Did a job yesterday for a new hotel customer in downtown Boston, right near to Symphony Hall and the campus of Northeastern Univ. A total of 7920 s.f. of hallways as well as the lobby. I used my high-productivity machine - my Orbitec CX-20. My crew was my daughter Meghan, just graduated from college and spending most of her time looking for a real job. Meghan has been assisting on commercial jobs since high school, and really knows the drill. I was cleaning encapsulation-style, using a FiberMax scrubber pad, and her job was to keep moving between me (with the Orbitec) and the utility closet with the deep sink. She was essentially the water girl, or as I call her, the "mule". The availability of one of the hotel's baggage carts actually made moving all that water around pretty easy for her. (She also mixed the Releasit encap cleaning concentrate in with the water in the 2-gallon containers that she was moving to & fro.)

Actual cleaning time was 2 1/2 hours. It might have been a little faster, but in the A.M. hours the hallways in a hotel sometimes become a little clogged with the cleaning carts of the housecleaning staff.

My job rate was .20 per s.f. The job grossed $1584, which calculates to $633 per hour. My expenses were about $25 for cleaning product, a few dollars for 2 FiberMax pads, and the $100 I paid Meghan for her assistance. (Hey, after all, she is family.)

If you think you'd like to start doing some high-volume commercial work in your area, consider acquiring an Orbitec CX-20. I sell them as well as Challengers. Take a look at them at Orbitec's website - www.orbitec2.com - then get back to me via email if you have interest. (markd@cybercom.net)

Hey El Cheapo, Give her another 100.00 for the work she did.

Do you overlap your passes at all? Even with a cimex I believe Rick G recommends 2-3 passes over an area which yields about 2000 sf an hour for lightly soiled carpet. It must not have been too dirty??

I did a retirement home yesterday and did 1200 sf in 3 hours. However I didn't have a helper, had to keep turning the machine off to let people get by, and pulled out 20 black pads.

Grant,

to my knowledge Rick doesn't recommend 2-3 passes on lightly soiled carpet.

heck, to get 2000 sq.ft. per hour there is NO WAY anyone is giving 2-3 passes on all 2000 sq.ft.


Mark, i have some questions:

why the CX-20 over the Cimex you have? is it just because you sell the CX-20 now?

which do you find faster, the CX-20 or the Cimex?

which do you find does a better job between the 2?

i've heard the CX-20 (well actually the Brute) is loud. if true, how did that work in a hotel in early morning?

did they pre-vac or you?

if you'd prefer to email me that'd be great to.

thanx --- Derek

I was just trying to get a sense of how one machine could clean that much area in less than 3 hours...

Sorry if I was wrong, I thought I remembered Rick G in his video saying that he recommended doing a faster pass where you lay down solution followed by a second slower dry pass. I thought he said you get about 1500-2000 sf/hour with that method.

Sounds like Mark has a faster method.

Not very heavily soiled carpet, except in the vicinity of the elevators, and some parts of the lobby. Mostly single pass, with a 19" pad. Given the side-to-side motion of an orbital, this gives about a 21" cleaning path. Up one side of each hall; down the other; then back up the middle with a little side-to-side motion to assure overlap. I achieved about the same sq. ft. per hour as my previous best time with my 24" Cimex. The Orbitec is somewhat noisier than the Cimex, but the hotel's G.M. had given a go-ahead to begin at or after 8 AM, so that's when we kicked things off. With housekeeping carts in the halls, and slight cutouts (cut-ins?) at the entry to each guestroom, I opted for the slightly smaller CX-20/Brute over the Cimex.

Guess I missed 2 of Derek's questions:
I find the quality of the results between the 2 machines to be comparable. Re pre-vac: hotels vacuum their halls every day, sometimes more than once. I see no reason to duplicate their efforts.

Grant,

you may not be wrong, maybe Rick posted that i just never saw it. from my experiences i don't see it humanly possible. no offense. from your experiences maybe you've found that info to be true.

Mark, thanx for the info. so the important info i gathered from your post is basically your cx-20/brute compared to my 19" 'Mex, the OP is faster from you experiences (you have 24", i only have a 19")

which is easier to push/move along?

the 24" (much heavier) 24" Cimex, or the cx-20/Brute?

arm/shoulder/chest/leg/back fatigue is a practical concern for large jobs.

thanx bud --- Derek

Having had experience with both my own Cimex 24" and the Cimex 19"s of others, I would place the CX-20/Brute in between the two re. ease of movement. When I first used a 19", it seemed very small and light in contrast to the 24". Yet the 24" is not so heavy that someone in reasonably good condition could'nt operate one for several hours at a time. Look at it this way: spend between a few and several hours with your Cimex 24" during the day; feel free to skip going to the gym that night.

OK i have some more questions about a CX-20 for ya Mark, hope you can help.

currently when using the cr48 (19" mex) i can use the same set of pads (Tuway BBC's) to clean several thousand sq.ft. of medium/heavy soiled carpet. now when you use your cx-20, what pad (synth or cotton and brand name) do you use, and how many sq.ft. will it last you before you have to flip it or replace it?

thanx --- Derek.

On the recent hotel job, of approx. 8000 s.f.: I started with a fairly well used fibremax pad, and about 1/2 way thru the job it was flaking off little pieces, as well as looking pretty thin. At that point I replaced it with a new one, which still had plenty of mileage left on it when the job was finished. As to cotton pads (90% cotton; 10% synthetic, I believe) these just last & last. They fray out at the edges before they break down in the main area.

There is a large (4000 s.f.) restaurant job that I do 2X per year. Some areas are really soiled from cooking oil combined with foot traffic. What I find works well here is to go thru the whole place first with my Cimex, using it primarily as a presprayer/scrubber. Then I cross-hatch the whole place with the big Orbitec using damp cotton pads. They get really, REALLY black. For this job I use a 50/50 mix of Releasit DS and Releasit Punch. The owner really likes the results. On this job I'm charging .25/s.f., so the total bill is $1000 even. Takes about 5 hours. I use a helper on this job, whom I pay $100 for his 5 hours. So I'm netting $190 per hour, less the cost of Releasit.

mark, went to look at the website "orbitec2.com", its expired, is this the right site. thanks bill y

Bill Y. You are right. In the past, both www.orbitec2.com and www.orbitecsolutions.com took you to the Orbitec site. Now, apparently, it is just the latter address.