A while back, I consulted with RugBadger.com to obtain materials and equipment for setting up a rug studio at my facility. To make a long story short, the 13k+ was a deterent for the owner of my company. I have seen the demonstrations at Champion Construction/Cleaning Systems (Reets Drying Academy), and I firmly believe that immersion cleaning is far more effective at removing soils and penetrating deeper into the fibers of area rugs than the surface clean provided by the HWE method. I would like to construct one that is more cost effective than the RugBadger brand, yet comparably functional. I could use some ideas.
http://www.rugchick.com/2011/04/rug-shop-set-up/ Read that post and browse through this entire section - you will get a free college education. I prefer a wash floor for washing rugs - only use a pit to soak urine rugs. You can build a pit pretty cheap and go from there as you grow. What size shop do you have? Dedicated space for rugs?
On the low end Lisa Wagner recommends a hose, brush, and driveway. If you already have a driveway you can start for under $100. If Dusty told you $13,000 he probably didn’t understand your question. For a low end start I have heard Dusty recommend PVC pipe, a tarp, and a Sanitaire vac to dust. Since Dusty does not make wash pits be probably was offering you Jeff’s wash pit. It is nice but not necessary to start. The Rugman makes a good point with his wash floor comment. When I started washing rugs I used a concrete pad and for soaking rugs I used an oversize trash can. Far from ideal but it worked and it was cheap. So tell us what you have especially space and what you want to spend. You do not need to start with the expensive solution. By the way we have a very inexpensive training event coming up that might be a real help for you. We will also deal with urine decontamination using different cleaning systems: http://oriental-rug-cleaning.blogspot.com/2011/12/oconnells-great-dc-ruglover-tour.html Best wishes, Barry O’Connell
Not every rug should be soaked with water. I had to reclean a white polypropelene several times using ultra low moisture with bonnet and fast drying just to save it after an employee soaked it with a cimex and wand. I almost had to buy the rug.
Thanks for the info, guys. I haven't had the opportunity to view the links yet, but I plan to do that this weekend. My thought process wasn't necessarily to 'soak' every rug but to use the pit in a similar fashion and contain the any fluids used in the process. Although I don't have any formal training in rug cleaning; only seen the demonstrations offered by Jeremy Reets... Check out these quick videos to get an idea of what I am thinking: http://championcleaningsystems.com/area-rug-cleaning/ To answer your questions, I have approximately 6000 sq ft of shop space and approximately 3500 sq ft of office space. I have some photos of the facility on my profile, so feel free to check them out. As for the equipment Dusty suggested, the packages that were listed on his website (one of which we were interested in), if I remember correctly, was Jeff's wash pit. And I agree with you that there are many alternatives that are much cheaper.
Very interesting Matt. I enjoyed the videos. However I would say that with better editing they could have reduced it to one video 7-10 min long. That being said if you emulate what they have done you will be heads and shoulders above your competition as well as on your way to a profitable business.
If you are charging $3-5 per sq ft, then your average job should be $300-500. That does not seem like it would take much to pay back a $13K investment. I'm sure he has payments. If you are getting seriously into rug cleaning, you might as well set it up right and that truly is not a lot of money to start up for any type of strong service. But more important than the equipment is the education behind it. There are a lot of dangerous rugs in today's market (i.e. most of what Pottery Barn sells) - you need to know what is and is NOT possible when cleaning rugs or that $13K will multiply into a much higher amount in paying to replace rugs you've ruined. Lisa
