Thank you Mike,
All the carpet cleaners I worked with and taught have stayed away from natural stone because of its perceived value. They are afraid of the replacement value. The fact is there is nothing they can do that can't be fixed. Any mistake that is made can be reversed. If this weren't true there would be no stone restoration industry. Cleaning and expensive fabric or oriental rug for the first is time presents much higher risk and takes a lot more guts than doing stone.
I teach at least two seminars and have another three or four demo days every month. Three quarters of those who attend are from the carpet cleaning industry. All the seminars and demo's are free and focus on how generate more revenue by learning new services to up sale, becoming more efficient, eliminating unneeded chemical and making the chemicals they do inventory go farther.
IICRC members are able to receive one full continuing education credit when they attend my seminar. There is a small fee for this.
Hard Rock Tool sales tooling, chemicals and supplies to the natural stone industry and is the sister company to Stone Pro. Stone Pro manufactures a full line of cleaners, sealers and problem solvers for natural stone and tile and grout.
All penetrating/impregnating sealers are not created equal. Most sealers use silicon or a form there of as the sealant property. These sealers are great water repellants but do nothing for oil spills. There are a couple of exceptions but they are not water soluble and the solvent used is not V.O.C. complaint and can't be used in California, thirteen other states and hundreds of other counties across the country.
The sealers that protect against both water and oil borne spills use fluor-polymere technology. Much like the fluor-polymeres used in the carpet industry that help carpet stain resistant. Fluor-polymeres sealers also last longer and are more durable.
Stone Pro, Stone Tech/Dupont and just a few others use fluor-polymere technology. Stone Pro is the only manufacturer of V.O.C. compliant solvent based sealers in the country. Their solvent is well under 100 g/l and is available in gallons, five gallons and fifty-five gallon sizes. The solvent is non-flammable and bio-degradable.
Thank you again Mike for the welcome and I look forward to getting to know the members.
