Hi everybody I have been reading your comments for the last several weeks and its been a lot of great info. I have got my money together but before I spend it I have a couple of questions. First of all I want to thank Mark for the answers to my earlier e-mail questions. What I would like to know is the challenger the best op machine (i have read were some use other machines) and how informative is Marks business information. Thanks for any info.
I have been running my business using Challengers for several years now - maybe as long as ten years. Prior to this I continued to try and eventually discard a number of other types of low-moisture carpet cleaning equipment. The Challenger remains my choice for residential work, as well as some small-to-medium sized commercial jobs. Along the way, when I wanted a machine with faster production in commercial situations, I added an Orbitec CX-20, which I like a lot. I also sell the Orbitec line of machines (www.orbitecsolutions.com) When I purchased the Orbitec, Challenger had not yet come out with its own version of a commercial machine - the MAX. The pad driver on the MAX is actually 4 inches larger in diameter than my Orbitec - 21" to 17". If you are planning to start a carpet cleaning business with an eye to doing mostly residential business, I think you would be very happy with the Challenger.
As to the latter question about Mark's information, I think you will find it all to be very true, especially about how much you will make in revenue, I live in Oklahoma so the cost of living is lower here, but I usually gross 50-60 dollars an hour, sometimes more, and a good piece of literature is on one of the posts before this one, about steam cleaning versus op cleaning, I use speech from it all the time to close my residential customer, I have found that 100% of the customers I have met, who have used "steam" cleaning in the past prefer op cleaning, so go out and get a challenger if you want to go residential, and charge as much as the big dogs if not more, that's what I do.
