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General Cleaning Issues - Floorcare, car valeting, buying and selling businesses, pricing, staffing, market research, etc.

carpet cleaning add on

Posted by paul (paul), 16 February 2004
hi guys wondering if you can help looking to expand my company with a carpet cleaning service can you recomend where to get information on training best machine to buy/ cleaning products to use/what to charge per a room/clean
all help and advice would be well recived Huh
Posted by NSCleaning (NSCleaning), 25 February 2004
A good place to start would be the National Carpet Cleaners Association website (NCCA.co.uk) where you can get general info about the industry.  
Most people get into carpet cleaning by purchasing or leasing a portable "hot water extraction" machine, which would set you back £2-3000.  Spend any less and it just won't be up to the job.  My advice, if you go down this route would be get a minimum spec of 2 X 3 stage vacuum, 150 psi pump, and a heater.  Off the top of my head, companies to look at are Ashbys in Kent, Extracta in the North east, Prochem, Chemspec, Hydramaster, and Alltech.  They all have websites.  
Find out as much as you can about the business before you make any financial committment.  There are huge rewards  to those who are preapared to work hard, but most of the work you will find is marketing.  Cleaning carpets is not particularly difficult, but it isn't like, eg  plumbing when the phone never stops ringing.  
Most people who have had a go at it will tell you that it takes a while to get off the ground, having said that if you are thinking of diversifying it suggests you have already identified potential customers.  
One more thing, getting insurance can be a bit tricky nowadays as you need to obtain "treatment risk" cover.  Most companies either want proof of experience or formal training.  It would be false economy to venture into carpet cleaning without treatment risk insurance - one job I did recently involved top quality wilton at an estimated replacement cost of £120, (yes, £120) per square metre...    
Most of the companies who do equipment/materials offer training, as do the NCCA.  
Hope this helps.
Posted by Les (Les), 25 February 2004
Hi Paul,
I think you'll find most of the answers you are after over on the Carpet Cleaning Issues message board.
Good reading  Wink
Les

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