How long should it take to clean an avg. room

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cory kenyon

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I have two techs..one who goes to fast, and one who goes to slow. I told them it should take 10-15 min. per room. We only move couches, we prevac,prespray, spot, tm clean, and groom. We're avg. priced, 3 jobs a day per van. How long should it realistically take??
 
G

Guest

Guest
More dirt = more time !
Less dirt = less time !
It takes, as long as it takes ?
Maybe you just have to show them how you do it, a couple of times ?

Good luck !

AL
 

truckmount girl

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Al's point is spot on. In general though it took us much longer than that to do an "average" room, especially adding the time for pre-spray, spotting and grooming.

Take care,
Lisa
 

GRHeacock

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Go out with your techs. They may be using a poor technique, or not doing things like you want them to.

Or, maybe you are expecting too much.

Sitting in the office wondering won't cut it.

Gary
 

SRI Cleaning

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Anthony Firmani
Also we had a tech that rushed through everything, when he left I was used to his speed and i couldnt figure out why my new guy was not gettig as much done. It turns out when i really looked into it, the slower guy was doing a much better job.
 

TimP

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Stanley Steamer does rooms in 15 minutes.....why would you think it takes that long to do it right. Hell it can take 5-10 min just to vacuum a room....then prespray scrub and dwell. Yeah it's gonna take a lot longer. I can hardly do just 1 room by itself with setup and tear down of equipment in an hour. You're supposed to let your chems sit at least 5-10 min. You can save a bit of time by moving, furniture clean under them, move them back, spray, and then clean the rest of the room and leave the last sprayed area for last but still It's gonna take more than 10-15 min to clean any room even if they are chained after another. I would figure at least 20-30 min a room if they are in a series of rooms.

Also if you're not giving value based on your price you're only hurting yourself by rushing. If you're cleaning at 30 bucks a room like stanley feel free to do like SS. People do catch on and talk, especially where I'm at. I take my time do it right the first time, and tell my customer that I want them to call if there is a problem that way I know I've done something wrong and can fix it so that I can improve my business and they would be doing me a favor. Because I want to be known as a the best cleaner in town. Just my philosophy not that it's the best for all situations.
 

Spurling

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We've been pretty good at guessing an average size rm (200sf) takes between 30-45 min full process ( pre-vac,pre-spray ,rake in,spot clean ,extract,post vac, protect, groom and set up dryer) including move furn. We charge .50sf to clean and .25 to protect... that equals $150 (or more with less time) per hr..1 man .. don't really need to rush ..I'm happy with $150-300an hr--1or2 men ..if you're rushing..you're not charging enough..
I used to charge flat rate $35 per room .. that included pre spray,move furniture and some light spotting..nothing else ..1 man 15 min per room... add $20 per rm to protect and add 5 more min per rm would equal 3 rooms an hr for $165 .. some would think .. wow that's $140-$165 an hr less hassle.. the way I look at it is ..the new way, I'm taking more steps per room and getting $150 per hr for all the steps.. (machine doesn't come on til I'm ready to pre-spray) the other way I would have to do more rooms to equal the income.. I'd run out of rooms to do.
 

Spurling

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Oh.. I hear SS usually will not pre-spray, dump extra detergent in their cleaning solution to be siphoned and turn up the water pressure to 600psi ..yeah that ought to do it.. I could blast through a job like that..
 

steve r

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10 to 15 minutes sounds about right to me. trashed ones about 20 to 30 min. thats under 200 sq.ft. also.

i clean 3 rooms and a hall up to 600 sq. ft. in and out in an hour most of the time.50 to 75 ft hose runs.
 

John Watson

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Helen and I try to do 2 jobs a day. We are told we are an excellent team being very coordinated in the way we set up and orchestrate the whole production. This morning we did 2 rooms and a hall, we really must be slow in your standards it took us 135 minutes. Oh, we did apply a protector.
 

steve r

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i wonder what your customer saw i would of fell asleep watching. :lol:

do you even break a sweat john? :?
 

TimP

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I average 300 sq ft per hour. I don't care who you are, if you are rushing you aren't cleaning properly. I spent 4 hours today cleaning about 1300 sq feet. And I had a lot of furniture in the home to clean around. Moved a few pieces of furniture, sofa recliner, dining room chairs. Of course the time includes set up, break down, vacuum and vacuuming properly takes a good bit of time, preconditioning, extracting and putting tabs and blocks in the right places. I didn't have to scrub there wasn't any traffic soil. Yeah I could of done it quicker and not rinse as well, but I prefer to really do it right. I can do more sq ft, but I would have to be in an open area and not fight furniture and door ways with my hoses. And have a helper. I did that job and my first was a minimum and brought in just under 400 w/o selling any protector. In my woods that's good money for 5 hours work. Unfortunately I'm no 100 buck an hour guy but when I have a helper doing a large job.
 

Rich Holcomb

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I was actually thinking of posting a question today on cleaning times.

I am a fairly new cleaner. Today I did two bedrooms, one hallway and a loft area all upstairs and a set of steps in 2.5 hrs. I pre sprayed everything and let chems dwell. I was wondering how my time compared with you veterans. I also set up fans to dry as I worked from room to room. I was worrying that things were taking to long, but from the sounds of it maybe my time wasn't that bad.
 
C

cory kenyon

Guest
I guess I should have been more specific...How long should an average room take, not including dwell time, hose roll up, and pre and post walks. I do spend time with my techs, in fact I'm usually out cleaning myself.
We're all in descent shape, and honestly think 3 jobs a day is very realistic.
 

joey895

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Joey J.
Well I consider myself to be a fairly slow cleaner myself. At least compared to others in my area. Today I did 2 bedrooms (open area only), an office (they had everything moved that they wanted moved already), and a living room (Had to move one sofa around). It took me one hour and 45 minutes. Pre-vac, take out about 4 quarter sized ink spots, pre-spray, extract use air movers to dry and BS with the customer about his race car.



PS If your only talking about how much time just to extract, not including moving furniture. I venture to say 10-15 minutes per room is probably about right.
 

John Watson

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Some of youse guys is lame, If I needs to swet I wears my Blue Line hat.

You aint seen the special wand thet ther greenie guy builts just for me an my Helen. Its a 2 handler version, I pushes an she pulls, dang thing gots the uugaa horn for them ther custys who git in the way an it gots flashing lights an whistles. It uses lips an glides, has its own built in air trail (That the newest version of the air path) Thet thar thing is so sweet,jus aownin it makes us better than any of youse!!!! When wes a uses this here wand the client has to be a special one and don't mind a fixin us vittles for our breaks has a place for me to take my knaps....
 

TimP

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I try to schedule 2 big jobs a day or 3 jobs total depending on what they are. If they are minimums I'd do 4-5 or more if I knew they were all minimums. If I had help I'd do more but for me I just don't want to work myself to death. I like to be home around 5 or 6 and not start til 9:30-10. Now if I start to get booked out farther than maybe a week then i'd be more apt to squeeze in another job or two depending and probably get some help.
 

Spurling

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RichardnTn said:
How fast must you be to do some of the $2000 days that I hear about...
Just curious...? RR

my guess would be no pre-vac, no pre-spray, charge for everything, move nothing, splash-n-dash and no extras


or 3 pots of coffee

you figure, if you're charging $40 per room .. that would be 50 rooms a day... has to be the coffee

not impossible ..but unlikely to be everyday
 
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2000 dollar days can be tough,
I think you can still do a pretty good job though,
with two efficient techs, decent protector sales,
some t+g and upholstery cleaning in the mix.
Oh and dueling all day with a vortex and Hi-Flow helps.
It still sound like a 10 or 12 hour day to me.
A couple cans of Red Bull helps too!
 

RichardnTn

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It can be done, I'm sure...when I do the occasional $1000 day, I am zapped.... $300-500 a day is good enough for me...RR
 

TimP

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In the busy time of year I'll do 2 k a week a couple times, usually it's a bit more than 2 k when I'm slammed. But it's not a regular thing by any means for me.
 

Becker

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At the end of the day who is the better carpet cleaner, the slower one? Or is he just slow?

Perhaps the slower would has a higher standard.
Hmm. You might have your new lead tech.

I did Alex's bedroom yesterday.
Lightly soiled.
No furniture in the room.

And it took much longer than 15 mins.
 

orbitalclean

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With VLM I am hitting 600 sqft per hour minimum, maybe even throw the stairs in with that.
If its trashed shag maybe not quite double that time. If it's white burber "I'll be here all day!"
 

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