[mike roberts]

thks for your constructive comments yesterday James 

In a 'Nutshell' take the advice and get some training 

[Steve Rothwell]

He wont..............

He'll buy a second hand grace, and work away merrily flooding and leaving soap everywhere
one day he will do it, and not be able to sort it out and wonder where he went wrong...


Everyone else will get the blame, wrong machine etc but not him..............

oh no he is experienced now, so nothing can go wrong........



see it a lot mate..../.

[cozy]

 

[Jim_77]

Is it just me who gets pi**ed off with people who just come here to take without giving?

[Carpet Dawg]

Hi Guys

As window cleaners no doubt vary so too do carpet cleaners.

Most on here aspire to be the best they can and therefore look to learn and earn as much as possible.

If you want to do very basic carpet cleaning, learning as you go along from your successes and failures, then a cheap machine like a Craftex Grace will suffice. However if you want to be good, then a higher powered porty or even a truckmount is required and these cost up to £30,000.

Training is vital if you want to be any good as is experience.

Cheers

Doug

This is the reply I was looking for, thankyou Doug.

Thanks to everyone else that has took the time to reply, appreciate it!

Looks  to me that you just wanted to be told you are right! 

[A Morley]

Hello all, hope everyone is well.

You wont find arrogance here I hope because I'm too bewildered and ignorant to have self-confidence let alone cockiness. I've trawled the site and been glad of the input from some obviously very knowledgable and experienced operators. I've not quite found the exact answers I've been looking for, carpet cleaning certainly has more to it than most people would imagine so you'd need volumes to cover everything it seems.

Anyway, to narrow things down a bit .................. carpet cleaning would be a supplementary income for me and I'm not looking to make a fortune at it. The part-time job I've just been made redundant from paid a humble £170 net per week and if I could equal this I could keep the wolves from the door. That's not to say I'm looking for an easy life, I don't underestimate the work involved. Unfortunately I'm having recurring back pain and would need to ease myself into the work gradually even if I did want to make a king's ransom.

Reading through the information available, would I be correct in saying that while not necessarily the best cleaners on the market, HOST Freestyle and Reliant are at least fairly 'idiot proof'. By that I mean I'm less likely to destroy someones carpet with one of these rather than with a more complicated cleaner? It does seem that whatever model I choose you guys would still say do as much training as possible?

Needless to say for the relatively modest sum I want to earn per week the Reliant is much more likely to pay for itself in the short term. I have to admit to being fairly surprised at the cost of some of the more proficient models out there. You get what you pay for and pay for what you need obviously  Do you think the Reliant would be up to the average job (!?!?) if I was patient and learned the basics over time?

Sorry if these seem like rather naive questions or if they've been asked before numerous times and I've just failed to find the answers.

Any feedback gratefully, and definitely not arrogantly, received 

Tony

[Ricky M]

Hey, I earn millions and drive a 5 year old transit thank you very much

Jim what is this all about, have i missed something here 

[AshWhite]

Ricky,
I just realised you're on here - I just bought the Numatic off you! lol

[Simon Gerrard]

As for getting some training, that will come from friends and famillys carpets, so dont think I need to do any courses etc.

I'd think twice, perhaps even thrice over that if I were you. You can do an awful lot of damage in a very short space of time simply by not knowing what you are doing. Plus, it's not a very professional appraoch, if you don't mind me saying so.

Simon

[Jim_77]

Oh he won't mind, he won't even read it Simon... he's been told he's right by someone and now he's off round Auntie Mabel's to slop some detergent round her lounge carpet

Ricky, if you convert it into Japanese Yen I earn millions!

Tony, training is essential no matter what level you're wanting to take it to.  You need to know what you're working on, whether you clean one carpet a week or a hundred.

However if you wanted to just start something part-time you could get something like a HOST system and market yourself accordingly.  However (and this is a real can of worms) it's my opinion you should market "dry" systems like HOST as a maintenance cleaning system and not try to pretend, as others do, that it is anywhere near as effective as Hot Water Extraction in the majority of cases.

Indeed, you wouldn't need to be anywhere near as wary about ruining carpets, however you wouldn't want to attack a 100% wool velvet pile carpet with your coarse brushes!  I would market to hotels & conference centres first, as they are the most likely to want the number 1 advantage of a dry system - no down time and no drying time.

Could say lots more but need to walk the dog.  Good luck

[Paul Evans]

As for getting some training, that will come from friends and famillys carpets, so dont think I need to do any courses etc.

I'd think twice, perhaps even thrice over that if I were you. You can do an awful lot of damage in a very short space of time simply by not knowing what you are doing. Plus, it's not a very professional appraoch, if you don't mind me saying so.

Simon

Nursery  rhyme,

Simon says, 

And he is spot on

Paul

[A Morley]

No, that's more than enough Jim, really appreciate you taking the time. Cheers.

[Jim_77]

No problem Tony

Further to my previous post, the one thing many would-be carpet cleaners fail to spot is that this business is all about marketing and salesmanship, if you want to ever get off the ground.  You could train a monkey to do the work, it's getting the work in the first place that is the difficult bit!