Holy Shit! Help Needed!

[Greg Cole]

We just landed a 145,000 sf carpet cleaning job! Haven't a freaking clue how to get it done in the time table provided. 18 hour window from start to finish.
Need some advice on how to make this happen. It's been years since I tried to coordinate something this large ( and never in such a tight window)

70% of it is open and unobstructed. The other 30% are small and would require wand work. No furniture moving.
Carpets MUST be pre-vac'd as per contract so this has to be calculated in.

Must be steam cleaned. Encapsulation is not an option. Rx-20's are fine ( I own 4 but can rent up to 6 more if needed). About 30% of the areas being cleaned would be accessible with truck mounts. We do have 1200psi auto fill and auto pump out machines (I own 10 but can rent up to 15 more).
Trying to figure out how many techs we need cleaning in order to hit the deadline. Must calculate average performance I would imagine? What would that be? Any and all help is appreciated.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Should be easy enough to do.

145,000sq/ft /18 hours = 8,000sqft an hour
With 10 crews that 800sq/ft per hour per crew with RX's

800sq/ft should be a low, some will do 1000-1200 in open and funnel areas.

Rent a wide area vacuum if you don't already own one.

Better stay on them, you can lose your ass HWE that kind sq/ft if they are not on top of their game.

 

[John Olson]

ummm how did you land a job that you have no clue how to do it and if you don't know how to do it how did you bid it?

You have 14 hours of vacuuming if you use back packs

You need 8- 2 man crews with RX-20 working 12 hour shifts

 

[Desk Jockey]

I'd have a team of vacuum guys ahead of the cleaners. Send them in as the TM guys are setting up and that way they will stay ahead of them throughout the project.

Hope you charged extra for vacuuming, we usually just let the janitorial staff handle vacuuming. If we do it it's an up charge, one I'm glad to do, we just throw more tech's at it.

HWE is going to be one mother! We had a project where 8-10 crews (2-man) took 2-hours in setup and tear down. These were non producing hours, something not factored into the rate. Not to mention the prep time lining out hoses and trucks to access a project of that magnitude.

By the time we job costed the tech's made as much as we did. 1-measly WDR job made more than all the man hours we stuck into cleaning the facility.

It was then that we realized there had to be a better way. We will HWE the entry and worst funnel areas. The rest is low moisture OP and Cimex, much more productive and the finished product looks much better if it's CGD carpet.

 

[Willy P]

That shouldn't take one of your "contractors" more than a couple of hours to get wet. How much more for prespray? ...... Vacuum Mr. Olson? It's Cole we're talking about. KMA!

 

[Mikey P]

If there really is a god let it be all white Berber.

 

[Johnny]

RXs are slooooww and probably not all areas will need a scrub. Scrub only the areas that need it with 175s and wand it all.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Dry Cleaning? I've seen Jimmy naked

 

[Desk Jockey]

RXs are slooooww and probably not all areas will need a scrub. Scrub only the areas that need it with 175s and wand it all.

Agreed but who can sling a wand for 18-hours straight? I've seen Jimmy naked

The Rx's will maintain consistant cleaning and production times and won't wear out the operators.

This is going to be one bitch of a project. My best suggestion is you pay your project manager a bonus on this one and you take the weekend off. eat shit!

 

[steve g]

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

ummm how did you land a job that you have no clue how to do it and if you don't know how to do it how did you bid it?

You have 14 hours of vacuuming if you use back packs

You need 8- 2 man crews with RX-20 working 12 hour shifts

that was exactly my thoughts!!!! biggest job I have ever done was a school in texas 171,000 sq feet of carpet, it was a high school, jr high and elementary. it took myself and another guy who wasn't that fast at his work nearly 3 weeks to get it done. a guy with a truckmount in open areas figure at least 10,000 sq feet in an 8 hour day. portable machines will take longer in larger open areas because they don't have the power and require filling and dumping. the other thing is how do you work your guys 18 hrs strait??????? I would say bring in 8 machines be it truckmounts or portables if portable, make sure you have a guy to fill and dump the portable and another guy cleaning, but I am not sure that working them 18 hours in a row is an option, if not you need 16 units, running which IMO would be tough to manage that many people and insure quality. I am not sure how large your company is but I don't just throw a guy to the wolves thats never cleaned carpet and expect them to pull of 10k sq feet the first day, that rate of production is for an experienced tech.

 

[joe harper]

We just landed a 145,000 sf carpet cleaning job! Haven't a freaking clue how to get it done in the time table provided. 18 hour window from start to finish.
Need some advice on how to make this happen. It's been years since I tried to coordinate something this large ( and never in such a tight window)

70% of it is open and unobstructed. The other 30% are small and would require wand work. No furniture moving.
Carpets MUST be pre-vac'd as per contract so this has to be calculated in.

Must be steam cleaned. Encapsulation is not an option. Rx-20's are fine ( I own 4 but can rent up to 6 more if needed). About 30% of the areas being cleaned would be accessible with truck mounts. We do have 1200psi auto fill and auto pump out machines (I own 10 but can rent up to 15 more).
Trying to figure out how many techs we need cleaning in order to hit the deadline. Must calculate average performance I would imagine? What would that be? Any and all help is appreciated.

Schedule another 18 hours for the "CALL BACK" for wicking.... yes, I really clean up pet shit for a living Dad..
ps.I hope it is NOT a school...You want be able to find enough techs...to meet the requirements
of the MANDATORY....."Jessica's Law".... I've seen Jimmy naked

 

[truckmount girl]

If there really is a god let be all white Berber.

LOL....Love it!

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Desk Jockey]

whudda charge? That's a whole lotta sq/ft.

145,000 sq/ft @.15 $21,750.00 not bad. hey now
Oh wait 20 guys X 18 hours umm that's 360 man hours, $21,750.00 / 360-man hours dats $60.44 per man.

@.15 $60.44
@.12 $48.00
@.09 $36.25

Better stay on them or it's just mental masterbation and an excerise in futility.

 

[Ken Snow]

I would be amazed if a job that size went for as much as 9 cents Richard. More likely 5-6

 

[Desk Jockey]

I know I figure at the most .07 but just could bring myself to print how little per man hour that would be. -sniff

We had trouble making anything at .085 HWE, worked our tails off and as I said we had not accounted for so much non-productive time.

In the end it just was not worth it, we had to figure a better way to skin the cat.

Use HWE where absolutely needed and charge more for it. We will not charge less than .14 for HWE, it just takes too much labor to perform. Encap we can go lower because production is about double and no need for 2-man crews.

Every man operates a machine and we have a floater who keeps the cleaning tech's full of solution and pads.

 

[Greg Cole]

[quote="Mikey P":25v3pcgs]If there really is a god let be all white Berber.

LOL....Love it!

Take care,
Lisa[/quote:25v3pcgs]

ROFL! That has to be mikey's best comment ever! lol J/K

 

[Greg Cole]

I would be amazed if a job that size went for as much as 9 cents Richard. More likely 5-6

Actually, our salesman quoted .17 per sf. he expected them to come back and negotiate. They didn't even blink and agreed. he is still kicking himself! lol
I believe we likely got it because we agreed to their condition that if we exceeded the time frame (excepting touchups) we would discount it 10% for every hour we ran over. Shrewd move on their part.

 

[Greg Cole]

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

ummm how did you land a job that you have no clue how to do it and if you don't know how to do it how did you bid it?

You have 14 hours of vacuuming if you use back packs

You need 8- 2 man crews with RX-20 working 12 hour shifts

Hired 3 salesmen to go after commercial contracts. Told them to find the work and I'd figure out how to get it done.
I've always subscribed to the Bill gates and DOS way of doing business....

 

[Desk Jockey]

Should have negotiated the vacuuming. That could eat up a ton of labor hours.
$24,650.00 / 360 man hours = $68.47 much better provided the vacuming doesn't bite ya.

 

[Ken Snow]

Fantastic price Greg- Congrats!

Richard, they just don't make peeps like michiganders in Kansas I guess LOL.

If you change some things on your math it can have a positive impact on all the numbers, likewise if changed the other way they are negative.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Hired 3 salesmen to go after commercial contracts.

We need to do that.

Greg don't have them selling method. Have them selling cleaning. They will sell more if they can be competitive on price. If you are going to vacuum, back packs for edges an under deskset and wide area vac's for open spaces.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I agree Ken, we take back up TM's Cimex's and Orbots.


But you might as well factor Murphy into the rate cause when you run that hard for that long...some ting is gonna break.....and some tyme a few tings break. no won ton soup for you!

 

[John Olson]

John Olson" data-source="" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch">

ummm how did you land a job that you have no clue how to do it and if you don't know how to do it how did you bid it?

You have 14 hours of vacuuming if you use back packs

You need 8- 2 man crews with RX-20 working 12 hour shifts

Hired 3 salesmen to go after commercial contracts. Told them to find the work and I'd figure out how to get it done.
I've always subscribed to the Bill gates and DOS way of doing business....

LOL Greg I tend to do that a LOT my employees and my wife hate it but I generally have a pretty good idea before hand. The price they got the job for is ok. I was doing commercial for .18 and that was only 12 years ago. Now people are doing it for 5-6 cents around here. They have to do hundreds of thousands of sq ft every month just to stay in buisness. doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Desk Jockey]

My father started cleaning in1967 for .10 sq/ft.

45-years and not too much has changed.......well for large commercial any way.

 

[Ken Snow]

John, 30 years ago we had a room devoted to a computer server that had to be cooled and humidity controlled.Now it is not much bigger than a couple shoe boxes stacked on top of each other and is literally a billion (yes with a b) times as massive storage wise.

 

[Giorgio]

If they need that much carpet cleaned in 18 hours be sure to tell them you expect your check in 19 hours.

Get it in writing.

 

[The Great Oz]

If this is new construction clean-up you'll need to rent parking lot vacuums. You can run behind them and they'll pick up all of the wire strippings, metal shards, plastic debris, packing peanuts and other debris left on the carpet by workmen. The carpet won't be dirty, so no need to slow the crews down by using rotaries.

I'd consider the possibility that they agreed to your price with no quibbling because they're betting you can't finish on time. Try to anticipate how you could be stalled, say by a loading door you expected to use being blocked...

 

[Greg Cole]

Hired 3 salesmen to go after commercial contracts.

We need to do that.

Greg don't have them selling method. Have them selling cleaning. They will sell more if they can be competitive on price. If you are going to vacuum, back packs for edges an under deskset and wide area vac's for open spaces.

Agreed. That is what we do. Sadly the customer knew exactly what they wanted. Non negotiable on how we do it....

 

[Greg Cole]

If they need that much carpet cleaned in 18 hours be sure to tell them you expect your check in 19 hours.

Get it in writing.

Always my friend! D&B check was performed. Sadly it's a net 30 but the chances of our getting screwed is negligible.

 

[Desk Jockey]

The tail wagged the dog?

Who is the professional with years of cleaning experince ? eat yor heart out Werner

Seriously we would have given our opinion but done what ever method the client wanted. Although we would not have agreed to that goofy completion claus.

Well al least not unless it worked both ways and they paid me extra for every hour we finished early. Then I'd just throw everything at it to knock it out and bonus all involved with THEIR money. LIKE!