-heavy soiled carpets
-difficult stains
-difficult "pet stains" and odor
ect ect?
reading some stuff i got in the mail about the best way to deal w/ pet stains and it seems fairly time consuming and was wondering if you charged extra for such things that obviuosly take more time then just a lightly soiled carpet
I charge extra if dealing with a particular problem brings down the $$ per hour I would have expected to take from the job. If everything comes out pretty easily, and without requiring specific attention (and TIME), then I won't.
I have adopted the practice of telling people that I don't charge extra for "some" extra time for dealing with stains, and also don't charge extra for light to medium pet accident situations. I Use either Whamm with z-bomb for heavily stained carpet or UR Out mixed at 8 oz/gallon. Both formulations work wonderfully on almost all stains and have the benefit of neutralizing odors.
For those with bad pet urine situations, I tell them I need to do an in person estimate. Then I'll give them one price for a one time visit WITHOUT guaranteed urine odor removal, and another for 2-3 visits where I'll either go there a couple days ahead to saturate the urine stains with an enzyme, or clean the entire carpet twice: either once with an enzyme, then the second time with UR Out or Whamm with z-bomb.
Everybody I've had so far elects for the one time visit with no guarantee. For those who want the double or triple visit I'll double (or more) my rate. There are some previous threads with some great comments re. pet urine by Jim E and others.
If I see a lot of really heavy ink or other stains that appear will take a lot of extra time I tell them that it is beyond the scope of my normal rate.
I'm still trying to decide what to do about "heavy soiling". I've had a 3 br + hall take me 5 hours that was trashed, and a 3 br + hall take me 1 1/2 hours that was relatively clean (2 pads per room).
When you arrive at a job site where the soiling is heavy and/or staining is extensive, you might want to ask the customer something like: "What is your level of expectations". Most will say, in a tough situation like this: "Just do the best you can." Then do a hall, or a small room, at your normal rate, then ask the customer to take a look, and to comment on how the results look to them. If they say "Great" then you might be able to do the whole job at your normal rate and satisfy them at the same time. If, on the other hand, they look at your preliminary results and say "Can't you get it any better looking?" that might be the time to bring up what I call a surchage, something which gives you a reasonable return on the extra effort & time that is going to be required to achieve results at the level the customer is requiring. If an ocesional customer starts to become difficult over this type of matter, then it becomes your call as to "know when to hold 'em, and know when to fold 'em."
