I've read through all these post about op cleaning with an open mind.    Being a tm user for 10 years, I was a little skeptical of this "too good to be true" technique so I decided to read through every post I could get my eyes on regarding op cleaning.  I did look at the pictures Padman posted and yes I was very impressed with the visual results.  To be completely honest, I was almost sold on the idea till I seen the video showing how long it took him to clean a 10 x 10 area.  I am very confident that I could have cleaned it in 1/4 the time with the same results with our tm.   With this much difference in efficiency, it's a no brainer to figure out where the real value is with a tm... After all, time is money. 

I'm not surprised that you have no problem getting customers with op cleaning but I can also see how a guy with a tm bidding the same job could use a line like this....

"Trying to use this cleaning method as the primary cleaning method for carpets would be like you washing your hair in the shower. First getting your hair wet, then introducing the shampoo, and after turning the water off, retrieving a towel and trying to absorb the shampoo out of your hair by moving a towel over your hair. What do you think would be left on your scalp after that process?" 

and win over the confidence of just about any consumer with even a speckling of common sense.  Padman, Diva, or Gmoney, how would you work around this type of common logic?  This quote was actually intended as a slam against bonnet cleaning but I do think it applies to op as well... or does it not?    Besides, there's other common logic most homeowners possess concerning germs.. Wouldn't HWE be more effective in removing germs from carpet?  Allot of our clients have babies crawling around on there floors.. They expect their carpets to be as sanitary as the dishes they eat from.   Wonder why residential and commercial dishwashers use hot water and steam to sanitize dishes rather than sending them through a machine with spinning terri cloths? 

The grit in carpeting is what's known to cause rapid wear in high traffic areas.  When we walk across carpeting, the grit is like an abrasive to carpet fibers.  Spinning a wet terri cloth towel over the carpeting seems more like it would accelerate the wear rather than remove the source of the problem.  Do these op machines have some type of magnetic grit absorbing abilities? JK  But seriously,  I've cleaned the filters out on our tm more than a few times and it still amazes me at the amount of small rock like particles that come out of soiled carpet. 

I almost felt silly for spending the money I've spent on tm carpet cleaning systems after I first read Padman's post.  It was only after I thought about the real reason's people have there carpets cleaned in the first place that I felt more at ease.  The whole idea of op cleaning sounds like one of those late night info-mercials.  How does this sound?  "You can now clean your carpets as good or better than those high priced so called professionals with expensive truckmounted systems!!  Just look at these impressive results? (Padman's pics).. Just 10 easy payments of ???  if you act now, we'll throw in enough pads to thoroughly clean your residents for 3 years"   You could show a couple of video's featuring a homemaker using the pad spinner (which would be less expensive, made of plastic and a Taiwan motor)... 

I did see you effectively talk a few tm owners into trying your system.. How do you guys feel about paying  $4-5 for a round terri cloth rag?  Hell at that rate, I could spend a weekend at a cheap motel and actually turn a profit from it!   JK  Of course these rags are Teflon coated... wouldn't this take away the absorbent characterizes of terri cloth?  After all, aren't we magically absorbing all that dirt into the terri cloth?  I am a little confused about this notion.. please clarify..

Padman, here's one of your post I thought was a little below the belt. 

#7. Our country club here in Lexington, Ky. had been having their carpets cleaned every TWO WEEKS for 14 weeks, simply because the carpets would look bad after that short amount of time. They had gone through 6 of the local cleaners and still could not get the carpets to stay clean. We did the job and then started a 3 MONTH maintenance program, and because the carpets stayed so clean they them moved it to every 4 months. We have been cleaning there now for 7 years or so.

If anyone thinks the previous cleaners were simply fly by nights or that they didn't know what they were doing, I must disagree, one of the cleaning companies was Joey Picketts company. Most of you know who he is.

Mentioning competitors names in a post when they obviously aren't here to defend themselves is in bad taste.  If your system sells itself, then fine.. by all means knock yourself out.. I'm sure you could effectively sell allot of these op machines but don't you guys have any professionalism about yourselves?  Of all the years I cleaned carpeting, I never felt the need to even mention my competitors names, much less gloat about some country club I happened to take away from Jo Cleaner on the net.   Who's to say that Joey Pickett hasn't took a few of your previous clients checks to the bank?  Of course you wouldn't read about it here because I'm sure he didn't get where he is by being unprofessional. 

Back to just using  common logic..   If I were to use and op machine I would first need to spray down the carpet with a prespray in order to break up the soil from the carpet.  If the prespray isn't rinsed away, then how can you claim residue free carpet?  Just like the example above.. If you shampoo'd your hair and didn't rinse it out, could you really just take a wet towel and shimmy it off without leaving residue in your hair?   If your prespray is good enough to break up soil, it's good enough to attract dirt off the bottom of shoes..

I really do want to believe in op cleaning but I just can't escape this common logic.  Before you say it, I really don't know much about op cleaning.. never seen it done, but I do have common sense.

Steve

There you have it folks.........Steve has spoken and said his piece..........lots of good points there my friend steve.......you certainly don't lack any common sence from where you stand, but sometimes you have to jump the fence to get a clearer view of the whole picture.

Padman is no dummy in this business, and his results speak for themselves. I never used his methos or products but I am game to give it a try.

                                   Nightrider

ken...if you sell an OP system, I'd like to see a picture of it.

I'm sure you will have some dumbazz reason why you wont post the pic, but I'm pretty certain it's because you don't really make them anywhere but your mind.  OTOH, John really does make them and it happy to show them off.

LIAR!

How many of you tm owners have tried op and now use this method exclusively?   Also, is there anything special about these terri cloth pads or are they basically a round terri cloth towel? 

You gonna answer/post a pic nipples???

Just as I figured!

YOU DON'T HAVE ONE!

then why wouldn't you want to show them off and mebby sell a few to the guys here???

Aren't you proud of them???

THEY DON'T EXIST!!!!

you are sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo full of dookie!

Steve, you nailed it right on the head....Your Tm is your best bet...And the custy looks at you as a professional.... Pull up with a small hatchback and most will turn you away....

When i started 20yrs ago i had a 10gal porty in a Dodge Colt hatchback... Backed up to the custys house and the lady was outside... she says can i help you??? I'm here to clean your carpet... Were's your van she says.... Oh!! all my equiptment is right here...... Nooooooo she says..... I had to leave....

Stick with your tm (hwe) it is the best........ don't get brainwashed...

I've read through all these post about op cleaning with an open mind.    Being a tm user for 10 years, I was a little skeptical of this "too good to be true" technique so I decided to read through every post I could get my eyes on regarding op cleaning.  I did look at the pictures Padman posted and yes I was very impressed with the visual results.  To be completely honest, I was almost sold on the idea till I seen the video showing how long it took him to clean a 10 x 10 area.  I am very confident that I could have cleaned it in 1/4 the time with the same results with our tm.   With this much difference in efficiency, it's a no brainer to figure out where the real value is with a tm... After all, time is money. 

First off, you can only see the video, and while that carpet took some time, from what “I” have seen and used HWE  and it simply wouldn’t have cleaned it, period. As for speed, 4 machines of ours did 29,000 square feet in less than eight hours Saturday, we have 118,000 square feet to do in 4 days, we do it twice a year. Plus most all padders commands better rates for cleaning even though their cost to clean is LESS.

I'm not surprised that you have no problem getting customers with op cleaning but I can also see how a guy with a tm bidding the same job could use a line like this....

"Trying to use this cleaning method as the primary cleaning method for carpets would be like you washing your hair in the shower. First getting your hair wet, then introducing the shampoo, and after turning the water off, retrieving a towel and trying to absorb the shampoo out of your hair by moving a towel over your hair. What do you think would be left on your scalp after that process?" 

That kind of faulty logic is what keeps OP guys living large. We don’t use shampoo, so that kills that false statement right off, and if you UNDERSTOOD the process you would know that we BOTH rinse, you have to understand that under the pad we have the same thing going on as you do under your wand. WATER Stevareno water. Just less of it. When the prespray and wet pads are oscillating at 1725 orbits a minutes, it is ALL water under that pad.

Plus if you have a dirty van and try to PRESSURE wash it and don’t wipe it off, you have dirt on your van, unacceptable  for OP’rs.

and win over the confidence of just about any consumer with even a speckling of common sense.  Padman, Diva, or Gmoney, how would you work around this type of common logic?  This quote was actually intended as a slam against bonnet cleaning but I do think it applies to op as well... or does it not?    Besides, there's other common logic most homeowners possess concerning germs.. Wouldn't HWE be more effective in removing germs from carpet?  Allot of our clients have babies crawling around on there floors.. They expect their carpets to be as sanitary as the dishes they eat from.   Wonder why residential and commercial dishwashers use hot water and steam to sanitize dishes rather than sending them through a machine with spinning terri cloths? 

You have a lot of funny thoughts there Stevareno, first off you analogy of using a dish washer is bogus, you don’t SOAK your carpet in steam, you HIT it with steam and NO that does NOT kill the germs. We use a 100% bio-based product called Abstraction that contains colloidal silver that is MUCH more effective at killing germs, viri and bacteria. I would NEVER ask a small child to crawl around on a carpet that is just hosed off, it has to be CLEANED and while you enjoy heat, we enjoy agitation and actually WIPING off the fibers. Do your BEST HWE job and follow with a cotton pad, OOOPSS< you left a lot of soil. Or is that CLEAN soil? LOL

If your customers expect carpet to be as sanitary as dishes and you say they are, YOU ARE LYING to your customers, plain and simple. SO often I hear HWE guys talking like you are, and your claims are so EASILY proven to be TOTALLY false.

Another note, the one building that had anthrax in Washington after 9-11 that passed inspection on the FIRST try… was using a abstraction type colloidal cleaner. So your germ theory simply won’t fly.

The grit in carpeting is what's known to cause rapid wear in high traffic areas.  When we walk across carpeting, the grit is like an abrasive to carpet fibers.  Spinning a wet terri cloth towel over the carpeting seems more like it would accelerate the wear rather than remove the source of the problem.  Do these op machines have some type of magnetic grit absorbing abilities? JK  But seriously,  I've cleaned the filters out on our tm more than a few times and it still amazes me at the amount of small rock like particles that come out of soiled carpet. 

OK, grit, how much do you remove? Let me give you an example so you understand just how wrong you are and WHY. We sell a RugBadger, it is designed to remove grit and soil from carpets. Take a carpet and VAT clean it, put it under water, scrub it, clean it, suck it, wringer it, beat it etc. Then let it dry, place the carpet face down and run the rugbadger over it, HUMM< CUPS of grit. And Vat cleaning is a LOT more than you are doing.

Padders know that post vacuuming is IMPERATIVE… why? Because while the OP machine is running it is lifting the pile, YOU DON”T, vibrating the grit up to the surface, YOU DON”T and then is vacuumed off. Do we leave grit in the carpet? YOU BET, but so do you, if you THINK you are removing such a high percentage of the grit then you are fooling yourself.

I almost felt silly for spending the money I've spent on tm carpet cleaning systems after I first read Padman's post.

You shouldn’t feel silly, however I can see your need to defend it now.

  It was only after I thought about the real reason's people have there carpets cleaned in the first place that I felt more at ease.  The whole idea of op cleaning sounds like one of those late night info-mercials.  How does this sound?  "You can now clean your carpets as good or better than those high priced so called professionals with expensive truckmounted systems!!  Just look at these impressive results? (Padman's pics).. Just 10 easy payments of ???  if you act now, we'll throw in enough pads to thoroughly clean your residents for 3 years"   You could show a couple of video's featuring a homemaker using the pad spinner (which would be less expensive, made of plastic and a Taiwan motor)... 

Sounds too good to be true don’t it? Except one problem Stevareno, our USERS will tell you the same thing I do. I have 100’s upon 100’s of machines out there, and a FEW OP’rs have added HWE to their system, but often HWE users have added OP and eventually DROPPED using hwe.. humm, kind of goes against your claims don’t it…?

We have Votex owers that have purchased OP just to give them the added quality of OP especially on commercial carpets.

I did see you effectively talk a few tm owners into trying your system.. How do you guys feel about paying  $4-5 for a round terri cloth rag?  Hell at that rate, I could spend a weekend at a cheap motel and actually turn a profit from it!    JK  Of course these rags are Teflon coated... wouldn't this take away the absorbent characterizes of terri cloth?  After all, aren't we magically absorbing all that dirt into the terri cloth?  I am a little confused about this notion.. please clarify..

You seem confused Stevareno, we have NO Teflon coated pads, and they are 6.50 -8.00 for 20” or 24” pads. Of course they last for MANY uses. Depending on type of carpet, 60-100 uses are the norm. MUCH CHEAPER TO CLEAN WITH OP THAN WITH HWE, period! Yet you can charge more and in MANY cases clean faster.

Padman, here's one of your post I thought was a little below the belt. 

#7. Our country club here in Lexington, Ky. had been having their carpets cleaned every TWO WEEKS for 14 weeks, simply because the carpets would look bad after that short amount of time. They had gone through 6 of the local cleaners and still could not get the carpets to stay clean. We did the job and then started a 3 MONTH maintenance program, and because the carpets stayed so clean they them moved it to every 4 months. We have been cleaning there now for 7 years or so.

If anyone thinks the previous cleaners were simply fly by nights or that they didn't know what they were doing, I must disagree, one of the cleaning companies was Joey Picketts company. Most of you know who he is.

Funny thing is, Joey and I go to breakfast together and he doesn’t understand it either, but that is simply because he doesn’t understand OP. That is to MY benefit. Plus he doesn’t even have anything to do with that business anymore, his exwife owns it not him.

Mentioning competitors names in a post when they obviously aren't here to defend themselves is in bad taste.  If your system sells itself, then fine.. by all means knock yourself out.. I'm sure you could effectively sell allot of these op machines but don't you guys have any professionalism about yourselves? 

You seem to really have a chip on your shoulders Stevareno… why is that?

 Of all the years I cleaned carpeting, I never felt the need to even mention my competitors names, much less gloat about some country club I happened to take away from Jo Cleaner on the net.   Who's to say that Joey Pickett hasn't took a few of your previous clients checks to the bank?  Of course you wouldn't read about it here because I'm sure he didn't get where he is by being unprofessional. 

That country club is a prize jewel here in Kentucky, so you probably wouldn’t understand. When I met with Joey, HE BROUGHT it up laughing at how good a job we have to be doing to get it from him. Joey, needs no one praising him, he has no insecurities, he KNOWS HE HAS had a great business and his old company is still the BEST competitor in town.

Back to just using  common logic..   If I were to use and op machine I would first need to spray down the carpet with a prespray in order to break up the soil from the carpet.  If the prespray isn't rinsed away, then how can you claim residue free carpet?  Just like the example above.. If you shampoo'd your hair and didn't rinse it out, could you really just take a wet towel and shimmy it off without leaving residue in your hair?   If your prespray is good enough to break up soil, it's good enough to attract dirt off the bottom of shoes..

Common logic is not being used here, false claims and misunderstanding is all I have read in this post of yours.

Your lack of knowledge of the method is what raises so many questions in your head.

Email me and I will give you the names of cleaners who USED to be TM guys, but SOLD them to use OP. Many use BOTH.  Also, what shows is you do not understand our cleaning products at all, get shampoo out of your head, we don’t use anything like that, in fact the products we use dry up and crystallize and shatter, and are vacuumed out. They dry TOTALLY non sticky and dry up MUCH BETTER than your HWE presprays which BTW you do not even remove when wanding.. again, easy to prove…

With our products you can take some maple syrup and mix some of our product with it, let it dry and it removes with just a wipe, you can not even get finely ground pepper to stick to it, try that with YOUR products you are not using…LOL, you will NOT like the results.

I really do want to believe in op cleaning but I just can't escape this common logic.  Before you say it, I really don't know much about op cleaning.. never seen it done, but I do have common sense.

Funny thing about OP users, especially THOSE who have been TM users for 20-30 years who went to OP, and as SOON as they do, most TM guys don’t trust them or believe them, the reason is because they have to DEFEND their investment. Stevareno, if you bought a TM to clean carpet with you spent TOO MUCH MONEY and I respect and understand your NEED to defend it. However your understanding of this method is so misconstrued that you can not appreciate what is being done.

First off you thought that it is SLOW is wrong, depending on the machine used we do from 400-1000 square feet an hour normally, but also have commercials where we can clean 2000 square feet an hour. NOT just encapsulate, but CLEAN. And we can prove it by how long the job lasts and how NO wickbacks appear etc.

I have been simply PROVING to people for 33 years what this method will do, and OFTEN get and have replied to posts like there, they do not upset me at all because I figure you really want to know the truth about the method.

As long as the question burns in you, you will keep your mind open.

I will go as far as saying this, while we may debate residential cleaning and which is better all day long, on commercial carpet OP WILL KICK HWE’s butt consistently. And I do not care what machine you own.

Thinking and trying to use logic is good Stevareno, however doing so without understanding and knowledge is rather futile if you are trying to get to the truth.

John PadMan Geurkink

Also Stevareno, he is a post from one of OUR OP users.... read closely my friend.

RE: Took a hit on the Canadian BBS
Posted by mailto:randyroyer@cox.net?Subject=BBS RE: Took a hit on the Canadian BBS - randy royer on August 09, 2005 - 12:59 PM - http://bbs.ccsop.com/cgi-bin/ipinfo.cgi?68.100.57.53 - 68.100.57.53

Padman ...has a way of BS'ing that is better than all

He took courses in Brain washing

Don't take him to task...he'll just posts novels and novels of information

Hey Steamer, expected your reply.

Negative as always, not from experience but from hurt feelings I suppose.

I back up what I say Steamer, contrary to your naive attacks at someting you know NOTHING about.

It doesn't really matter to me... I wish all well in their endeavors....

I just like to stir the pot...

Padman I like you, and I just like to see you post...lol

Really we are all on the same team, it's the cleaning carpet team.

I'd buy an OP tommorrow.  I'll try anything that will help me do a better job for my customers.

Deep in my heart I know all that are here strive for the best, and Padman is one of those people.

I'm just a post whore...lol

Steve, I have been in this biz for over 25 years and run a 6 tm biz in Winnipeg. I now have an OP machine in each of our main Res trucks, My Techs were very skeptical at first and then started fighting over the one unit we started with. We run two man crews and so now both techs are fully occupied cleaning carpet and production has increased by one job per day.  We no longer turn down condos in high rises and all stairs are done with OP because it is far and away the best method for stairs. We had for years trained our customers on the superiority of TM's and so only suggested to offer a demo to our repeat customers. About half of our Residential work is done with OP system now. We also do about 10,000 sq feet per night with either Cimex or John's commercial OP machine the Brute. Some Apartment block owners no have told us "do not use truck mount system in our buildings".

 Customers are happy, techs are happy and costs and reservices are down. I'm happy since prices are up and profit is up.

Just don't bother with any phantom OP machine from Calgary made by a guy with no knowledge of this system that was developed, tested and researched by Padman for over thirty years.

Steamer doesn't have a clue and doesn't have the imagination to get out of the box he's been for so long. Change is tough for some. Stirring the pot is Steamers only experize, lol

Good luck.....oh and Oil just hit a new high with predictions of triple the current prices within two years....think about that with your tm only biz.

Steamer, you KNOW I love a good firey debate, and yes you are an expert at stirring the pot..

On that, my compliments..

Harry

This is a very good educational Post especially coming from a person who is cleaning and not selling equipment.  No hype here only excellent advise to help profitability and satisfying customers.

Harry did you see the post I put in last week, indicating that I have sold a customer an op machine who operates a Vortex? He was dumbfounded on how much soil was on the pad after he Vortex a house.

Thanks Ted, I hope you're having a good summer.

I guess that must the Wizard as he's the only Canadian I know with a Vortex, sounded like a magic trick to sell OP to a Vortex man, lol. Obviously he has an open mind.

Steve, if you were to talk to any old timers you would know that there was a lot of resistance to HWE by the Foamers who ruled the roost back then. HWE didn't take over in a just a year or two. OP won't either. I know both Joey and John, they work across the street from each other and ordinarily I'd say that you have a point but in this instance if Joey knew about this he wouldn't be bothered.

Another thing about having both systems on my trucks is that if there is any problem with the tm ( no gas, broken belt etc) we can keep going with OP equipment. Also when we run into a really trashed hallway we can (for an extra charge) pre-scrub with the OP machine and then complete the job with a wand.  SInce I have employees, we still have a few re-services - usually wicking and now all re-services are done by one man with an OP machine, so no tm's are tied up doing re-service work, bonus.

We can also, though we have not yet got into this yet, do ceramic and wood floors.

Last point is that for the first time this winter I will be able to park my trucks and only use OP with no worries about major damage to my tm's from being stuck, stalled or in an accident in freezing cold weather.

Harry

Ted was referring to Mike The Cleaning Guy's Vortex.......he was the first person in Ontario to purchase one.

Click this link for Vortex pictures  http://www.kleenkuip.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1509&KW=vortex&TPN=1 - http://www.kleenkuip.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1509& KW=vortex&TPN=1

We have sold Brutes and commercial Breeze's to Vortex users, yes they DO like the additional soil removal and are quite surprised by it.

We recently sold a couple more and are waiting for feedback on them.

Great post Harry.. good to have users jump in, just because I sell the system they think I am full of it, I am FULL of it, just not about OP cleaning.

Padman,

Thank you for the response.   I really didn't mean to come across as having a chip on my shoulder.  I just needed some straight answers about how this system works.  To be completely honest, I've been debating buying another truckmount but I may consider another option.  This tm was going to exclusively clean commercial areas (mostly hotels)..  Do commercial establishments accept op cleaning as a thorough method of cleaning interior fabrics or do they look at it as more of a routine maintainance program between steam cleaning?  Also, do you pre-vacuum the carpets, op clean, and then vacuuum again?

I'm not that far from Lexington Padman.. I'm in Campbellsville Ky.  I would be interested in seeing this system in action.  In some ways, I can see allot of advantages of op over hwe (particuliarly the drying time).  I would have of normally looked at OP cleaning as a less effective process used by individuals who couldn't fork out the money for good equipment, but I will admit that you got my attention when you mentioned having a tm that you didn't use. 

Steve