[Matt Read]

I see chem dry have been bought by homeserve ....I'm sure the only Homeserve i've seen in my area are the half price slap and dash merchants. Am i right  ? or are they a prestigious company ?

[nick_brown]

 8)We learnt that Homeserve PLC,bought chem dryuk today, they are or were part of south  staffordshire waterPlC but are now demerged and own many companies such as Highway windsreens servowarm etc
Cheers Nick brown -Chem dry Franchisee

[woodman]

Homeserve are a huge organisation that supply all manner of services to homes and business's.

We would know them as supplying furniture stain proofing warranties and furniture repairs.Until Courts went under they were there main contractors.

The aquisition of Chem-Dry adds to the restoration service they already supply and gives them national coverage.They will probably offer the insurance companies a one stop supply service now including all fields of trades and claims management from start to finish.This will keep all suppliers in house and keep costs down.

Sevicemaster and the like will have to look very carefully over their shoulder from now on.

[Dennis]

We would know them as supplying furniture stain proofing warranties and furniture repairs.Until Courts went under they were there main contractors.

That was Regency, part of Homeserve. Courts were 28% of their turnover, the liquidation cost Homeserve £1.2 million. Ouch!

Highway used to be a franchise but they bought out all the franchisees and took it in-house. I can't remember if this was pre or after the Homeserve aquisition.

Bit more news.
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=56&ArticleID=999623

I didn't realise 75% of Chem-dry's turnover is now fire/flood.

[Don Atkinson]

LONDON (AFX) - Homeserve PLC, the home emergency company, said it will buy the fire and flood restoration disaster company Chem-Dry UK Ltd for 18.9 mln stg.

Chem-Dry has over 230 franchisees covering the UK with over 640 licences and has commercial arrangements with seven leading household insurers, Homeserve said.

In the year to April 2004, Chem-Dry reported an operating profit of 2.6 mln stg on turnover of 37.1 mln. Net assets are estimated at 4.8 mln stg.

Richard Harpin, chief executive of Homeserve, said: "The acquisition of Chem-Dry is a significant enhancement of our disaster restoration activities. It will broaden the services provided by Homeserve to household insurers and places Homeserve in a unique position to offer a fully integrated service to insurance companies."

[Mike Halliday]

I find this interesting because I live 500yrds from chemdrys Uk HQ. I wonder if they'll centralise their headquarters and make redundencees in Beverley.

Nick B are you saying you only found out about this buy-out today?

Mike

[Matt Read]

Will they opt out of the cc now do yo think ? or were there always diff franchises'  one for cc one for restoration ?

Having done 5 years odd of intermittant restoration work myself i wouldn't want to be forced into that again if i was a chem dry cc franchisee.

[Dennis]

Matt,

That's one of the main reasons I left CD after 10 years,  become a fire/flood business or p**s off, was the rather simplified version! 

[Matt Read]

Yeah its not very nice work dennis...miserable customers and loads of hassle...sometimes money isn't everything ! altho i was only a sub contractor so i didn't make big bucks from it.. maybe if i had i would think diff.

[Fintan_Coll]

Does this aquisition apply to the UK only, what is the position in Republic of Ireland, does anyone know.?

[Dennis]

As far as I know it's still separate. John Green, I think his name is, runs the ROI master franchise (or at least he used to)

[Kevin_Gare]

Hi Lads

Thats why the Local Chem-Dry Cowboys are driving around with long faces.

Have a great weekend

Regards Kevin

[Karl Wildey]

Thought Chem-dry are due in court soon follwoing the accidential death of a client. As rumour has it, someone left a petrol generator in a house to run drying equipment and the client went into the empty house and was overcome by carbon monoxide.

Is this why they have sold out?

[Ray]

http://www.ypn.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=56&ArticleID=999623

[Everbrite]

Does anybody know or how the chem-dri system works i have never seen them operating.do they use hwe method??

[jasonl]

to clean carpeting, they use a "carbonating" system which is a modified kleenrite extractor, with low vac performance and weak 60 psi pumps, there  are 2 solution tanks, each containing a different solution -A and B, they mix just before hitting the carpet, causing carbonation,  this system is used with either a standard wand or a modified RX20.
I have seen many better, more efficient, cheaper ways to clean carpets since leaving Chem-dry, but no better business system, or brand in the cc business.
In other words I have the opinion that they are the Mc donalds of our industry, you can all form your own opinon from that analogy, who here thinks Mc donalds make good food?

[Matt Read]

Think i'll use that Macdonalds analogy on my quotes in future ! Helps they aren't as cheap tho ...........

[Len Gribble]

Jasonl

What you are implying by “there re 2 solution tanks, each containing a different solution -A and B, they mix just before hitting the carpet, causing carbonation, this system is used with either a standard wand or a modified RX20.” They are misleading customers? trading standards here I come.

Len

[jasonl]

Len, in what way are they misleading customers, relatively speaking, mcdonalds are not cheap in a lot of ways, blueberry muffin= 79p in Greggs they are 39p.

[Ian Gourlay]

If Chem Dry are using Low Vac how do they get the carpets Dry so quick.

Is the equipment mentioned their current equipment.

I saw my local Chem Dry with a small Yellow Karcher at a bunglow the other day. The French doors were open

Not sure what he was doing as it was not in use as I passed.

But I did not think they hired equipment