Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: EasycleanWindows on August 03, 2008, 08:28:06 pm

Title: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: EasycleanWindows on August 03, 2008, 08:28:06 pm
I have always thought it would be easier to leave outside but wasn't sure if the noise of the portable would not be allowed for neighboring people

regards

steve
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: carlton care on August 03, 2008, 08:37:43 pm
I reckon your portable will be much quieter than a T/M and T/M'ers regard the noise to be a marketing tool.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 03, 2008, 08:39:40 pm
You don't have a category for me.

I leave my portable in the van, as long as the room I'm cleaning is within 150ft. It always is ;) For most I only need 75ft max.

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken

Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: derek west on August 03, 2008, 08:41:02 pm
carlton
as a truckmounter i'll confirm that, its excellent marketing and ive never had a noise complaint.
derek
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: homenclean on August 03, 2008, 08:42:47 pm
It depends where i am working and on the weather. Even with a cover i am not that keen on leaving outside on cold wet days.

I quite often dont like to leave customers door open if i am cleaning upstairs, for obvious reasons.

Buy saying all that it is nice when the gear can stand outside and all you have in is the hose and sprays etc.

John
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Shaun_Ashmore on August 03, 2008, 08:46:40 pm
Ideally you want to leave it outside to filter the dirty air outside.

Shaun
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Andy Hogarth on August 03, 2008, 09:50:55 pm
I leave mine outside, it's way too noisy to take into the customers house, plus if they have a upvc door I nearly put my back out getting it in.

I tend to wedge the custys door to just the size of the hose to stop it been fully open.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Jim_77 on August 03, 2008, 10:06:01 pm
Exactly the same as Andy in the above post.  I think that most customers wouldn't really be too bothered, but why take the risk of giving them a less pleasant experience if it isn't necessary?  One of the points in the guarantee I make to customers is that I will cause them the minimum amount of inconvenience possible, so if I needlessly drag a noisy bulky machine intothe middle of their house I feel I'm breaking that promise.

Terraced streets are a problem, so I sometimes just pull the machine inside the doorway to prevent any "Uncle Albert" insurance claims :)  This does present a bit of a problem in very narrow halls, as sometimes I need to get the rotary past the extraction machine.  Shuffling one out and the other in does pee me off sometimes, but I don't do a lot of terraced houses anyway so just grin and bear it when the need arises.

I can only recall a handful of jobs where the 50ft of hose I normally carry won't stretch all the way and so I've needed to pull the machine inside.

Shaun makes a good point too, you're responsible for the indoor air quality of your customer's home.  If I do have to pull my machine in further than the doorway so its rear-facing exhaust isn't blowing outside, I'll use my extension hose to vent the machine outside.  This also has a bonus effect of cutting the noise down a hell of a lot!
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Gary Webber on August 03, 2008, 10:09:08 pm
I take mine inside wherever necessary, luckily it is no noisier than a commercial vacuum, so there are no noise issues, plus it has an air port to attach a 10 metre hose to remove hot air.

Gary
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Goldfinch PCS on August 03, 2008, 10:22:54 pm
Ken

What portie have you got?
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Dave Roelants on August 03, 2008, 10:26:53 pm
You don't have a category for me either, I prefer to leave my portable in the garden shed but I do use it about 3 times a year, outside if poss, inside if I really have to-the noise drives me nuts!
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 04, 2008, 07:59:32 am
My set up is a Scorpion 500psi, with 150ltr on board tanks.

I tried it with a waste tank on board but with my too small van it was unworkable. I just have the freshwater at present. A doubled up tank rack is on order and delivery is imminent so I won't need to empty the waste every room or so :)

To achieve the desired performance with this set up, IMO it's essential to run 2" hose. Some of our US colleagues have even used 2.5" to the door with positive outcomes. Even at 100ft, the performance at my glided wand is superior to any twin vac I've seen with 25' of 1.5" hose :)

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 04, 2008, 07:41:13 pm
Hi Clinton.

Yes, I have a Citroen Dispatch.

I've been running van mounted for about 3 months now. I haven't needed to take the Scorpion off the van during that time. It is rare to go more than 75ft. At that length on 2" hose it is VASTLY superior to any twin vac porty. At 100ft you can hear a slight difference at the hose, but not one iota of difference at the Greenified wand. I've never needed more than 100ft to date, but have experimentd with 125' and 150' Again you can hear a difference at 125' but no difference in wand performance was detectable. At 150ft there is a slight tail off but it's still better than a twin vac porty on 25ft of small bore vac hose.  If I need extra lengths, I've also got an inline booster vac, but to be honest I don't carry it.

It'll be intersting to see if performance is affected with the larger recovery tank when fitted.

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: david_green on August 04, 2008, 08:05:56 pm
Ken
Do you find that there is much improvement in set up time with this arrangement?
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Jim_77 on August 04, 2008, 08:14:42 pm
Do you have any photos of your set-up Ken?  I've got the same van and I'm just trying to visualise how rammed it would be inside, with all my other paraphernalia!

Surely there isn't space for a hose reel?  Must be like a van full of boa constrictors carrying 100' of 2" around :)
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: davep on August 04, 2008, 08:21:05 pm
Jim you mention getting your rotary in, do you use it much for domestic?
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Jim_77 on August 04, 2008, 08:43:27 pm
Didn't say anything about my rotary, are you the shifty looking guy down the end of my street with the binoculars? :o

15" Rotary stays permanently on my van, I use it almost every day.

(oh i see I said that yesterday, been to bed since then!)
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 04, 2008, 08:58:19 pm
David

Initial set up time saving is minimal, if at all as you spend a little more time running hoses across the drive through the house, setting up trip notices and ramps if required (all this as with a T/M) plus you have to run the power leads to wherever. On a single 4x4 room, for example, I suspect there wont be any time saved :'(  But I rarely clean a single room :)

As for pictures, I'll see what I can do.

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Joe H on August 05, 2008, 07:46:57 am
Here is photo of a Scorpion with twin tanks - one clean, one dirty.

Clinton, my second machine is a Scorpion on 2" and the efficiency is a lot different to when on 1.5".

When in the van, obviously long electric extension cables needed.

I assume the framework is similar to what Ken is having done but he will confirm.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Joe H on August 05, 2008, 08:18:17 am
No I didnt have that set up in mine. Used as a portable.

Electric cables - even when leaving machine outside near door there were times I needed extension cables.

2" is now standard, I altered mine.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: John Kelly on August 05, 2008, 10:04:29 am
One of my customers was using that setup with the Recoil. When he upgraded to a Prowler he tried to use the waste tank and it imploded.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: carpetworx on August 05, 2008, 02:22:55 pm
I always used to leave mine out side,and have a long laundry hose connected to wash machine hot water tap,and extension line.but also had auto pump out/fill.Now have a boxxer 318 and i'm in heaven. 8)
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: John Kelly on August 05, 2008, 02:36:42 pm
Couldn't take the vacuum.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Mike Osbourne on August 05, 2008, 06:41:23 pm
Couldn't take the vacuum.

Yes, but the Scorpion weakened it. ;) 
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: John Kelly on August 05, 2008, 07:31:05 pm
No Kidding.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 05, 2008, 07:37:16 pm
I can understand a Scorpion's remote tank collapsing when connected to a Blower rather than it's design brief of 3x3 stage Amteks. A blower has a relatively high Hg lift. The Scorpion is configured for a high airflow.

Are there any plastic tanks without bracing  used for recovered water on T/M's?

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: John Kelly on August 05, 2008, 07:43:27 pm
Don't think so Ken. We were hoping these tanks would work as a tank is useful for sucking up quantities of silt and mud on flood work.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Gary Webber on August 05, 2008, 07:51:00 pm
When my Ninja started ageing it was a case of "hide it", as the body became more marked, dripping from connectors and the machine was too noisy to go into a customers house. Now the new machine has changed that. No noise, no dripping and a great talking point with customers as to what it is etc
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Ken Wainwright on August 05, 2008, 08:02:30 pm
Thanks for that John. My logic suspected that that would be your answer, but I didn't know for sure.

I presume that the metal tanks for T/M's have bracing.

Safe and happy cleaning :)
Ken
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Gary Webber on August 05, 2008, 08:11:03 pm
It is Clinton. I managed to twist Mark at Texatherm into letting me have his new EMV pre-order machine as my Ninja finally failed. This is the new Texatherm EMV and im chuffed to bits with it.
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: EasycleanWindows on August 05, 2008, 08:13:55 pm
IVE TAPED MY 2 CABLES TOGETHER IN STAGES STOPS GETTING TANGLED UP AND EASY TO UNDO IF NEEDED 
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Gary Webber on August 05, 2008, 08:26:24 pm
Hi Clinton,

Machine is not due to launch until end of August but I'll give you an idea of its spec.

twin stage 3's with high air path so increased air flow, controllable PSI in increments from chip controlled pump (pump senses flow requested and deliversit constantly)  high flow due to solution hoses with no restrictions, non-drip quick connectors, remote control, the list is endless.

The most important factors are that it out performed my Ninja both in airflow and solution delivery. The drying times are also improved.

You would need to speak to Mark but the design has been specific to achieve all of this.


Gary
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: Gary Webber on August 05, 2008, 08:41:44 pm
Hi Clinton,

There is a full function remote control available. This allows you to switch on & off the vacuum motors, pump and heater all from a small keyfob similar to a cars (great when you are two/three storeys up!) about 200 feet operational distance

Weight wise on a par with my ninja

Price will depend on options taken up. Competitve with a lot of machines out there,  Ask Mark!

Gary
Title: Re: Do you take your portable inside your customers Home ?
Post by: mark_roberts on August 13, 2008, 05:11:31 pm
It all sounds great......................until it goes wrong.

I'll stick with my texatherm tea urn until any problems are ironed out.

Mark