Kenny's Corner- Questions about Equipment

Wand glide lip question.. Am i loosing cfm/lift..... seems like a small opening ...

Wand glide lip question..

My stock wand is 12" the opening is 3/16" When i add the front lip glide it's 3/32" thats 1/16" less than 1/8"
Am i loosing cfm/lift..... seems like a small opening ...


Any time you add any glide to a wand, you lose lift, but gain cfm. You lose lift because the glide will not lock down to the carpet. Even thou the area is smaller than the opening without the glide on, it is still a larger area than was open at the WCI when the wand is on the floor.

How do we know this? The amount of air that can flow thru a regular wand when on the carpet at 14"HG is approx 100 cfm. This much air requires an opening of about 5/8 sq in.Since the width of the wandhead is fixed at 12" wide, we can mathmatically calulate how wide the "effective slot width" is that equals that area.

Y = thickness of wand slot

5/8" = Y X 12" long
.625" = Y X 12"
Y =.625/12
Y = .0521" width (effective width of slot without glide)

Now, the width of the slot with the glide in place is 3/32", or .0938" expressed in decimal form. Comparing the 2 numbers we have this ratio:

.0938/.0521 = 1.80

So the area that the air goes thru with the glide in place is 80% larger, which raises the cfm potential up to 180 cfm, compared to the 100 cfms it was before. Lift will go down, but not as much as cfm went up, because less air is being drawn in thru the vacuum relief now that more is coming in thru the wand.The Lip glide only raises the wand head 1/16" or so, but that little bit is still enough to increase cfms on most wands up to 80% or more.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

kenny is it better to clean at higher psi's or lower???

jtuseo wrote: Question for Kenny   What are your thoughts of the Pro Chem Blazer?

Good starter machine. If doing mostly residential cleaning with up to 200 ft of hose, it can be a good choice. If you need more performance, the Legend is a better choice.
    

jtuseo wrote: Kenny I want to get into Hardwoodfloor cleaning and polishing. I amlso want to start stripping and polishing hard floors like in resturants and super markets. What would you recommend. I want to be as cost effective as possible. Also do you think there is a demand for hardwood floor polishing and cleaning.   Thank you   Jtuseo

There is huge demand for this, but you need to gain a higher skill level to do it than carpet cleaning. Carpet is still being removed more from houses than installed, and this is where the demand is coming from. But because they need area rugs to go with the new refinished floors, staying in carpet cleaning is still a good plan. But you want to go after the area rug market by installing a wash pit and drying rack. This takes money. Learn the refinish business first then install the other.
    

jtuseo wrote: Does this mean the future for carpet cleaning is grim? Will it end Kenny? I am going to purchace the buffer and start  doing the woodfloors to, I need to ad this to my service.

IMO, carpet will not be ending in either of our lifetimes, but since most carpet is made from oil, and oil is going much higher in the next few years($100 to 200/barrel), its use has further to fall yet. Probably to about 50% of floor coverings from the 70% or so it is at now. Also, expect carpet that is purchased to go high end more and more. This means more wool carpet installed in the higher end homes. Low end homes will increasingly go to wood and other material like tiles.