[ian loughlin]

I have been asked to give a quote to clean my local. Carpets and upholstery.

The carpet is a red patterned axminster in fairly good condition.

The seating is a number of corner bench seats and chairs.
The bench seats hold about 40 bum's and 45 chairs.
I have not measured the sq footage of the carpet yet but it is about 400sq' in total.

I have never done such a large job and could do with a few pointers. Especially with the upholstery as i am yet to do the course, but i don't want to miss out on such a good job.

Here are some photos of the upholstery and carpet and the backing.

[lands]

Hi Ian

are there black thick tar typed edges near the bar. If so that is the giggy ash mixed with beer etc. Seems impossile to move when you look at it but I did a job like this in a pub and I used a simple traffic clean pre-treat (lots of hard hand scrubbing) and good dwell time say at least 15 mins and hwe'd with extraction pro and the result was amazing. Make sure the carpets can take the PH that high though ( they usually can with pub carpets as they are constructed very tough).

Pete

[ian loughlin]

some tips and advice would be helpful guys...!!!!!!!!!

[AquaMagic]

Do a burn test, once youve burned the fibre rub it between your finger and your thumb, if you got black on your fingers stick to something like, MS or Ultimate Master, Natural Orage, Nemesis or M Power, if it goes hard you should be ok to use something like Blitz from Hyrdamaster, its hard to tell from a picture, looks sythetic in places but asso looks like wool in others, so a proper indentification is essential.

Best i can do with my limited experience, im sure others will offer better advice.

Dene

[Ian Rochester]

Ian,

How long have you been going and what sort of work have you done so far?

Pub carpets and upholstery are no different to doing domestic cleaning, though they are probably a lot dirtier.

However the techniques are the same.

Check the carpet can take a good cleaning, that it is fitted properly, spray any bad areas with whichever traffic lane cleaner you are using, Blitz or Champion are both ideal for this type of job.

The key to doing pub carpets is get in as early as possible 6am and be done and have it dry for 11am.

Use steam gun and either citrus gel or rid a gum for chewing gum spots.

[ian loughlin]

I have done 6 jobs so far, all simple home jobs. Its just that this is a lot larger, patterned axminster, and lots of upholstery. The last thing i want to do is take on something bigger than i can chew.

Some good advice so far guys.

My normal rate i 35p per sq foot,  should i be charging more or less for this job???

[AquaMagic]

Depends what you can get, i ussually charge a lower rate per square foot, but there is ussually more to do, if you think you can get 35p then go for it.

Dene

[carpetguy]

This is a pretty big undertaking, for a novice..................the most likely mistake you could make, is to overwet................get a helper to thoroughly vacuum , everything ahead of cleaning.

You will need assistance to get throught this in 5 - 6 hours and that's assuming the chairs respond well to an M/S or similar product.

You are very unlikely to get through this in one night, working alone, you might even struggle with two.

I would consider cleaning the seating, first and getting the carpets the next, or another, night. I f this is local, you could either, impress greatly,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,or maybe not.

Another point, which you should be aware of, is the fact that, dark stained furniture has a nasty habit of transferring dye to wet carpets.

Just noticed the carpet size, which is pretty small and it would be daft, to leave it for another day.

[Ken Wainwright]

To add to the advice already given, pubs tend to use body carpet, typically 27" wide strips which are seamed/stitched together. If so, inspect every seam carefully as it isn't unknown for them to grin at best or split at worst, when cleaned. You wouldn't want to create a major trip hazard in the middle of the floor would you :

Safe and happy cleaning
Ken

[carpetguy]

Ken's post reminded me of an elderly gent, whose carpets I cleaned recently. He'd worked with Stoddart and Templeton all of his life and had many tales to tell.

Ken's mention of 27" runners, which was commonly known as ship's wilton, in the past reminded me of something this elderly gent told me.

Namely, that boadloom was made to a staggering 33 feet in width, for very special contracts, apparently, no one would believe him, but he has a photo' of 3 weavers working the massive 33 "loom.

Just another bit of pointless information !!!!!!!!!!!!!!