G'day Readers.
Just wanted to say this is a terrific post. I really am blown away by it. It is precisely why Ron's business ethic is a lesson to me. I've had the pleasure of meeting Ron prior to coming here after first finding Real Cleaners Cafe'. We've had a few exchanges there and all of them confirm to me Ron is the guy to watch. I love the YouTube content he's created and freely confess that in his hands he is able to use his Cleartrak to terrific effect.
We disagree on what constitutes optimum machine configuration but in the end I consider dry soil extraction to be as critical as I think Ron does.
Commenting on the nature of our disagreement and my position on the issue, I am interested to know how "much" soil is extracted with the Cleartrak in terms of measured weight.
I am impressed by the appearance of filling clear canisters but this in and of itself doesn't tell me much. Ron has spoken to me about the Cleartrak being a modified machine which I have no difficulty accepting, but even taking this is so there; to my mind remain significant issues with it. I have had some first hand experience with the machine it is based on this being the Amway CMS 2000. The CMS 1000 and 2000 are (originally) Bissell manufactured and Dyson designed machines. They employ a Dual Cyclone cyclonic separator and a panel type micro level foam and paper element filter. These filters are of quite limited area, much smaller than the area of just about any bagged vacuum cleaner, and certainly smaller than our traditional upright machine designs.
As with Dyson vacuums the cone piece of the dual cyclone particle separator sits in the centre of the dust collector bin. What this means is that as the bin fills with soil, the area for heavier particles that do not make it into the inner cyclone separator accumulate on the outside of the cone. This area is obviously quite a bit smaller than the volume of the dust collector would be were there no cone present. In this way the unit has a tendency to visually misrepresent the actual quantity of soil recovered; as it will accumulate on the outside of the collection vessel, gradually obstructing the user's view of the plastic cone that occupies the largest part of the collector's real volume in the centre.
another issue I have pertains to the nature of cyclonic separation itself. As the dust particles fly into the canister that are entrained in the constant movement of air that is the cyclone's
vortex. This causes large volumes of air to become trapped in amongst the collected debris and further exacerbates the illusion of greater recovery quantity by making the soil itself occupy more space than it otherwise would. It's like shaking a quilt or pillow.
When these factor's effects are jointly considered, it is evident that the machine will be far more visually impressive that is really the case. in terms of customer engagement and confidence this is a boon, but from the perspective of allowing the operator to really interpret visually "how much" soil has been recovered it is quite deceptive.
By contrast upright cleaners with bags vent debris into a bag under positive pressure. Owing to the combined forces of gravity and positive air pressure the soil will fall to the bottom of the bag and as more soil enters it will be compacted under its' own increasing weight and the incoming air. This is actually the reverse of the cyclone system. The bag has no internal mechanisms with which soil has to compete for storage volume, and the forces at play will tend to compress the soil and minimise its' visual impact weather looking at the bag's final fill size or even cutting it open to inspect the contents. This is to say nothing of the hidden fine dust which becomes trapped in the bag's walls.
On this basis I think the visual interpretation of performance is at best unhelpful and at worst divisive.
Instead I propose that a better way of measuring performance would be to measure the weight of the soil at completion of he job. It would be a waste of time to do this on all jobs and that is not what I'm suggesting. But for those who'd like to get some kind of meaningful benchmark of soil recovery performance, weight seems the only fair metric.
Nobody buys flour or corn flakes or sugar on the visual appearance of the bag or container it comes in, instead it's sold by weight which allows for an objective comparison.
Just my thoughts. Wanted to thank everybody for the contributions here as I have learnt a lot reading this thread. What I am so enamoured with is how important so many respondents feel dry soil extraction really is. If this weren't the case the thread would have ended long ago. A real testament to the commitment cleaners have to recovering that majority 79% of soil best removed dry - before - wet processing.
I think I've banged on enough in this thread and could understand completely if this constant too and fro were to have become irritating now. I will leave the thread alone from here unless directly asked to comment further. My parting advice is to consider the best ways to objectively evaluate anything and everything important in your work. Look to hard units of measure to decide what is and isn't best. Everything else is secondary.
Thanks to Mikey for the respect and for giving an idea a shot on a newcomers say so. Thanks to Ron for being a spire of ethic and detail a newbie can learn from on the other side of the world.
Grant
) in a high rise- more dust and lint. I've pulled over 10lbs of soil from some carpets. Others are canisters of hair and dust which have no weight at all but it needs to be removed or it'll just stick there. One condo had hardly any soil at all, except for 1 sq yard where I put over an inch of drywall dust in the canister. If I couldn't see it, never would have known it was there. I can hear when my filter is getting plugged, but I can't hear when the soil is coming in. If its making a noise coming in the canister, its not the soil I'm really after.
