Did my demo for another apartment complex yesterday--got the work.
Better stain performance, better odor control. According to the super, the TM guys just go over quick with the wand, then dye over all the left behind stains, for a premium fee.
Great work guys! Now I'm going to come in and actually clean and deodorize the carpet and Blend n Mend traffic areas and wear patterns, cutting the need to re-dye by 90%. And I'm going to use my VLM vapor steamer to clean the laminates, which the TM guys just walk right over.
That's my angle vs. TM knuckle draggers, they're all about wham bam thank you ma'am and generally have scant chem knowledge and slim spotting skills.
They cant even control pet odors after multiple attempts--no Hydrocide in TM world?
Per Mikey et al per the use of TM vs buffer/OP: yes TM is generally much more cumbersome, particularly if upper floors are involved, and especially if its a one man crew.
OPs with big wheel kits are extremely nimble.
The Chem Dry franchises resist the powerheads for these reasons and because the TM system in CD's case gulps a great deal of the expensive rinse.
CD corporate pushes the TMs so they can sell giant amounts of their chems and, of course, the equipment itself, which is maintenance intensive. The boilerplate about 'commitment to
superior cleaning' from the motorized systems is propaganda for the profit motive.
I've gathered on these threads that Mikey is all knowing, but I was a CD tech for six years, and our vans always had both buffers and TMs.
So I've had a very long time to compare the methods head to head on a regular basis.
Even here at MB its largely conceded that VLM has rendered TM passé for commercial work and the same fate likely awaits for the Resi market as well.
Chems and machines are improving all the time, while TM remains mired in the 50's. Do you guys still watch black and white TV too?