Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: M.Acorn on September 08, 2009, 04:26:20 pm
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Right i have a very regular customer,prob clean for her between 4 and 5 times a year ! White wool carpet,cat feet on stuff,draught marks etc,black spots around the edges where the grip bar is too long and pierced the carpet,you can feel it sticking out !
Now i remember speaking to a carpet fitter,who said it`s too much to keep cleaning carpets,you will delaminate the backing !
Said your only supposed to clean them when they are really minging. ( now he would say that obviously,means they will wear out quicker,so he get`s more work) But he was fitting new carpets in a house i had cleaned ttwice in the past,and i asked if there was any damage,he said no !
He told those customers that they shoulldn`t get them cleaned yearly losing me £350 !!!
So whats best ! ? would have thought personally 2 visits a year,for traffic areas,or tht grit will wear it out quicker ?
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How mant times can you wash a wool jumper before it wares out, hundreds!!
Ask the carpet fitter how can you delaminate a tufted carpet without a secondary backing, see what his response is/
Mark
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Mark,
Do you and the carpet fitter refer each other ?
Paul
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I clean this one house every 3-4 months and I'm actually thinking of dropping the job. I thought I was doing something wrong so changed tactics from Extracta's Traffic Lane cleaner (Which I have to say, really does the trick) to using Prochem Trafficlean and rinsing with Fibfab....
I realise it's because the customer's house is minging to start with, dogs, kids, filfthy kitchen floor, copious ammounts of food/drink spillages etc. The carpet doesn't stand a chance. Their next door neighbour actually made a comment about the frequency I was cleaning the custy's carpet and joked that I must be doing a crap job.... The cheeky fat..... The look on my face prompted him to say that he's not surprised their house is dirty :o
I told the custy on the first visit that she'd be better off buying a new carpet, she could have had one with the money she's spent with me.....
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This is the carpet in question... Thread bare in places where the kids/animals scratch the carpet ???
This was after 3 months since the last time I cleaned it!
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new carpet or not, it will still need cleaning every 4 months by the sounds of it so youve saved her loads of money.
why should she buy a new one when its only gonna end up the same. she's best waiting til the kids have flown there nest, or should i say trotted out of there sty ;D
derek
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The other colin is that it looks to be a synthetic carpet which will need to be cleaned more frequently than a wool one.
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Paul, absolutely right, but surely if your carpet was getting as bad as this within weeks, you'd be better off laying turf in your house?
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Thing is it`s never really dirty ! there is a treatment room upstairs,massage oil on the carpet etc,but it`s never dirty ! Few little spots here and there,not complaining,just don`t wanna do any damage ;D
Do you and the carpet fitter refer each other ?
Nope,had asked him to do something for one of my other custy`s, she was suppling the carpet,to replace a section on the landing prob 14x12 huge water mark and rotted carpet,where a huge plant had been (big big house) said you can charge a decent wack for fitting,bloke didn`t wanna know !
Have got another fitters number now
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Would the customer want to change the carpet every 3-4 months?
Shaun
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Massage room....? How are they paying you ;D
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Sports injury massage ;D And yes did get asked to whip my top off on one occasion,while complaing about a bad shoulder,said i was full of knots
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When something is dirty it needs to be cleaned, after all you would not want to wear the same kacks every day, especially with the terry's orange segment stuck in there ;D. Carpets are no exception, if it gets dirty through excess use then it needs cleaning more regularly.
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Got a couple of customers I clean their carpets every 10 to 12 weeks regular as clockwork.
In one of them there is Mum and Dad, 3 grown up children, 6 dogs, 3 cats, a rabbit a budgy and a horse (sorry the horse doesn't live their but the remains of its food is often walked in.)
The dogs pee. And the parents smoke.
ALso the house is on a busy junction with standing traffic belting out fumes. It's no wonder I am there so regularly.
Mark, if it's only a few spots why not arrange a regular 6 monthly clean with interim spot cleaning if that would help with your conscience? But if it's slightly dirty then only give it a light clean. Surely the fitter's comments are the same as saying that regular vacuuming will remove all the pile from the carpet.
My local fitter has a love/hate relationship with me. His customers come to him saying they have spilt something. He simply refers them to me, I get the stains out; he doesn't get to sell a replacement carpet.
His customers think he's wonderful for solving their problem. :)
His customers think I'm amazing for saving their carpet. ;D ;D ;D
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I bet the fitters bank manager isn't pleased with you ;D
Shaun
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"I realise it's because the customer's house is minging to start with, dogs, kids, filfthy kitchen floor, copious ammounts of food/drink spillages etc. The carpet doesn't stand a chance"
theres your reason for cleaning those carpets, id take that carpet fitter outside and kick the poop out of him with his own knee kicker.
what he should really be telling the custy is that the carpet isnt suitable for heavy domestic use - but then most shops/fitters dont these days - its all about making the sale...and on the flipside, price and look can often be chosen by the custy over suitability.
you're cleaning the carpet and making it more aesthetically pleasing, if she did get new carpets - youd still be cleaning them, they'd jus last longer, if the right carpet was chosen...
delamination is possible, but rarely a concern, and can be repaired easily with most types of carpet
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Trying to look at things from a carpet fitters perspective. He may think that if you keep on making the carpets look good he may loose out on work somewhere along the line.
Maybe he tells all his customers that carpets can't be cleaned many times before falling apart in the hope that his phone rings and not yours. Not saying he is telling porkies but it is possible. I have never seen a carpet damaged by anything I have done to it. I would imagine that heavy aggitation must accelerate the wear on the pile.
As an afterthought, we are not looking to get the backing wet at all when we clean so what exactly is going to cause delaminating. Maybe this guy doesn't understand what it is we do.
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I had a internet arguement with a fitter on a local forum he stated that stains can be removed with white spirit on all carpets, when I questioned about bitchamastic backings etc etc then he stated that I was just trouble mongering so I think that because cleaning isn't regulated and is self taught that fitters aren't educated either.
Shaun
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Another thing,the first time i cleaned this place,i only had 1 set of hoses,as i had just started up.
Like a tool i put 30 ltrs in my tank,before trying to get it upstairs :( i slipped and dropped it,30 ltrs of sol on hall carpet,which i sucked up straight away,even though it had 30 ltrs spilt on it.it still didn`t damage the carpet,as looked underneath when it was changed ;D
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Mark - you make me laugh!
Why not write a book "Looking back at my years of disasters"
All in a bit of fun Mark. ;D
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I know Joe ! I have hundreds of funny / scary and downright weird story`s.
Split up with a long term g/f about 15 yrs ago,we owned a house together,but were living there in sep rooms leading seperate lives !
She was out at a friends house in Cambridge,and i was collecting her and bringing her home,She gave me the address etc,and time i was supposed to pick her up,so i got to the address as arranged,sat outside in ther car after beeping a couple of times ! Saw curtains move etc,beeped a bit more,nothing ?
Now i suppose you could say i was having a bit of a breakdown as such,to cut a long story short,i ended up on the roof of the car shouting etc,where the f@@k are you ! Did this for about 20 mins until i gave up,just driving around the corner when i see the police turn up where i had just been ,and found her standing next to the house i was supoposed to be meeting her at !
Turns out i was at the wrong address !
Whoops !