[Steve Chapman]

have bought a oreck orbiter for doing basic maintainence cleans in offices & small areas etc, but the charly pads seem a bit expensive

does any body use them or is there a cheaper alternative to these?

regards
steve

[*paul_moss]

They are dear at £120 for 2 but thats all you need to buy, one pair.
I have used them for a couple of years and they are good.They take a few cleans though before they wear in.

[carpetguy]

The little Oreck is not up to anthing more than light domestic work !!!!!!!!!!

rob

[*paul_moss]

Rob
I think you will find that Dave Ingram and Mike Haliday have found this not to be the case and use it for most domestic and some commercial 

[Phil Marlor]

Paul,  think you will find they only use it for aggitating pre-spray on small domestics.

Also CP's can only really be used on rotarys, they wouldn't last too long on oscallating buffing machines.

Phil

[carpetguy]

Paul

I know that some of the guys have had some success, but I found it overheated and became "unwilling" to run on c/t's, due to the high resistance.

This was using bonnets

On low profile domestic, where it might only get 15 - 20 minutes use it works fine, but Oreck do make it clear, that it's rated as for domestic use only.

Using with Charleys would have less resistance, so might work  better, but it 's really just a little domestic machine, rated for " light use "

There is a genuine commercial o/p machine which is imported from the USA which I think is 14 or 15 inch, there fore lighter than the 17 - 20 inch " back breakers "they are sold by a gent who banned me from his web site " forever ".............for reasons unknown !!!

[Buster Ingram]

I use my oreck on hard to reach places with cut down Charlie pads and they work fine.
90% of the time I use it for ajitation but it does come in handy to pad clean the odd carpet.
Truth is I'd be lost with out it now

Thanks for the machine Phil

[Phil Marlor]

You alright Dave?

I will give you a ring tomorow!

Phil

[carpetguy]

The concept of a small, but powerful o/p or rotary is something I imagined 20 years ago and bought an Oreck about ten years ago...........I even imported the little Argo o/p machine but found it to be pretty useless

Today, I used an Oreck with bonnets on an office carpet, but had to stop after about 15 sq metres as it was overheating and refusing to run.

As mentioned, there are a couple of excellent machines accross the pond with a high enough spec to use on larger commercial work.

Today, I was following up an experiment with encapsulation, which gave excellent results on two of our own bedrooms and which proved well within the Orecks abilities.

[Buster Ingram]

I can only echo the above post by saying the oreck is crap in commercial situations.
 Hellow "ITS MADE FOR DOMESTIC CARPETS"  there I go again shouting

[Phil Marlor]

Dont worry carpetguy, he often shouts at me!

Phil

[Buster Ingram]

You need shouting at, at times phil

[carpetguy]

Dave

I 've mentioned the Klanz a few times but had little respose. It's a machine I found very useful and wish I had'nt chucked mine out when an employee wrecked it. Just wondered if you had any experience of it.

rob

[Buster Ingram]

If its the machine with two counter rotaing brushess, they are brill for domestic carpets especially trashed long piled ones. many years ago I had a machine very similar to the Klanz I ran it till the brushess wore out. Sadly they discontinued it so brushess were hard to find

[carpetguy]

Thats the one ............the Klanz is still made and the floating drive pads ensure that it doesn't dig into the carpet.

rob

there was one on e'bay recently which I thought I'd won !!!!!!!!!!

[Buster Ingram]

What a bummer Rob.
A handy little machine if you can get one at the right money.

If its of help Rob try using a pad like this on your oreck it is great for agitation on domestic carpets

[Steve Chapman]

Thanks for the replies guys, just to reiterate the question wasn't about whether the oreck was crap or not :  -  the fact is i bought one, just wanted to know waht was the best pads to use on it

I already have a rotary for bonnet cleaning but it is too damn heavy to take up 5 flights of stairs to just clean several small offices which i do regularly, so the oreck is a good trade off, light enough to carry with one hand, but still capable of cleaning a carpet.

I was hoping just to use micropsplitters with suitable pads, but the normal ones i use with the rotary are obviously to big and of the wrong kind,  hence back to the original question, are the charly pads any good, do they do the job well or are there any alternatives??

Phew, there we go then

steve

[Ken Wainwright]

Super Charly Pads are not suitable for use with an OP machine.

I've seen some people use regular terry towels to great effect with an OP, but those more familiar with the Oreck may be able to advise better.

Safe and happy cleaning
Ken

[carpetguy]

T/towels might be Ok with a good drive board, but the Oreck one is plastic with bluntish tines. A heavy duty velcro might be a better option on a customised board !

[Mike Halliday]

the Oreck drive board is about 12-14inches so i think a small cotton face towel would work OK. the teeth on the drive board arn't too deep so it would work.

what ever ones you use they need to be cotton, these are the only ones that actually absorb dirt into the pad.

Mike