So, I'm thinking of adding a rug plant to the arsenal. I have the commercial space, what tools would you stock if you had 2-5ksqft and a decent budget. Badger? Pit? Dryers?
I always say - rugs - east to clean, hard to dry! A good drying rack system allows you to clean rugs even in a small space. 1st thing I look at in a space is room to hang rugs. I also like too have a "dirty" area to inspect the rugs and dust them - then move to the cleaning area if possible. Urine rugs are left in the dirty area to be delt with. Takes lots of space but nice if you have the room.
Jose Also looking at more efficient ways to clean area rugs also. Drying rack is #1 along with "Rug beater". Here is a great thread to an alternative to the Rug Badger, in no way putting down the Rug Badger etc.. http://www.truckmountforums.com/area-rug-cleaning-forum/18997-lisa-about-rug-beater.html Change the beater bar and you have a rug beater. JIM There was video also but couldn't find it.
Hey Jose, I agree. I'd start with the Sanitaire. Richard Baldwin posted a video of how effective it is a while back. And Lisa Wagner uses them in her shop. Once you get enough rugs coming in to justify it, then drop the $3500 for a badger. I'm also in the process of building a rug pit and drying rack. I'm working out of a 2 car garage right now, so space is a concern. But I have room to add on if rug cleaning takes off. I think I'd save that money for marketing, since you probably have most of what you need already (Vaccum, floor machine, air movers). Build a pit with PVC, a utility pump and a heavy tarp, dust with a sanitaire and some privacy lattice (Dusty's tip, works great too), make some drying racks or if you have the space, a drying "platform", or just lay them out flat with air movers. Oh, and get a nice craigslist ad made targeting rugs.
There are a whole series of tradeoffs that come into play cleaning rugs. First of all start with Training. It is better than equipment. After training I recommend Marketing. Marketing does not have to be expensive avoid dumping big chunks of cash into radio, TV, and newspaper. To quote Paul Iskyan the busiest rug washer in the US, "Dusting is 80% of cleaning rugs". If you don’t effectively dust the rug you will get dirty fringes when you hang a rug. Rug washers who do not effectively dust usually have to “flat-dry” because otherwise they would get a Mud Slide when they hang. Sanitaire vacs are OK but slow. If you are not busy that may be acceptable. It depends also on how cheap your labor is. Rug Badgers are much faster. Delicate rugs take special care but for many shops with a good flow of business they are a cost effective choice. For slower shops see the new baby badger it costs a lot less. Air Dusting is a great way to clean rugs. It costs more than a Badger. The downside is the dust getting on everything. If you are going to airdust look for a used paint booth. If you can’t find one at a good price let me know I have a buddy who sells new ones and knows where the used ones are. If you have a huge volume a Moore style duster is the way to go. It is like a Badger but it can do a room size rug in one shot. Dusty Roberts who invented the Badger uses one at his rug plant If somebody trys to sell you the $100,000 dollar blue solution run away as fast as you can. To try and load new cleaners up with expensive equipment that is second rate at best and in the case of the very expensive tub is often a bad idea is not fair to cleaners.Communal tub washing without adequate flushing and rinsing is reckless. Tubs are good for some things but not as your primary washing system. If Tom wants to debate tub washing we can do it here or open a new thread. To be fair I need to point out that Paul Lucas, Nathan Koets, Dusty Roberts and I will be teaching a seminar in Feb in Va on rug ID, Marketing and Urine Decontamination. So I have a vested interest but we are so much cheaper than anyone else in the business that we are little more than covering expenses. Our 3 day course is less than 10% of the cost of Ellen and Aaron’s 5 day course. Best wishes, Barry O'Connell http://www.SpongoBongo.com
Very much appreciate the information thus far guys. Thanks a lot! Now, obviously, getting some real training for rug cleaning is an obvious. So thoughts on where and who(thanks spongo). I know marketing is a huge key, and, I know to say far away from radio, tv etc... actually, the avenues i've pursued for repair & tile cleaning have given me great yields thus far, so, that blueprint will carry over to Rug cleaning and i'm fully confident that it will yield some pretty good work right out of the gate. Those two being said, lets get down to raw numbers and equipment. I've seen the Badger work, and I'm a big fan of "the right tool for the job". So, a beater and a decent vacuum, racks for drying, would a heater assist with drying? I was thinking of some sort of kiln? Air movers, and a real pit. My budget is somewhere between $5k-$8k for this venture. Lets hear your thoughts on what you would have in your new plant. Pro's / Con's of it all. Edit* Jim, thanks for that post, Lisa has a great post in there on what's needed and budget wise. Really a great thread...Lisa is the woMAN!
If you are a new startup, rugs to clean is what you need! Don’t try to legitimize your business with a bunch of equipment purchases RED OR BLUE. You need; invoices, rug tags, signage, phones (multiply cordless around the shop) visa terminal, tying twine, wrapping paper, packing tape, insurance, fans, heat, drying space, storage racks, sizing floor, steamer, a dehumidifier is nice but low volume not needed. We have both a Badger & a sanitaire. A sanataire vacuum is a 200.00 purchase you can use in plant or in home it works very well on many rugs and better than a strap duster on many things . We use a strap duster on thick rugs such as tufted, Gabbehs but find the Vacuum works much better on heavily impacted soil & thinner rugs the solution at our plant is both but we probably run 80% vacuum to 20% strap duster. Pro/con Pro; an add on service additional income stream Con; plenty of competition in your area for rug cleaning Not sure about the cost but here 2-5k shop will cost 3K a month rent, not including utilities and other expenses are you pulling that in with area rugs right now ? Have you considered marketing your rug cleaning first and sub it out to someone locally to see if your marketing works and generate a customer base and the revenue to legitimize the expenditure? You wouldn’t be the first person to dump 40K on equipment & 5k a month on rent to gross 2K a month in rug cleaning.
The problem with anonymous posters is it is hard to tell if they are on the level or if they have an axe to grind. When I saw "rugman" I thought it was "The Rugman" who is a very credible poster. But Rugman who posted directly above has a fake location and no other info. I guess I am old fashioned but that is why I sign my name and I try to be clear about my biases. Dbonezny if you need any help getting started feel free to contact me. I promise not to try to sell you soap or equipment and i don't care if you come to my DC Rug Tour or not. Best wishes, Barry O'Connell http://www.SpongoBongo.com
Take Barry up on that offer Jose. He's the real deal. And you're right Barry, I read the post above yours thinking it was from THE rugman.
Looks like the RugMan (of denial) is operating a RugBadger with broken and worn straps but I can't help as his/her identity is a of denial. Note that you can click here to see if your staps are worn or cracked. http://rugbadger.com/vibro-straps.html We have hundreds of clients with our RugBadger equipment around the world that use to use their vacuums to vibrate the back including using the sanitaire. In my opinion the sanitaire with the Vibra-groomer roller with the doubled up beater strips is awesome and I recommend it to persons that want to clean rugs better but are not ready yet to invest in a RugBadger. Bottom line is that all our models of the RugBadger will outperform a vac and this video proves it. Just take any Vac and a RugBadger and let them both run on the same spot on a rug for 6 seconds only. You will always find a signifacantly larger pile under the Badgered part of the rug plus keep in mind that any vac will quickly loose performance from the belt slipping to the beater strip wearing and the motor getting tired. They just are not made for the continuous use and of coarse the RugBadger equipment is. here is a head to head http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXdoBMIynEI
Why in the world would this rugman post links to eBay in his thread, and to some really crummy dehumidifiers, and even worse rugs? Have the spam posters gotten this much better at posting? Lisa
I want to add a point that Lisa has also made more than once - The equipment you need depends upon the volume of business you do. There are several good options available. The biggest differences are not how well they clean but how many rugs they can get clean in a certain period of time. So, your at your volume of business or expected volume of business when purchasing equipment. Then decide what makes sense for you. I recently assisted a new rug cleaning company put together a rug pit for some large rugs (15' x 27'). Then we used a Brush Pro and grids to dust the rug. Later the Brush Pro was used for agitation. An E-TES sped up the drying. Now an E-TES might not be right for every rug operation, but for companies that also do restoration, it is another great use for that E-TES.
Nice idea on the E-TES. I would love to see a video if you ever have one available. Thanks, Barry O’Connell www.SpongoBongo.com
Just need to closely monitor the heat from the eTes - I've had a few cleaners shrink up some tufted rugs by having it get too hot. Cotton can shrink, and latex can delaminate, so just need to use common sense. Lisa
