encapman
Member
Found an old photo of our crew from back in the Chemstractor era / around 1998.
Blast from the past
- Thread starter encapman
- Start date
encapman
Member
That's a younger version of me and Nancy on the left.
Mikey P
Administrator
Those things look like they would make a delicious pot roast.
Rob Grady
Member
I named my little dog 'Foamy', because he had rabies.
Matt Middleton
Member
Are those Chemstractors???
Rob Grady
Member
Yes.
Jim Pemberton
MB Exclusive.
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- Oct 7, 2006
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- Name
- Jim Pemberton
Our cleaning company offered "steam extraction" and "shampoo extraction" in the early (pre-truck mount) 70's. The "shampoo extraction" with the Chemstractor invariably came out better, and we left the heavy "steam" machines at the warehouse for the most part and just ran the Chemstractors until we got our first truck mount.
Cleanworks
Moderator
Always wanted one of those. Glad I never bought one.
encapman
Member
They actually did pretty well on commercial carpet. It was part of the journey. Had tried everything to resolve problems and make it profitable to clean lots of commercial carpet. The Chemstractors were better than everything we had tried before it. My next plan (around 2021) was to take a Cimex, create an extraction ring for it, and add suction to build a sort of Super-Chemstractor. But it was also about that time that I started messing around with a crystalizing detergent. Once I saw what encap was capable of with the Cimex, I dropped the idea of adding the extraction ring. Instead it was off to the races with the Cimex, good encap juice, and the correct scrub pads for encap cleaning. Releasit was born shortly thereafter.
encapman
Member
PS And it was about that time that I was talking about all of this on the ICS and Cleanfax boards. Needless to say, there were plenty of died-in-the-wool truckmounters who would've liked to tar and feather me and send me on my way. Probably still are a few. LOL
Jim Pemberton
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- Jim Pemberton
You changed our industry, Rick, and helped a myriad of cleaners develop profitable commercial cleaning businesses, and as well helped to solve difficult problems that cleaners were facing.
encapman
Member
Thank you Jim!
To quote the Grateful Dead... "What a long strange trip it's been"
encapman
Member
Just updated our About Us page...
www.excellent-supply.com
About Us / The Excellent Supply Story
This is the story of how Excellent Supply began. Our roots in commercial carpet cleaning began 40 years ago in 1982 with Pioneer Maintenance. . Excellent Supply and Releasit have been in business since 2002. Put our years of experience in the field of encapsulation carpet cleaning to work to...
Kenny Hayes
Member
I bought a bonnet machine, not chemstractor. I loved the thing. Still have it. It served its purpose in my early years of janitorial. That and a porty.
Brian H
Member
encapman
Member
Just Nancy and me from that photo. But they're all still friends.
Jo, our office manager, is the sister of the one in the center / 4th from left.
Jo, our office manager, is the sister of the one in the center / 4th from left.
encapman
Member
Side point: Since we did only commercial carpet cleaning & floor care (mostly at night) we only employed part time techs. These part time employees had other day time jobs. But we paid a much higher than average wage to our crew — considerably more per hour than they made at their day time jobs*. Having high-production cleaning systems made that pay structure possible for us. That's another reason why I was always searching to discover more efficient commercial carpet cleaning methods. With our pay structure we were able to attract good people who were eager to work a couple of nights a week to add a nice surplus to their daytime earnings. That model served us well in our commercial carpet cleaning business.
*The 2nd person (standing next to me) worked by day for an investment firm. But he loved working for us too in order to bring in some additional revenue.
*The 2nd person (standing next to me) worked by day for an investment firm. But he loved working for us too in order to bring in some additional revenue.
encapman
Member
I refreshed our About Us page, and deleted the page referenced above. Here's its replacement...
www.excellent-supply.com
About Us / The Excellent Supply Story
Here's how we started the encap revolution. Starting from a modest cleaning business in 1982, see how the encapsulation carpet cleaning process grew from there.
www.excellent-supply.com
