[Aquakleen Restoration Services]

Hi all

Doing a working mans club today and ill be on forever getting the gum off with my steam gun. What are the better alternatives? I need a system that will be a lot quicker!!

Cheers
John

[derek west]

butter knife and OJ is the quickest for me, gone off my steam gun as it gets quite messy sometimes.

[derek west]

forgot to add, not on bitumen backed carpets though. obviously

[Len Gribble]

In my tool kit bread knife its longer and flexible, wire brush 

[Colin Day]

A very experienced and successful C/C told me BBQ lighter gel was good, so I tried it and it works... : It stinks to high heaven though, which is the only down side.

Try it on some scraps of carpet first, I bet you'll be surprised

[Shaun_Ashmore]

An aged cleaner told me panel rub from a auto centre I may try the bbq lighter oil though

Shaun

[Carpet Dawg]

White spirit and kinfe works well too. Mind the back like Derek mentiond.

Tony

[wayne zabel]

butter knife and OJ is the quickest for me, gone off my steam gun as it gets quite messy sometimes.

What's OJ please?

[markpowell]

similar to citrus gel wayne
mark

[peter maybury]

chewing gum is something that we do a lot of and we use wall paper strippers, where the stuff is concentrated the area of the stripper will soften quite a few pieces at once. The size of the tank also give you quite a bit of working time before refilling we have 3, 2 x 5 ltr and one 10 ltr capacity. I once did a w.h. smiths branch and stopped counting the gum after going over 2500 pieces. The other place we have found stupid amounts of gum is on trains wall to wall gum. Many people will not touch gum but a lot of the work we do we would not get if we did not offer the service.

Peter

[james roffey]

I did a Salvation Army hall just before Christmas and it was covered in chewing gum did a bit of research on the various forums i decided on a product called "ridagum" its amazing stuff comes with wire brush or you could use a gumgetta which is just a piece of plastic with a sharpe edge which i got from Alltec. i think Amtec do Ridagum  tel 0845 1304755  its designed just for chewing gum it not thick like citrus gel and it works in seconds with a bit scrubbing.

[markpowell]

Ridagum is good on fresh gum, but not the trodden in black stuff
Steam is the best imo
Mark

[darren fair]

I done a lot of clubs night clubs restraunts etc. If there is a lot of gum and the carpet has a decent pile on it the thing i use is a stanly nife. Just skim it across the surface works great but you need a little practice and if the carpet is that bad with gum if you have the odd accident you normally caunt tell.

[Aquakleen Restoration Services]

Thanks for all your advice guys. In the end I went with the tried and tested steam gun and solvent route. It is time consuming but works great. I love the wallpaper steamer idea thanks for that and to all that has commented!

[richie]

In places such as night clubs & pubs i always opt for a Wallpaper scraper.  The type that has a 4 inch razor type blade on it.  If used correctly you can remove gum very quickly and you only take a small amount of fibre off the carpet which is not noticable.  Had a debate with someone on one of these forums a couple of years ago regarding this method.  I claimed that i could remove (10 - 20 pieces i think it was in a minute).  I offered to prove this to him but he declined my offer  .  This technique we have used for years in night clubs so i know that i can remove gum as quickly as id stated.

Richie.

[Aquakleen Restoration Services]

Hey Richie

Sounds good, maybe the next time your out and about you could video your tecnique and upload it to youtube? Would love to see you in action!! 

John

[richie]

John, i got started on this method about 10 years ago.  I just wish id known about this method 10 years earlier, I have tried steamers, solvents, gels and god knows what over the years but this is by far the easiest/fastest on the type of carpets found in clubs n pubs.  To be honest id sooner walk away from any gum removal job. Unless its insisted on by the customer of course then we do it.  Charge wise £45 per hour per man.

Richie.