How much R & D & science are prespray makers really using?

[Bob Foster]

You have the "craft brewers" that literally make juice 100 gallons at a time.

Then on the other extreme there are huge plants where a 3000 gallon vat that made prespray today and may well have made oven cleaner the day before and will make pet shampoo tomorrow. Some of these factories make many different brands that end up in our world that compete with each other that even may have come from the same vat in the same batch.

Then you have brands that don't even make their own solutions and just the label so to speak.

So in the heart of hearts of these people who make the decisions are they really providing us with the best product they could give us or are we getting price/cost driven chemicals because they can buy certain raw material way cheaper than better raw ingredients.

Look at the MSDS sheets of some popular cleaning solutions many of us use and you might question who's interest is being best served.

Would you be concerned if you read on the MSDS of a cleaning solution you use this statement?

"Confirmed animal carcinogen with unknown relevance to humans"

Or how about this one?

"Mixture not tested but based on ingredients can irritate eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Ingestion or skin absorption may affect central nervous system, blood and blood forming organs, kidneys, liver and lymphoid system."


I'm not saying big formulators are bad and you could argue that they have the buying power through volume and chemists to research and develop superior products.

But I personally don't believe this to be the case.

Here's my belief. The distribution of consumable goods has gotten so sophisticated and centralized that it will not sustain low margins caused by lots of middlemen. The way they have increased their profit to support supplying the cleaning industries classical distribution system is by lowering their manufacturing costs by substandard chemicals, more dangerous chemicals and lousy dilution performance.

Its not by accident that some of the small manufacturers seem to make some products that clean better and are safer. Not coincidentally they don't usually sell their products through dealers. They sell them direct because they frankly can't afford the margin to give to a dealer and still have their end user price remain reasonable.

Ask what's in the bottle.

Next week I'm going ask the manufacturers brains to deliver us some basic chemistry 101 of prespray formulation. Understanding this will teach all of us more than many might think.

 

[Larry Cobb]

Bob;

Chemical formulation is a difficult operation.

Raw materials have to be checked more carefully ...
because they come from countries around the world.

Political groups like Green Seal write standards for testing that will never be met on most of the raw materials. CRI has new expensive testing required for their Seal of Approval (raising your costs).

Ozone and VOC regulations are taking away some very effective raw material solvents and increasing the pricing on ones that meet new standards.

Concerns over fluorochemical protectors are forcing changes by all the major producers.

Petroleum feedstocks have become more expensive, and also face political pressures (Gulf coast).

OSHA and Insurance inspectors always provide more regulations.

Shipping regulations are more restrictive and inconsistent.

In spite of all these roadblocks, our formulations have improved in cleaning effectiveness ...
and leave less residue on the carpet. Our production has steadily increased over the last couple of years.

But...
I do have concerns about the availability of top-quality formulations in the future.

Larry Cobb

 

[Dolly Llama]

I've been in a plant like the one in the pic.
Scot Labs in Chagrin Ohio.

Good folks that take their formulations seriously.
(not meant to imply that most other formulators don't)

It was pretty cool to tour the plant, meet the chemists and see how they did their testing on efficacy and resoil rates
Which they did do... and also evaluated their formulations against other manufacture's juice.

as far the "health" aspect angle.
most all chems we use are quite safe for the custy and the occupants of the dwelling.
The "health" aspect for "them" is over blown and is little more that sleazy SCARE tactic marketing.
There are exceptions, or course...like folks with genuine chem sensitivity problems and some of the specialty chems we use.
But by and large, the "health" aspect for the "custy" is WAY over hyped.


It's "OUR" exposure that's the genuine concern..as we're "in it" continually and daily.
our exposure is a 100 times plus greater than our custys .

responsible use is important .
There are plenty ways to minimize our exposure as well.
The simplest and easiest is to provide ventilation to the work area(s) and use proper handling methods when mixing.
Larger flow jets and longer wands (closer the the carpet) on our sprayers will help minimize atomized spray in the "breathing" zone as well

those "little" things should be employed REGARDLESS whether you're using a fiery hot nuke'em juice or the mildest pee water weak chems


..L.T.A.

 

[hogjowl]

Les put you up to this.

Now, when is he going to show up?

 

[Bob Foster]

No Les didn't put me up to it but I did discuss this with him after I put it up and then I said I bet the very first people to speak up would be Larry Cobb and Shawn F.

Les has made me very interested in cleaning chemicals first because I'm very impressed with the performance of his products and also from discussing chemical manufacturing and ingredients with him. I happen to know a few short cuts in these processes that go on.

I am challenging the very biggest names in this business about what and why substances are in their bottles over other substances.

BRING IT ON.

I will need help and you can bet Les will be one of them that helps me understand. Because I am not going to let any of you or me be baffled by techno 8 syllable names. The discussion will be distilled (pun intended) into plainspeak so you all will see the real truth. But first I want everyone interested to know what I have come to believe to be the truth about cleaning chemicals.

Shawn must be away because I guarantee he will be speaking up and I'm sure we look forward to hearing what he has to say.


Beware of attempted diversions and hijackings of this tread as I trying to get at the truth.

Larry I understand what your saying however in my eyes the CRI has lost a lot of credibility.

 

[ruff]

Bob, thanks for bringing this up, I think it is very important.

I agree with what both Larrys say, and I think most formulators try to do the best they can and take pride in what they do.

However, we also know that large corporations buy small companies, than they cut the well paid staff all in the name of cutting costs and improving bottom line=profit.
The next step unfortunately (and very frequently) is other ways to cut cost. One way is using less costly chemicals. We know that this is commonly done. Corporate greed (or need to survive in the market place) is a very strong motivating factor. Pride in their product, with these large enterprises, is lost somewhere along the way or becomes secondary.

You'd think that making the best product will result in loyal customers, unfortunately it is not always the case. Also, we carpet cleaners as consumer of these product sometime go to the cheapest source and patronize these suppliers. We are part of the problem as well.

Small manufacturers have the potential to produce the best product and equal the playing field (since their costs are higher due to not being able to purchase in huge bulk quantities) by cutting the middle man. They. however, also have to deal with the same market pressures. The same carpet cleaner that wants the cheapest product.

Also, we as the consumer of their product are somewhat at the mercy of their "Word."
Yes, we can tell if a product is good or lousy but how many of us can really tell how well the product rinses off and that it really rinses 5% better. Yes we see how it performs but the little differences I doubt that we can tell.

So many times it boils down to integrity and trust.

I personally tend to trust and prefer to give my business to smaller businesses (since I am one.) The sad fact though, is that it is hard to separate the hype from the facts. Also, unfortunately, some small manufacturers seem to level the field by stretching the truth JUST LIKE their big brothers. I guess we can say that they are "truth challenged."

So, there we are again. We get feedback on this board (though there are a lot of interested parties and we know that not everybody here can be trusted.) We try to see for ourselves if their products are indeed better.
And we rely on trust and integrity.

What a concept!

 

[leesenter]

The next step is almost here.
At Chemspec for example not only are all the ingredients listed on the MSDS----soon all the raw ingredients used in making the product's ingredients will be on the MSDS too.
This will allow everybody to truly measure the footprint the product makes on the environment.

I would like to add one aspect to Meat's post---carpet cleaning chemical manufacturers almost all state that you must wear gloves while using their chems. This is because most of these chems are easily absorbed into the skin then your bloodstream. The products we use contain co-solvents which are readily absorbed through the skin.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Bob, in the interest of "full disclosure" are you involved in any sales of any particular manufacturer's juice?


"So in the heart of hearts of these people who make the decisions are they really providing us with the best product they could give us or are we getting price/cost driven chemicals...."


Bob, I'm sure the answer to that is ..."yes" for "most" soap salesmen
There is a natural ceiling on juice prices that most are willing to pay.
That's somewhere between $30 to $40 pr gal, i reckon.
Hence the reason Prochem lowered their prices not to long ago.
Even though they're one of the best lines over all, (imHo) I suspect they were losing market share.



I'm reading between the lines now.
But is it possible that a certain "small" manufacturer's juice is more expensive than some of the "big baller" manufacturer's juice at same practical dilution rates?
"Practical" dilutions rates are often FAR away from "claimed" dilution rates


I do hope Shawn shows up soon.
As I believe he's one of the few here that has a "formal" chemistry back ground.
if I'm not mistaken the Cobbmeister does too

so I'd expect...no... HOPE they'd chime in


..L.T.A.

 

[Bob Foster]

Everyone knows Les is my friend. There's the disclosure. And I will tell you what else, I don't pay retail for my juice from Les either because we are good friends.

I invite full disclosure from everyone else too.

The truth is the truth.

 

[Bob Foster]

I can't wait for the chemistry - pre-spray PLAINSPEAK session for the various people to really find out what's going on.

Buy the way a 50 lb bag of sodium percarbonate sells for $117 and someone just told me they pay $80 for it one bag at a time.

or you can buy 1 lb from a famous national distributor for just under $17

But that could be misinformation because I'm a friend of a prespray manufacturer but again its the TRUTH.

 

[hogjowl]

Hey Les!

Will you be MY friend?

 

[Danny Strickland]

I believe the Cliff Notes on Cobb's post is his products are "well formulated"!!!

Mikey on Dannys computer

 

[Bob Foster]

I don't think this thread is going to be against a bunch of manufactures. The way I want this to go down is for you all to get informed on the basic ABC's of prespray manufacturing and then ask the questions yourselves of different manufacturers.

This is not a dig at any one particular manufacturer and any business who services us as carpet cleaners is entitled to a profit.

They also need to provide us with safe and effective products relative to their competitors.

 

[Ryan]

One of the reasons I like spartan chemnicals. Largest supplier of cleaning chemicals in the world. The spend the $$$ on their R & D and it shows.

 

[Ken Snow]

why single out presprays? What about emulsifyers, topical sprays such as protectant, deodorizers, antimicrobials, etc. What about solvents?

Ken

 

[Bob Foster]

I believe those products are subject to the same dynamics. For the purposes of keeping the thread specifically on point I more or less used prespray as the main subject.

To soley take a raw product and package it in a smaller container with good instructions and mark it up is not a crime as in my sodium percarbonate example. However maybe they could have put a better product in that bottle (that might have a higher cost to them) that would serve us better.

I got to ask you Ken, why do you make your own prespray?

 

[Shawn Forsythe]

I don’t necessarily agree with the hypothesis of the premise for this thread. What one observes can often produce erroneous results if either the sample size is too small, or the samples deviate from a norm due to prejudiced method of acquisition. I think we could even have both going on here. Typically, all else being equal, a larger sample size leads to increased precision in estimates of various properties of the population, though the results will become less accurate if there is a systematic error in the examination or acquisition of data.

When I think over the same question, I find that there is little, if any, correlation between size of company and the subjective benefit of the research and development of products. You have large companies doing well to serve the positive measures Bob outlines, and poorly performing ones. As well, I see very little statistical dissimilarity with smaller companies in their performance as such.

I’ve seen large companies that have a staff of environmental compliance specialists that even go overboard to produce a liability proof product, even to the detriment of providing a performing chemical, as well as small companies that are willfully ignorant of environmental concerns that tout a suspect product either no warning, or actually touting their product as socially/environmentally superior, when they don’t even really know.

Nobody has either a monopoly on either a ruthless nature or benevolence. And oh so often it is the eye of the beholder, and/or the marketing department.

 

[hogjowl]

Somebody dumb that down for me please. :?

 

[Ken Snow]

Cause we have found it to be the best for us Bob.

 

[Dolly Llama]

Somebody dumb that down for me please. :?

he said it don't madder who's making the juice..
cause regardless whether it's a large or small company...
some are good at what they do
some are full of chit and don't know it
some are full of chit and DO know it


..L.T.A.

 

[Bob Foster]

I don't disagree with Shawn, it was entirely my conjecture.

We could use your help in presenting your Marty level explanation on the anatomy of pre-spray and the processes need to make them and stabilize them.

Both powder and liquid please.


Another thing. Enzyme based pre-sprays that are used in restaurants
Famous Texan supplier under a hundred for a bucket of powder
Famous other guys (three of them) over 200 for a bucket of powder

Why?

Shawn, please try your best to stick to under 5 syllables.

Larry Les Scott pipe in on this please.

 

[Bob Foster]

And Ken, nice PC answer if you could call it an answer. We all have friends in the business here we don't want to offend.

Your more detailed answer might just help a manufacturer serve you (and the rest of us) better.

 

[Ken Snow]

I wasn't trying to be pc Bob- it is exactly for that reason. We have to date not found anything that would get us to change. We were founded with Chemistry and have been manufacturing many of our products for 71 years (almost all of them way back then).

Ken

 

[Bob Foster]

Impressive. Can you tell us a little about your manufacturing process?

 

[Ken Snow]

Sorry I really can't Bob.

 

[Danny Strickland]

Sorry I really can't Bob.

i'll dum that down for ya Bob........



ACE OFF!!!!!!!!!

 

[Ken Snow]

LOL Danny- no O didn't mean that nor am I trying to be pc or anything else. I am willing to share information on tons of things, but not that.

 

[rick imby]

A friend of mine has a car detail supply house in this area. They make almost all of their own chemical concoctions. They use a 50 gallon barrel and they have a lid with a electric motor that they put on the drum sometimes stirring it over night. I think the 50 gallon at a time manufacturer is more common than most of us think.



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Barack Obama


Salt Lake City Carpet Cleaning

Couer d’Alene Carpet Cleaning

Kalispell Carpet Cleaning

 

[rick imby]

The advantage Mr Snow's operation has is they are large enough that the focus they have put on formulations for the last 71 years has paid off very well. I bet the money they save yearly by manufacturing their own chemicals more than pays for Ken Snow's take home pay. Most smaller operations would not save enough money to do the basic research. Kinda like having their own paint and body shop to repair/touch up the paint on their Butlers. Size does have its advantages. But I bet when it gets really slow it has it's disadvantages too.


*******
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John Adams

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[hogjowl]

I saw Doodaddy mixing up a batch of something in a wheel barrow one time.