[CleanerCarpets]

Hi all

With January coming i am considering doing some more training and new ways to grow the business.

I do carpet and upholstery at the mo and am NCCA. I am thinking of doing some hard floor training and would like opinions from people who already offer it.

I use a porty and would like to upgrade it soon, i would like the next machine to be capable of carpet and hard floor cleaning - i know that means having a high pressure pump - can anyone recommend a machine with high enough pressure for good hard floor cleaning? What sort of cash investment will i need for the new machine and tools and will a 2 day course provide me with enough info to start off with?

For people that do carpet and hard floor, how is the work split - what percentage hard floor and what for carpet? How is the hard floor priced?

I am thinking maybe the hard floors will lead to more regular contracts from commercials?


Thanks guys

[Jim_77]

Don't be bullpooted by suppliers mate, or anyone else for that matter - you don't need high pressure to do hard floors.

I've built up a nice little number of clients who have hard floor work done, all with a 135psi ninja.  It's much more about the right products and agitation with hard floors, and then simply being able to rinse effectively.  For christ's sake there are still hard floor courses (Dowding & Plummer to name one) who say you should just wet mop a floor after putting stripper on it!!!!

Of course there are the guys who use a spinner with a TM, but that's coming from a different angle.  I've never really worked with a spinner/TM combo so can't comment on the differences.

For stripping/sealing vinyl or stone on a domestic or small commercial scale you can do it perfectly well with a standard porty, no need for mega expense

[Karl Wildey]

higher pressure makes work easier, thats why its recommended.

Just been on the NCCA hard floor course by Keith Robertson, I would recommend the course if you are thinking of getting into hard floors. Keith also does another course at Alltec with IICRC which is a more in depth course, highly recommended as well, so I hear.

[sherco]

I only use a rotary scrubber and a 3000watt triple motor wet vac, and i do loads of stone, and ceramics. Depends if you just wont to clean them, if you want to do diamond polishing on granite and marble, or honing limestone etc then thats a different ball game.  and about £10,000

[richie]

We do hard floor cleaning, somtimes we use the truckmount extracting then other times we do it with a mop.  It all depends on the size of the job that we are on at the time.  As already stated the work on hard floors is done by the chemical & aggitation. Providing you get those two things right the method of picking up the aggited slop off the floor is a matter of preference.

[deep-cleaningukltd]

Jase,

Your going to get load's of different answers, all in their own way right answer's. I will just say, there's a lot more to it than you might expect. If for example you were asked to clean a lime stone floor (even if you recognised it as such) would you clean it with an acidic cleaner? If asked to clean some old Victorian tiles how would you start?

Do yourself a favour and book onto a course with Keith Robertson; the man lives, eats and breaths hard floor. I've never seen anyone go all "girly" over a Hydro Force SX12 untill I met Keith.

[CleanerCarpets]

lol, a bit like the heat and no heat question!! many different answers!

thanks for all the opinions guys, reckon i need to invest in a course first and then decide for myself on the best route

thanks again

[Jim_77]

Make sure you're not investing in a sales pitch though mate, that's all I'm saying

[CleanerCarpets]

hi Jim

absolutely mate - i am pretty good at knowing if i am being sold more than i need!!! thanks for your advice - did you train up somewhere? how did you learn the hard floors?

[Jim_77]

I'm no hard floor expert.   Got a basic grounding through ServiceMaster (handy to be the only recommended company to maintain Amtico ) and watching/learning from the guys I started with (also recognising where they were going wrong!).

Asking lots of questions, always trying to understand in greater depth what exactly floors are and how to maintain them.

Trial and error   Not meaning I've ruined peoples' floors, although there have been a few close calls along the way!  Always striving for perfection, so if a job doesn't go exactly as I'd wanted, I'd be asking why and how could I improve.

You learn a lot from going out to look at jobs, making no promises or commitments, and doing a little testing.  In the past (and I'm sure I'll do the future too) I've taken an enquiry and thought "Ooh that sounds scary" but gone out to look, got as much info as possible from contacts, forums etc, then bought some stuff and gone back and done a bit of testing (free of course) to allow me to find out if I can do anything and how to price it.

To be honest I have never pushed hard floor work too much other than Amtico.  Stone, slate etc are much harder work and you can never achieve the hourly turnover rates as with carpet cleaning.

It seems bonkers but I've encountered this situation many times:  A customer might have a slate floor that cost them £100 a metre and carpet that cost them £30 a metre - you quote them a rate of e.g. £4/m for the carpet and they snatch your arm off but try getting £6/m for stripping and sealing the floor and they'll go into spasm :  There seems to be much less perceived value in hard floor work, maybe because folks don't think there's anything technical involved with it

A few times with stone etc I've ended up slogging my balls off for what has equated to as little as £20/hour turnover (margins are much less than CC due to materials) - it can be physically knackering too, giving you that "why am I doing this" sort of feeling at the end of the day.  So that's why I use my acquired wisdom and quote high for these sort of floors - the few that I do get, I enjoy, and the others can "get the cleaner to run a mop over it" for all I care

Vinyl is a walk in the park, get to grips with the basics of it and start advertising Amtico/Karndean is my recommendation

[Jim_77]

... and a 135psi machine will do you proud for the average kitchen/hall and even commercial jobs of 100m or so, no need to buy much new kit apart from a hard floor wand, a few chems,  and the appropriate pads for your rotary

[sherco]

Depends who you aim your business at, i have a reputation of being expensive on natural stone floor cleaning, but all of the tile retailers around the area always give people my name, take today for instance i have looked at two jobs 84 sqm of slate clean and seal £1008.00 and the price was accepted another one a bit more specialised 120 sqm of limestone to Hone £4800.00 and that job was accepted. Get the right customers they will pay 

[CleanerCarpets]

i like the sound of those jobs sherco - whats the mark up on that sort of job (profit) and when would they want doing again?

[Mike Halliday]

of all the hard floors I've done I can't see how I could possibly do them anymore damage that what would have already been done by the owners. Most are domestic kitchens or restaurant floor which have been mopped with every floor cleaner available at tescos

OK there are some very specialised stone floors out there, but (If we forget about hardwood refinishing) I bet they are not even 1% of the hard floor market.

Most of the floors I see come from B&Q or other tile retailer and are easily cleaned with just basic knowledge, the last one I did cleaned exactly as if it was a kitchen carpet.

If I get asked to clean the floor in York Cathedral I wouldnt do it but it in a house after a good pretest I'd do it

[sherco]

I mainly specialise in Natural stone, Put the wrong cleaner on a stone floor that's when the problems start, so having a basic understanding of stone helps. Also over wetting a floor and drawing the efflorescence out of the some stone can cause a problem that needs to be sorted before any sealer is applied, had one the other day that this happened on but pre warned the customer that it always happens on there particular tiles. Then there is the sealing, not as easy as it seems, had one about a week ago customer had a floor cleaned and sealed but to much sealer was applied and it looked very blotchy (Not by me) , called me in to sort it out....She couldn't believe what i did...i applied more of the same sealer and after about 15 Min's it softens the sealer and you can clean it off...All tricks of the trade...If anybody needs any advice ask away if i can help 

[Jim_77]

bloody hell mate I wish I'd have known that last year, I think you've described down to a tee a problem one of my customers had!

See if I can dig it up.....


(found it on cleantalk, posted there )

[sherco]

bloody hell mate I wish I'd have known that last year, I think you've described down to a tee a problem one of my customers had!

See if I can dig it up.....


(found it on cleantalk, posted there )

Ok i will take a look on cleantalk.