Interview with John Geurkink 6-7-07

AnnaAgostino

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Hi Mike, Padman :)

I'm here too, for a short while anyway :)

I'll be all ears (lol) :) We always learn something new, no matter how old we are :)

Anna
 

Mikey P

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Question : If you believe that you are removing soil as good as a HWE would you agree that weighing a before and after sample of carpet is a good measure of how much soil OP removes.

Answer: There are several ways to test, weighing being ONE of them, however, customer satisfaction is what pays the bills, and having started business' in several states, almost ALL our customers were HWE customers before ever even hearing of OP. We have not only retained the customers, 10-15-20 years of cleaning for the same customers have shown us and them the consistency of cleaning and LACK of any kind of buildup. Also carpet TYPES would be a large factor in the weighing testing, no one system is the BEST on ALL carpets, at least not the most economical to use. But it still as always comes down to the cleaner himself that decides just how well a method works. A lousy cleaner with any method is still a lousy cleaner, a great cleaner with any method is still a great cleaner.



Question: If you would be allowed to use your normal technique and your solutions would you agree to be included in testing with other methods such as HWE in this manner?

Answer: Absolutely, but again, that is just ONE way of testing. It is not the end all as to how the customer’s carpet is going to look and last. I would want to be the one doing the cleaning though.



Question: Do you believe that OP and similar low moisture methods mechanically abrade off any factory protectant?

Answer: LOL Do you believe the protectant is still on the carpet by the time you are called out to clean?


Question: Is OP considered a Wool Safe approved method of cleaning?

Answer: Australia and England are buying our machines and they find them very effective for cleaning wool. Here in America so many cleaners are concerned about problems with wool, when in fact, there is not a lot of difference in cleaning wool or nylon etc, but wool being a natural fiber simply requires twice the amount of an appropriate Prespray to do the same job.
We had to be careful on wools using cotton, sometimes we used the Encapsupads, however with the new Gladiator pads, wools are not a problem at all.
We do all the old Wilton Wools at our Old state capital that many cleaners didn’t want to touch, mainly because they are so old and you have to sign off on them that if you hurt them in any way you have to replace them, and we just used the Brutes on them, nothing special…. We sure get a lot of referrals from the Kentucky Historical Society after cleaning for them though.
Now are we “consideredâ€ÂÂ
 

John G

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Good to see you here Anna.

Looking forward to seeing you and Dom at Summerfest in Indy.
 

John G

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I use John G. so guys like Mikey can spell it correctly.. it is GEURKINK..LOL
 

AnnaAgostino

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Thanks John :)

I see there are questions and answers. When were those questions answered. I thought questions were going to be answered in this forum, this evening? :)

Anna
 

John G

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I am here to answer question Anna, but we had some pre questions so we could do things in a timely manner.
 

Mikey P

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My first question will be hypothetical...
Lets put you in the middle of a Twilight Zone episode,.
You wake up to read the Morning Gazette tomorrow and the headline reads, "OP carpet cleaning now considered a criminal offense after Jay Leno's child dies of Kawasaki's disease."

Even your fearless, can do no wrong president demands that your turn over your jiggler.

So being a upstanding citizen, you oblige.

The question is, How do you set your self up to go out and clean carpet every day with out your tool of choice?


What would be in what vehicle?
 

John G

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Well if that happened I don't know that I would stay in the biz.

You get used to a standard and the reasons for loving this biz tie into that directly, I would get a V and use it for marketing purposes because that is what I think it is best at. But I would hire someone else to pull hoses.

What would you do if the mill REQUIRED OP?
 

AnnaAgostino

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I would think it would be very very hard to change to a new system when you are so used to one system for so long and have tried to perfect it over all those years :)

Anna
 

Mikey P

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I'd fly you out asap to show me how to use it of course.

Now that being said, what really is the biggest drawback to HWE in your eyes?

Over wetting and all the effects of doing so or the costs of running a TM?
 

John G

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That is so true Anna we brought it from a slow method of cleaning to very competitve speed method and the pads, machines and products used has transformed the OP cleaning especially over the last three years.
 

Dolly Llama

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Hi John.
Thanks for being here.

Most know we're friends, so I feel obliged to ask some tough questions and not play softball.

soooo....

After years of using cotton pads and Abstraction, and also being a detractor of enRap sCampooing when it first re-appeared, what was it that made you change your position and now sell the juice and synthetic bonnets?


..L.T.A.
 

AnnaAgostino

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Why should the mill require any system? HWE, OP, Bonnet. I think they're experts in carpets manufacturing and we are in cleaning systems.

I know that question was purely hypothetical, but we are the professionals, aren't we? and we should decide what system is best for what carpet :)

Anna :)
 

Mark Azevedo

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John, other than changing the body to aluminum on all breeze type machines what other changes have you made? and are you still trying to make other improvements on these o.p machines
 

Mikey P

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True Anna, but seeing how I am comfortable with many machines I could swap over to OP with no problem.

Weather or not all my customers would is another question.

I dont know how I would deal with it's limitations ( corners, edges, urine etc) but the low cost does have it's appeal.



John, how DO you deal with corners?
 

John G

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I do NOT have a lot of drawbacks concerning HWE done properly, however I see it NOT done properly most of the time. Let's face HWE is much more complex to learn than OP, and with that and the need to understand pH, the use of chems, and differing temps etc give to much more room for error.

So, we use a method that is EASY, easy to learn, easy to get started in the biz and very economical.

But done properly HWE is fine with me.
 

John G

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Hi John.
Thanks for being here.

Most know we're friends, so I feel obliged to ask some tough questions and not play softball.

soooo....

After years of using cotton pads and Abstraction, and also being a detractor of enRap sCampooing when it first re-appeared, what was it that made you change your position and now sell the juice and synthetic bonnets?


..L.T.A.

Very fair question, and I will tell you, my testing did NOT show encap alone to work well, not for tough carpets. So we moved to PadCapping which about ALL WE DO ANYMORE, that gives the customer the benefits of padding and encap all in one process.

The combintion gives the customer MORE than we could with just padding alone.
 
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John..if you had to describe your self to someone...would the word stubborn be in the description?
 

AnnaAgostino

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I'm not John , of course, (lol) but I would think, that corners aren't extremely dirty because you don't walk in the corners, so I would imagine a good vacuuming or cleaning with damp towel would suffice.

Would be nice if there were a small rectangular OP machine (instead of round) so it could go back and forth and clean corners (lol) :)

Anna
 

John G

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Why should the mill require any system? HWE, OP, Bonnet. I think they're experts in carpets manufacturing and we are in cleaning systems.

I know that question was purely hypothetical, but we are the professionals, aren't we? and we should decide what system is best for what carpet

Anna

Mills shouldn't recommend what methods are used, actually recommending is their biz, but they do NOT deny other methods, even though many cleaners will try to tell you that bonneting or OPing will void warranties, that simply isn't true.
 

John G

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John, other than changing the body to aluminum on all breeze type machines what other changes have you made? and are you still trying to make other improvements on these o.p machines

There have been a LOT of changes between models, first Ole Blue, then I built the conquerors where we sped up the Counterbalance, adding much more oscillation, now we have the newer Commercial Breeze, adding heavy cabling, different bearing, changing the counterbalance so all machines oscillate the same and turn at the same speed.
 

John G

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True Anna, but seeing how I am comfortable with many machines I could swap over to OP with no problem.

Weather or not all my customers would is another question.

I dont know how I would deal with it's limitations ( corners, edges, urine etc) but the low cost does have it's appeal.



John, how DO you deal with corners?

Mike:
What you see as limitations I do not, corners? what a 3" convex area that usually has no dirt? Wipe it out by hand, edges, we go right up to the edge plus now use pads larger than the machine to force the pads down into the edges, and urine, that is a great topic, but would take a lot of time to go through.
 

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