Kenny's Corner- Questions about Equipment

Broke from parking inQuebec and cleaning in vermont.

I have two like that, what's wrong with Jacks

With three guys, I would think four to five hours, give or take?? How long does it take you?

ALRIGHT THEN.................I WAS JUST LOOKING FOR SOME CHEAP LABOUR TO CLEAN MY DINING ROOM CARPET.................THANKS ANYWAY                         NIGHTRIDER

My cheap days are done Jack. 10 years ago I would have done that job at .08 and been happy with that, but those where the days when I was cleaning 700 sq ft in empty houses for $49.(only .07/sq ft) I do not do anything that does not pay at least .20/sq ft anymore.

Besides, $400/hr for the job beats $160/hr everytime,eh?
    
    
    
    

Edited by Superglide Ken - 15/November/2006 at 7:03pm

nightrider wrote: I HAVE A 10,000 SQ.FT GREASY RESTAURANT CARPET TO CLEAN, THE JOB PAYS 8 CENTS SQ.FT  I HAVE THE CHEMICAL TO DO THE JOB WITH A 30 SECOND DWELL TIME, THERE ARE NO TABLES OR CHAIRS TO MOVE ( COMPLETE EMPTY SPACE ) USING ONE TRUCKMOUNT AND 2 WANDS (  HOW FAST CAN YOU DO THE JOB. )                                            NIGHTRIDER

First off, I personally would not do a job like that for anything less than .20/sq ft. I have done simular cleaning jobs as this one in 5 hours at an average of 2000 sq ft per hour useing 2 RX20 units. I would use an enzyme product to spray on the carpet to start the digestion of the food and grease. I would not use wands for this job. That would take longer and not do as even or quality clean as the RX20 can do.Finish up with a 175 rpm floor machine with cotton pads and light acid rinse to give an even finish.
    

 

                               

Edited by nightrider - 13/November/2007 at 4:38pm

Here is that article I promised Steamer about how to get more cfm out of his wand without a glide. That is only a small part of the bigger picture however, but this article tells how to do it.

30 minute Dry Times- with a wand!
Posted By Ken Harris on 5/20/2002 at 4:36 PM
The time has come for me to reveal to you how you can dry most of your customer's residential carpet in about 30 minutes using your existing equipment with a small amount of modification. I'm talking about using TM equipment here to do this and most of you will be able to use what you already have to accomplish this. In some cases you may need to upgrade what you are using to get down to these times. Or you could decide to use just what you have and still get your dry times down to an hour. What I'm about to say to get to this point is the result of 20+ years of experimenting with what works best to acheive this end.If you disagree with parts of it , fine.It has all been proven to do the job though, so use what parts of it that you can.


Components of the Drying System:

1) Equipment requirements
2) Vacuum Hoses
3) Water Temperature and pressure
4) Wand Technique
5) Wand requirements
6) Wand modication
7) The use of dryers


1) Equipment requirements

For most of you you will want to have a gas or diesal powered TM with a large enough blower to move about 300 cfm of air at a lift of 15"HG or higher. You will want it equipped with a positive displacement blower to do this. A 3.6 with a 288 cfm flow should be the minimum to consider, but a larger blower like the 4MP with it's 320 cfm and 16"HG lift would be better. It should be capable of hitting about 220 degrees ATM so you end up with about 200 degrees ATW with 100 ft of solution hose attached.Direct drive or slide-in doesn't matter.

2) Vacuum hose requirements

The hose should be kept at 110 ft or less for best performance and shortest dry times.If you can use it this way 90% of the time, you are doing very good. Two fifty foot sections of 2" hose with a 10 ft whip of 1.5" works best. Some would say to use 2" all the way ,but this is neither necessary or desirable. As long as it is kept short 1.5" hose is able to handle 280 cfm of airflow, and since even with a modified wand you will not flow more than 200 cfms, it does the job. All 2" hose just makes your job harder and wears you out sooner for no good reason.

Water Temps and Pressure

The reason to use temperatures of 200 degrees are two fold. First hotter water drys faster than colder water and will evaporate faster leaving less to dry from the carpet. More importantly though you need to use less water to clean the carpet because it speeds up the cleaning action of the chemicals used.The less water used the less to extract and evaporate. In regards to pressure , 300 psi at the wand is all you need. This will mean setting your pump at 450 ATM to get it.Using more than this breaks the surface tention of the carpet back faster and saturates it. This leads to longer drying.

Wand Technique

The best one to use to stop the carpet backing from becoming overly wet is backward only when the wand is on. Some say this does not clean as well. I say to increase your over-lapping on more heavily soiled carpet and decrease on lightly soiled. You will find you water lasts longer and your waste tank takes longer to fill too. Dry stroke the carpet once or twice after that depending on soiling present initially.

Wand Requirements

Most of you should be using a 1.5" tubed wand for the most comfort.Best would be a 1.75 tubed wand that will accept either size vac hose.The wand should have 3 jets on it, preferably 3 .02's. the reason for this is to retain as much heat to the carpet as possible. The greatest heat a cleaning system loses is here.The loss is around 15 degrees /inch of travel getting to the carpet.A 3 jet may lose 30 degrees travelling 2" down ,but a single jet can lose as much as 75 degrees going the 5 or more inches it must travel.

Wand Modication

If you are ever to get your drying times down to 30 minutes, you must find a way for your wand to move more air(CFMs) when it is down on the carpet working.Most wands will not flow more than 100 cfms thru the Wand/Carpet Interface(WCI) even when the TM powering it has 320 cfm and 15"HG and is operating only 100 ft of hose. The reason is that the effective area exposed to the atmosphere there is only the equivealent of a 5/8" hole. To improve this number you have to open up more area to airflow. The way you can do this easily is to take your 12" wand and turn it over . On the inner lip(the one closer to the wand jets)mark off 22 lines with a fine tipped marker pen, one every 1/2"until they go from one side to the other.Get yourself a fine hacksaw blade and say down to a depth of 1/8".This will get you about 50 more cfms entering your wand with a drop in your drying times. For those systems that you know for sure have over 300 cfms of airflow,you could increase the number of slots up to 44 to get about 200 cfm or use a fine file to double the width of your existing slots. File the edges of your air slots smooth before using it so as to not snag any carpet yarns.

The use of dryers

These should still be used with this system to get the fastest drying times. Use them in the center of the room with them pointed at the ceiling to force the airflow all around the floor to prevent a boundry layer of saturated air from forming and slowing down your drying.In some dryer climates you will find you don't need them if you are using the other parts of this drying system properly.Opening 2 windows or running the HVAC may be enough.


Ken Harris
Turboteck Supplies