

Zero Dry Time are one of the biggest players in the UK making big money with the Encap low moisture system.

I use two differing systems one for domestic (hot water extraction) and Encap for commercial work. But low moisture will get you up and running in both environments with decent results on a shoestring budget...

They want to do 'cheap' carpet' cleaning so will attract the lowest of the low with carpets in very poor condition using a LM system will just cause them more problems with bad payers over poor results.

[Robin Ray]

Tom, I would highly recommend reading some of the back posts regarding this question as many have asked the same question in the past (including myself). Unfortunately it is unpractical to start a carpet cleaning business with £500. A realistic figure is about £4000. The back posts will explain why.

The first thing to consider is training. You may be a practical person who can pick things up quickly however there are many things to get wrong in carpet and upholstery cleaning, things you just cant affort to find out by trial and error.

I wish you the best in expanding your business however as has been said before you may need to save a little longer and be able to do things  to at least a basic professional level rather than chucking away £500 and doing a crap job.

[Tom.m]

Thanks to everyone who gave me real advice!

I've taken everything on board. Myself and my partner have spoken and decided to get booked in on a training course (probably all tech?)

We've found a used extraction machine at our local cleaning supplier for £600 with all the gear, he's also offered us so training free of charge.

Cheers
Tom.