[Kyall Finney]

Hi I am 17 years old, have a full time job and considering moving into the carpet cleaning trade. I generally just want to know the amount of money people spent starting up their business, what carpet cleaning courses they took; what equipment they own, advertising, how much too charge etc. It would be much appreciated as I'm very keen

[Marius Alexandru]

Hi Kyall,

First of all its great that you want to start carpet cleaning at such a young age.

I can tell you the most up to date how much everything will cost you, a lot!

Website £300, equipment £3000 second hand (sebo bs, sebo duo and second hand 800 psi airflex storm, chemicals, hoses, sprayer and the ££££ add up really quick)  dont forget that you will need a small van/ berlingo, ford connect etc, business insurance + virtual landline + phone cost add up to £50 per month.  Thats the easy part, buying the equipment was so easy.

Now this is the hard part, getting jobs, so far I have spent £45 got 19 clicks and 1 job from it which was only £90, does that sound good to you? To me so far it does not, but it takes time...hopefully.

Marketng costs will eat a big chunk of your £.

Now you tell us, what is your budget and what kind of carpet cleaner do you want to be? If you want to be the £15 per room guy the buy and second hand karcher puzzi and there you are.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Ian Harper]

Kyall Finney

How exciting for you.

Start with £0.00 and build from there.

You may say but i need stuff,

and yes you do, but starting out this way you view the business you are about to build will be right. its there to provide for you, not the other way.

Get some contracts cleaning office etc, these can be done early morning, weekend, etc use this money to fund the carpet cleaning.

easy way to get this work is look at the job centre and you will see jobs for cleaning if you can find out where the job is send the business a sale letter. this is a great way to find business that have a need for cleaners. it might be other contractors looking,  just find out where the work is any way you can. its business nothing wrong with competition.

part of marketing is find people with a problem you can solve.

You only have to call many of these contractors to find out they dont give a dame who they use. its normally first come first serve for the job. if you where a business using these contractors I am sure you would not be happy. thats where you come in. ask how many cleaners have they had over the past year. or how reliable where these cleaners.

thats your in my friend

Good Luck

[Kyall Finney]

Hi Kyall,

First of all its great that you want to start carpet cleaning at such a young age.

I can tell you the most up to date how much everything will cost you, a lot!

Website £300, equipment £3000 second hand (sebo bs, sebo duo and second hand 800 psi airflex storm, chemicals, hoses, sprayer and the ££££ add up really quick)  dont forget that you will need a small van/ berlingo, ford connect etc, business insurance + virtual landline + phone cost add up to £50 per month.  Thats the easy part, buying the equipment was so easy.

Now this is the hard part, getting jobs, so far I have spent £45 got 19 clicks and 1 job from it which was only £90, does that sound good to you? To me so far it does not, but it takes time...hopefully.

Marketng costs will eat a big chunk of your £.

Now you tell us, what is your budget and what kind of carpet cleaner do you want to be? If you want to be the £15 per room guy the buy and second hand karcher puzzi and there you are.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Thanks for the great advice, I got quite a bit of research done after reading your reply and it really is appreciated that you took time out of your day to reply to my post. Would you be able to give me a short list of chemicals etc which you use? Thank you

[Karra Barford]

Please contact advertising@cleanitup.co.uk if you're interested in advertising.

[Mike Cottam]

Hi there

I am in the final stages of launching my carpet cleaning business.

Equipment / Chemicals – I spoke to a couple of retailers who provide complete start-up packages, where you purchase the equipment and chemicals and often the package will come with a free training course.  There are a few companies to choose from, I went with Cleansmart in Nottingham; give Matt a call, he will help you.

All of my equipment and initial cleaning chemicals cost about £3,500.00, but you can double this once you purchase a van.

Training – I attended a training course at Cleansmart with Derek Bolton, who is very highly regarded in the carpet cleaning industry. I can’t emphasise enough, how important it is to get professional training. Although I went with Cleansmart, there are other providers out there who also provide great training courses.

Website – if you are computer literate, you can build your own website. I recommend using WordPress, it’s free and easy to use to build a website; all you pay for is your hosting and domain name.  Don’t sign up with the ‘free’ website providers (such as Wix), because the free sites are often littered with their own adverts, not good if you want to show a professional image.

Marketing – this is the hardest part and one I’m still learning. Don’t bother with Google Adwords, unless you have buckets of money to waste, because you will be competing with the larger companies who have a much bigger marketing budget than you will have. Focus on your local area, parish newsletters or local newspapers. Create a Facebook Business Page and pay to boost it, but don’t ask all of your friends to ‘like’ it, focus on getting likes from people who will actually use your service.

Make sure your van has professional signage. 

I probably could go on, but the above should help you along a bit.

Good luck.

[Tony Stewart]

Hi Kyall
Depending on where you live Alltec hold a free carpet cleaning taster course where you can try out machines and chat with guys that have a wealth of cleaning experience:they are based near Royston in Cambridge. Or go on a training course
Cleansmart Nottingham
Alltec Royston (Fowlmere)
Prochem London
Restormate Cramlington
Cleaning Systems UK Fife

All of them will point you in the right direction. I started with a Prochem Steempro ( the transit van of the carpet cleaning world) then quickly decided that my business was going to go in the direction of a truckmounted system
You can go cheap and cheerful and get a rotary and encap houses but you need to understand carpet cleaning a little bit more before you jump in to buy something.
You can start with a little advert that you can put in the local newsagent for a month for 50p. You can make up some little leaflets and distribute them round a few roads nearby. You can put a little ad in the local paper or advertise in the parish magazines. All of these cost very little. Everyone wants to jump in and have a website and go on facebook but you get more timewasters on that sort of media and the jobs are usually at the bottom end. Oh there will be people that will argue that facebook is great etc, but just think on what people you want to go after. Many lack confidence at the beginning and go for cheap jobs saying that when they get better established they will move up the prices and get better clients. I dont know where you live but if you are in an area that has nice houses you can charge more - if you are in a poor area then it's obvious that you will need to think about what you think you can charge.
Dont do waht Ian suggests - with respect if you start walking round trying to muscle in on cleaning offices you will come unstuck........why because you cannot deliver what they want if you have no equipment and many will take advantage of someone who is new and is likely to undercharge on a job. Learn on the domestic side then progress from there.

Lastly if you can get aday off, you can come out with me for the day and have a go on live customers and clean their carpets. I live in Sutton Colfield in Birmingham. I will even buy your lunch!
Tony Stewart 0798 544 6260

[macky]

Grab that offer Kyal  that's the best offer you will  get all year

[Steve Chapman]

If i was starting over i would go for the extra dry market,  buy a second hand rotary, vacuum and get some encap and dry sponges and spend the rest of the money on marketing........ you could probably get started for less than £500 on equipment..........

Just my thoughts 

[Dave_Lee]

Just don't expect things to happen over night. It will take a minimum 2 years to get going and possibly longer, once you get a steady flow of repeat work it becomes easier and less costly. Be careful what you spend your money on re: marketing, there are many rogues out there all too willing to take your money for advertising that doesn't work despite their claims. Beware in particular of those that call you and say "Can you handle more work".

[elliott cleaning]

............Dont do what Ian suggests - with respect if you start walking round trying to muscle in on cleaning offices you will come unstuck........why because you cannot deliver what they want if you have no equipment .......

Thank God for people like you on this forum, Tony - to balance out some of the idiotic posts that some make.

[Stoots]

I bought a second hand extracta exel for £500.

went on a cleansmart course and advertise on facebook

but its only a sideline for me, for now...

[Kyall Finney]

Thanks for the advice Ian. I have a full time job starting 9 til 5 and considering doing cleaning before my work say at a local garage to help fund the business. I have been religiously studying this website/forum and it just makes me so much more excited to do it as everyone is so passionate about there job

Kyall Finney

How exciting for you.

Start with £0.00 and build from there.

You may say but i need stuff,

and yes you do, but starting out this way you view the business you are about to build will be right. its there to provide for you, not the other way.

Get some contracts cleaning office etc, these can be done early morning, weekend, etc use this money to fund the carpet cleaning.

easy way to get this work is look at the job centre and you will see jobs for cleaning if you can find out where the job is send the business a sale letter. this is a great way to find business that have a need for cleaners. it might be other contractors looking,  just find out where the work is any way you can. its business nothing wrong with competition.

part of marketing is find people with a problem you can solve.

You only have to call many of these contractors to find out they dont give a dame who they use. its normally first come first serve for the job. if you where a business using these contractors I am sure you would not be happy. thats where you come in. ask how many cleaners have they had over the past year. or how reliable where these cleaners.

thats your in my friend

Good Luck

[Kyall Finney]

Great advice all round mate, also really helpful with the course choices and marketing, I understand it Coulf be difficult and bite my pocket a bit so it's great to know there's cheaper options out there. Maybe send me an email or reply back with the type of chemicals etc you got if that's not too much trouble. Thanks 

Hi there

I am in the final stages of launching my carpet cleaning business.

Equipment / Chemicals – I spoke to a couple of retailers who provide complete start-up packages, where you purchase the equipment and chemicals and often the package will come with a free training course.  There are a few companies to choose from, I went with Cleansmart in Nottingham; give Matt a call, he will help you.

All of my equipment and initial cleaning chemicals cost about £3,500.00, but you can double this once you purchase a van.

Training – I attended a training course at Cleansmart with Derek Bolton, who is very highly regarded in the carpet cleaning industry. I can’t emphasise enough, how important it is to get professional training. Although I went with Cleansmart, there are other providers out there who also provide great training courses.

Website – if you are computer literate, you can build your own website. I recommend using WordPress, it’s free and easy to use to build a website; all you pay for is your hosting and domain name.  Don’t sign up with the ‘free’ website providers (such as Wix), because the free sites are often littered with their own adverts, not good if you want to show a professional image.

Marketing – this is the hardest part and one I’m still learning. Don’t bother with Google Adwords, unless you have buckets of money to waste, because you will be competing with the larger companies who have a much bigger marketing budget than you will have. Focus on your local area, parish newsletters or local newspapers. Create a Facebook Business Page and pay to boost it, but don’t ask all of your friends to ‘like’ it, focus on getting likes from people who will actually use your service.

Make sure your van has professional signage. 

I probably could go on, but the above should help you along a bit.

Good luck.

[Kyall Finney]

I had thought that the rurnover period would take as long or even just to get up or running but I am hoping that maybe it all pays off in the end and thnank you for the advice on the rogues etc... I think I will stick with marketing which is discussed in these forums

Just don't expect things to happen over night. It will take a minimum 2 years to get going and possibly longer, once you get a steady flow of repeat work it becomes easier and less costly. Be careful what you spend your money on re: marketing, there are many rogues out there all too willing to take your money for advertising that doesn't work despite their claims. Beware in particular of those that call you and say "Can you handle more work".

[Kyall Finney]

Much appreciated tony on all that advice, struggling to take it all in and it's great that they have these courses. Unluckily I'm based in Scotland but couldn't imagine it being trouble heading down to Cambridge to check out these carpet cleaning courses. And thank you very much for the offer but as I am not in England very often it could be months before I came down. You have given me an idea about contacting a not so local carpet cleaning company and asking if I could ride along for a day and gain some experience. Thank you so much 

Hi Kyall
Depending on where you live Alltec hold a free carpet cleaning taster course where you can try out machines and chat with guys that have a wealth of cleaning experience:they are based near Royston in Cambridge. Or go on a training course
Cleansmart Nottingham
Alltec Royston (Fowlmere)
Prochem London
Restormate Cramlington
Cleaning Systems UK Fife

All of them will point you in the right direction. I started with a Prochem Steempro ( the transit van of the carpet cleaning world) then quickly decided that my business was going to go in the direction of a truckmounted system
You can go cheap and cheerful and get a rotary and encap houses but you need to understand carpet cleaning a little bit more before you jump in to buy something.
You can start with a little advert that you can put in the local newsagent for a month for 50p. You can make up some little leaflets and distribute them round a few roads nearby. You can put a little ad in the local paper or advertise in the parish magazines. All of these cost very little. Everyone wants to jump in and have a website and go on facebook but you get more timewasters on that sort of media and the jobs are usually at the bottom end. Oh there will be people that will argue that facebook is great etc, but just think on what people you want to go after. Many lack confidence at the beginning and go for cheap jobs saying that when they get better established they will move up the prices and get better clients. I dont know where you live but if you are in an area that has nice houses you can charge more - if you are in a poor area then it's obvious that you will need to think about what you think you can charge.
Dont do waht Ian suggests - with respect if you start walking round trying to muscle in on cleaning offices you will come unstuck........why because you cannot deliver what they want if you have no equipment and many will take advantage of someone who is new and is likely to undercharge on a job. Learn on the domestic side then progress from there.

Lastly if you can get aday off, you can come out with me for the day and have a go on live customers and clean their carpets. I live in Sutton Colfield in Birmingham. I will even buy your lunch!
Tony Stewart 0798 544 6260

[Jor dan]

I have been going 9 months and it is only just starting to pick up, and my jobs come in from day to day, i.e. I am not booked up 2/3 weeks in advance like a lot of other guys, which I can live with, as it means I get the jobs from the impatient ones who don't want to wait.

You will run into some obstacles, the 3 main one's I ran into were:

1: Buying a machine from gumtree without knowing anything about carpet cleaning machines, and I was sold it with one broken motor, a pump that broke in a week, and had leaks, as i did not test it first.  If you do have to get pre-owned, source it from a cleaning forum member who has a good post count and reputation. The machine i then replaced with the dud one, I got from a well respected member on here, and it has been faultless so far.

2: I hired a website designer to create my website, and went with the cheapest option I could find, which was £150, again off gumtree (maybe I should just tell you steer clear of gumtree haha) anyhow, I found out that the wordpress theme he used was full of adware, and a countefeit download, as you usually have to pay £50 for the use of a premium theme, which meant if I had kept it as it was, my website would have likely had a poor search engine ranking indefinitely. I'm glad this happened in a way, because over a couple of months, i learnt an invaluable skill, making wordpress websites, and I have gotten very good at it!

3: Trying and testing chemicals, and not sticking with the first one, just because you think they can all complete the same results.  I'm not saying there are not chems which will be your main "go to" ones most of the time, i'm a big fan of spm and powerburst personally, but what i'm saying is it took me a couple of brands to decide which was best for me.

Lastly, it is the things that go wrong that will shape you as a person, if nothing went wrong, you would not know how to correct it once it does.

As an example, when I was in my teens and early 20's I was motorbike crazy, still am, but never could afford a decent one, so always had to buy bangers that would break on me within a month, but with them breaking on me, i learnt how to fix up bikes, where as if I could afford a new one each time, I would have became a disposable type of person. Now im a bit older, I have a nice bike, and I also have the skills to fully service it myself.

Hope that helps a little.

 

[Emil Dinev]

As a bare minimum you'll need £5000. Don't quit your full time job. Start slowly with carpet cleaning as a side line but most importantly, book yourself onto a training course and see if you like it first. Snap the offer for a day out in the field as well. Be prepared for a lot of hard work. I am in my 7th year now but boy was it a struggle the first couple of years?