dual wand questions

[Mikey P]

Do you dual it?
Did you dual for a while then go back to single wand?
What machine/ blower did you use?
How many in your town dual it?


And finally, what are your misconceptions about dual that I can answer/clear up?

 

[SamIam]

Do you dual it?
Did you dual for a while then go back to single wand?

Yes on vacant's with a couple of 6 flow wands larger houses, van 10 feet from the door 100 ft hose run upstairs 75 down.
What machine/ blower did you use?
405?47 I believe

How many in your town dual it?

never seen anybody only seen dual truck once or twice.

And finally, what are your misconceptions about dual that I can answer/clear up?
You have a beast, I have dual trucked more when doing larger jobs
I love the idea need a bigger machine.

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[Mark Saiger]

We do not dual wand off of our Butlers for carpet. But we do typically run 2 Butlers on most jobs. Fortunately, a lot of our jobs are on the high side of square footage and we have had a pretty large demand for our services, so we found showing up with 2 Butlers on those jobs and 3 of us working them over, helps keep up to a busy "I need it tomorrow or yet today" demand when that occurs. Currently we are pretty well booked out about a week and a half with very large jobs, and we are still juggling around schedules to get to everyone calling looking for cleaning ASAP!

We have the larger Blowers and the high heat options, but running large flow jets and larger Prochem Ti wands would be a challenge for our systems. If we were running smaller wands/jets with probably 75-100 foot runs, we could do some dual wanding. We just like running with as much max power as possible per van and I feel dual wanding off the vans would be a compromise to our cleaning. Having 3 people on site is great when you have someone preparing furniture with sticky tabs, another running the vac, and another still making small talk with the clients or setting up the vans to the door.

No one else in the area has 2 vans or even considers to dual wand off their machines. We have been told we are the major "go to" carpet cleaners in the area. Let's hope we keep maintain our standard of service and care so that stays true. We are always working our our customer care and service and we talk about it amongst ourselfs to remind ourselves of it's importance.

 

[Jim Martin]

Do you dual it?........No
Did you dual for a while then go back to single wand?.........yes
What machine/ blower did you use? ............Vortex 6008
How many in your town dual it?.......2 that I know of


And finally, what are your misconceptions about dual that I can answer/clear up?
............it was worth it if it was a huge huge job.......but my reality of it is that it is much faster to single wand and have a guy staying ahead and pre-spraying and prepping everything......then back tracking and blocking and brushing carpet...... so the guy on the wand is non stop.......

 

[Mikey P]

Back up Mark..

You bring TWO vans to "most" jobs?


Tell us more.. how do you know when you'll need that ability on first time jobs?

How often do your guys call for a second truck?
What square footage is the set point?

 

[Mark Saiger]

Back up Mark..

You bring TWO vans to "most" jobs?


Tell us more.. how do you know when you'll need that ability on first time jobs?

How often do your guys call for a second truck?
What square footage is the set point?

Yep, I run two trucks to most job sites. I am also still on the truck, so I am running with them. My son in law (27 years old) and youngest daughters boy friend (19 years old) are our 2 cleaning techs. The son in law will be completely in charge someday and will be next in line as the owner of the biz. Sometimes, the first time jobs are a gamble, but we know if it is just a living room and hall, we really won't need a second truck, so I will progress to the next job on the list and start getting that ready, or meeting with the people. We haven't had a lot of small jobs (don't know why) but the two vans running around together does get a lot of attention! They say we look like a parade everyday. We don't really have a set square footage cut off point, but sometimes it is just nice to get back on schedule with doing a LR, Hall and couple bedroom walks while the other van is knocking out the stairs. It is kind of a time saving judgement call. We started it about 3 years ago with my daughters being our techs. Just would bring 2 vans to help take off some of the work load and time, and it just kept getting bigger for us. Also with the Butler vans, you can only have 2 people in the van at a time.

Some of this running with 2 vans and the two other guys is to get all of my clients familiar with the "guys" so in the future, most of my cliental is fine with me not being there. That is starting to take place now. As of Monday June 3rd, I have to have surgery for my torn Meniscus in my knee, so having 2 skilled guys that people are seeing and trusting is a big help. As my stubboness, I still plan on riding in a van the next day! I still love being out on the van and still love pushing a wand as well. So far, it is working very well for us and our clients love it.

Mark

 

[SamIam]

When My wife says oops there's a job I forgot to file. Or if someone needs a big job done when Ian booked

 

[Mark Saiger]

 

[carpetcleaner]

I don't dual wand at all.
I have tried it in the past with a BL Thermalwave with a 56 blower. I didn't feel that I saved any time over 2 man single wanding. Dual wanding might work for me with a 3 or 4 man crew.
I have no idea what other cleaners do, there are hundreds of carpet cleaning companies around the Phoenix market.

 

[Ron K]

Very nice Mark some here should be opening their eyes really wide.
Question though two trucks how many people? Does a helper usually come with each truck?
Four people in a house could get tight if they haven't learned the "dance" yet.
I sometimes wish I had dual "tool" capabilities Carpet/Upholstry.
The "I need it today" mentality is pissing me off too.
I don't know if it's a matter of not respecting what we do....or us carpet cleaners not "training" our customers.
We only clean three day's a week here so our customers are starting to get it but some still some call wanting it yesterday.

 

[Mikey P]

Awesome Mark! !

Your crew looks like they're still in Jr High, are those your boys?

 

[renegade_cowboy]

Jim Martin pretty much nailed it with his comments.. Look at the commercial jobs in Mark's pictures.. I would sooooooo encap those and call it a day.

 

[mirf]

Looks great Mark. Seems like a lot of gas used.
I do not see the 27 year old.

 

[Mark Saiger]

Awesome Mark! !

Your crew looks like they're still in Jr High, are those your boys?

Those are our boys (son in law and youngest daughters boyfriend). I don't have many pics of the vans on residential jobs I guess and have a lot of the commercial jobs. We post a lot of pics to our Facebook account, so every now and then we will have pics of both vans on a residential job on our Facebook. Not much encapsualtion work around here. It got a bad repuation from previous cleaners doing it with poor chemicals and bad technique (and bad service). We typically only have 3 of us rather than 4 people on a house job, but you do have to know the dance sometimes. As far as gas consumption, it is a bit more, but I am looking at long term to establish a good raport with all the clients and instill in my client base that these "High school looking youngsters" really can clean and will be taking over someday in the next 5 years. (The 27 year old has the shorter hair for those that asked). In the small town we are in, we are very thankful for the amount of work we do. We are in a town of less than 10,000 people and last year we took in around $450k again. $275k was carpet cleaning alone. We do some flood and fire, but we are getting pretty burned out on trying to collect and work with insurance companies, so we really focus on the carpet cleaning side of things.

Thanks for looking everyone and the kind comments.

Mark Saiger

 

[Mark Saiger]

And we updated our uniforms lately. We are known around here for our Blue shoes and theme of "Bring on the Blue", but also we updated our logo and uniforms a bit. Here is a link to our Facebook with some of our new look. Our worker didn't have on a better pair of pants that day (we were on a bad crawl space job after this first carpet job, so we said pants are going to get ruined, so come prepared, and bring an old T-Shirt for later)

The Bring on the Blue theme came about to seperate us from the other colored vans in town (yellow, green, white)

https://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.503087049728720.1073741831.168572583180170&type=1

Mark Saiger

 

[Mark Saiger]

The one job on a school we were actually cleaning the carpet on the floors....and the walls!









I also now provide "LONG" under shirts to take care of any plumbers situations...so pardon the view....

 

[Mikey P]

Well Mark, I'm super impressed.
Do you have a high minimum charge to keep the one roomers away
So no VLM offered?
I guess you're Biz name would make it tricky. .lol

Thanks for sharing all that.

 

[SamIam]

these are my 2 first is my son jeremy 18 second Phil 21 Now all I got a do is get my son a hat or hair cut.


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[Mark Saiger]

Well Mark, I'm super impressed.
Do you have a high minimum charge to keep the one roomers away
So no VLM offered?
I guess you're Biz name would make it tricky. .lol

Thanks for sharing all that.

We do offer VLM, just not many takers. Minimum charge is still pretty low at this time ($75 for local area, $110 for more out of the area) but we have been very lucky with the minimum charge situation. I have been fortunate as to not turn off a few customers that ended up starting out going from a minimum charge and ending up having us do $500 plus dollars. That is where having the 2 vans comes in handy, even though, a lot of times we would have to take care of the situation they immediately needed and come back for the additional work another day if we could.

Sam, the kids look great! I know what you mean about a haircut or a hat. Our youngest worker gets a bit of kidding for his "full head of hair"....Lol.

Thanks again everyone and have a great remaining weekend!

 

[Mikey P]

I would be willing to bet that the lack of conviction in your saleman's voice is leading to the "few takers" issue

 

[Mikey P]

our Dual method..

We both come to the door and let the homeowner give us the tour. Both of us are listening to the concerns she brings to our attention.

Tech 2 of us goes back to the truck to grab the vacuum and any needed pre spotters such as 40 vol, red stain remover or gels. Vacuum, a wand or whatever fits in the other hand gets brought in. Never set up a job with an empty hand, bring as much in as possible with each trip.
Prevacuuming begins at the furthest point in the location while the Tech 1 discusses price or chats with the customer. Some furniture will be moved but out prepare the house letter is so effective we rarely have to move much.

Tech 1 will either grab the second upright for real large jobs or start laying out walk off mats, apply sticky tabs, place loose foam blocks on furniture to be replaced on damp carpet, corner guards and pressure hoses. Whoever finishes first mixes up the hydroforce, hooks up the water supply if needed and fires up the truck. One of us will pre spray the areas to be cleaned. Usually we can spray all areas without fear of the PS drying up due to our speed.

Additional pressure and vac hoses are then laid out and fans, stair tools etc are brought it.

Truck is fired up and away we go. We almost always finish wanding at close to the same time, if one guy is taking longer due to excessive soil or spots than the other will clean into the other's area OR start cleaning/packing up or apply teflon. We both move our own furniture and do our own spotting.

Truck is shut down, one guy rakes/tidies up and gets paid while the other packs up the truck.


Simple and quick.

 

[Mark Saiger]

our Dual method..

We both come to the door and let the homeowner give us the tour. Both of us are listening to the concerns she brings to our attention.

Tech 2 of us goes back to the truck to grab the vacuum and any needed pre spotters such as 40 vol, red stain remover or gels. Vacuum, a wand or whatever fits in the other hand gets brought in. Never set up a job with an empty hand, bring as much in as possible with each trip.
Prevacuuming begins at the furthest point in the location while the Tech 1 discusses price or chats with the customer. Some furniture will be moved but out prepare the house letter is so effective we rarely have to move much.

Tech 1 will either grab the second upright for real large jobs or start laying out walk off mats, apply sticky tabs, place loose foam blocks on furniture to be replaced on damp carpet, corner guards and pressure hoses. Whoever finishes first mixes up the hydroforce, hooks up the water supply if needed and fires up the truck. One of us will pre spray the areas to be cleaned. Usually we can spray all areas without fear of the PS drying up due to our speed.

Additional pressure and vac hoses are then laid out and fans, stair tools etc are brought it.

Truck is fired up and away we go. We almost always finish wanding at close to the same time, if one guy is taking longer due to excessive soil or spots than the other will clean into the other's area OR start cleaning/packing up or apply teflon. We both move our own furniture and do our own spotting.

Truck is shut down, one guy rakes/tidies up and gets paid while the other packs up the truck.


Simple and quick.

Same for us, just 2 trucks and 3 people.

 

[XTREME1]

the overnight guys claim to dual wand but every inspection shows different