The OP method

[John G]

Depends on the person Mikey, some have learned in a day or two, however, it took months to MASTER.

Look at the variables in carpet and soil, of course it takes time, no one is a master of HWE in a week either.


The 17" Commercial breeze is very easy to move, good grief, I hear guys talk about vibrating things off of walls, we haven't had 10 things fall of a wall in 33 years.

Yes, you can learn a Cimex or CRB in minutes, not master, but use it, however where is the CLEANING? You can learn to scrub and run an OP in minutes too. But cleaning takes knowledge.

I think it only wise that John embraces the fact that he will get more sales from the HWE guys looking to compliment their arsenal than former janitors looking to be "business owners".

A lot of the former janotirs were hwe, or they were former firemen who thought using a portable made them carpet cleaners..

Plus I have ALWAYS embraced that, MOST of our sales have always been selling OP as a tool. Thats a fact.

 

[Jeremy]

Mikey,
As an OP cleaner primarily here is my take.... OP machines (with wheels in contact with the carpet while cleaning) like the one in the pic Clark put up have MUCH MUCH less vibration than say the Conqueror which rattles like a '77 pacers tail pipe (no offense John but the little red OP machine feels like a jackhammer & on some carpet is damn near impossible to control). I cant speak Johns' Breeze units as I've never used one. The Brute/CX however runs smooth so long as the pads/carpet is lubricated & semi-level. You do feel some vibration on some carpets but it is generally easily controlled and in the hands of someone who wants to do a great job it will in most scenarios.

The beauty of the OP in conjunction with HWE is you can apply & agitate pre-spray in on step (if you have the sprayer), and after extraction, post pad the carpet & dispense either an encapsulate or even protector if you want... Do you pad in your protector like Mike Vernon suggested? So the utility is there, even when not using it as a stand alone. Anyway, that aside you'll find it is a more aggressive scrub than a 175. And yes, you can still use fiber pads under it. They do tend to pill a bit though...

 

[Jeremy]

Oh yeah, the can be a PITA to get on & off the truck with one person & no ramp...

 

[Jimmy L]

When you know you have mastered an OP machine grasshopper is when you discover that bending over and sticking your head in your ass is easy.


I have never mastered it.

 

[Guest]

I have always admired Johns ability to keep a straight face while presenting his"system"!

 

[Guest]

You first must pull your head out, Kid Dolomite, before you can learn......

The sky really is Blue....

 

[Johnny]

I'm 99% HWE but I wouldn't want to be without the OP option. As someone posted earlier, I too carry a Brute behind an RX on the truck, and a jug of juice and an assortment of pads.

OP excels in a few applications, like old CGD olefin in a commercial dining area with a lot of soda spills.

The OP option can be a real time-saver, too. Cleaned (HWE'd) the first floor of a large office building a couple weeks ago and was asked to get about six small spills on the second floor. Would have needed another 100' of hose to HWE, so took the Brute up the elevator and was done before I could have run the hoses and hauled the the RX.

Every HWE operation should have an OP machine, (or at least a rotary, but an OP does a more thorough job), a few pads, and a jug of juice on the truck.

IMHO

 

[nathanroberts]

It's all I use

95% of my cleaning is with random orbital machines using a variety of pads for different carpets, including nylon and micro-fibre. I also use Cimex in some situations as well as a rotary machine, but very seldom anymore now I have switched to orbital action machines. My clients have never been so thrilled with the results. It's quiet, fast, effective, dries in 30-90 minutes.
I'm using Snap-Encap for the most part, both as a pre-spray and in a tank with built-in pump sprayers on the unit.
After a thorough pre-absorbent with a back-pack vacuum (client's looove this), I am able to absolutely scream through a house using one machine where it took me at least two before. The Orbital motion with absorbent pads does hits the fibres from a million angles, and absorbed the loosened soils. The Encapsulation does it's thing too. I charge 67 cents per square foot and I'm booked up for weeks ahead with zero advertising!

I've never done commercial in a big way before, but a local company literally begged us to contract with them. They've been using various wet-method companies for years -some huge names in the industry. They started us out on 5 of their apartment buildings. Empty suites, corridors etc. They've been so impressed with all the attributes that they just informed me last week they will be using us for all their buildings locally (20-30).

These machines can clean 2-3000 square feet of commercial carpet in an hour.


Nathan Roberts

 

[XTREME1]

I would have used my rotovac

 

[John G]

Well the best way to dry up after a rotovac is op as well.

 

[hogjowl]

Good grief. Do you people see the pattern here? OP is good for anything and every situation!

Not!

Take the "drying up after the Rotovac" statement. If you use an OP machine to try and dry the carpet after you use a flood tool like the Rotovac, you'll find that those thin cotton pads DON'T pick up much moisture, you have to use a ton of them to have any effect, it will take forever (rotary with big cotton bonnets is faster), and you have to try to vacuum up all that carpet fiber that the OP machine rips out of the pile. Just try vacuuming up wet carpet fiber and tell me how well you vacuum does.

Not to mention the fact that your customer may be standing there watching you rip all that carpet fiber out of the pile. You then are faced with the challenge of trying to convince her that all this loose carpet fiber is "normal" and that you haven't damaged her carpets.

Give me a rotary any day.

 

[Derek]

hi Nathan.

are you Steve's bro?

thanx --- Derek.

 

[John G]

Sorry Sutley, but you should at least move into the 21st century with your OP comments, thick pads ARE what we use and they DON'T hurt the fibers, so you need to either catch up or give up.

You would be better off with a rotary Porky, although OP is easy, it appears to be way over your head...

 

[Jimmy L]

I'd like to have that Defender model for commercial.

 

[hogjowl]

So, judging by what you just said, PadPrick, am I correct in assuming that OP cleaners no longer have to post vacuum all that staple fiber that is ripped out of the pile?

Or, did you just forget about that for a moment?

Carpet fiber laying about after "cleaning" sure puts a damper on any "professional" claims being made regarding the systems lack of damage to the pile.

I think that's probably why Shaw and Mohawk won't approve you system for use in their warranty work.

 

[John G]

No Porkbutt, you can not assume that, we have to post vacuum, not because there is a lot of fibers, they are only there if there is staple yarn, which of course you would also find in your recovery tank, but because OP by its very nature brings up a lot of grit and hair etc, out of the carpet.

I already do Shaw and Mohawk warranty work, so again, try harder.

 

[hogjowl]

I don't routinely encounter carpet fiber in my filters. I suppose every now and then there might be some there, but I don't recall ever noticing any. It's always hair and other assorted dry soils that I find in my vacuum cannister and in my tank filters.

In no way what so ever have I EVER found the degree of carpet damage (in the way of ripped out fiber) in my vacuum or recovery tank as I did when I OP cleaned.

"Doing" warranty work is not the same as being approved to do warranty work. I just bet if I called Shaw and Mohawk I'd find that OP cleaning is not an approved method.

You remind me of old Bill Clinton. He always figured (normally correctly), that if he just kept saying the same thing often enough, people would eventually believe it is true.

 

[Scott]

I'd like to have that Defender model for commercial.

What's the Defender, Jimmy?

Thanks,

Scott

 

[The Preacher]

John asked about the CRB and Cimex "cleaning". i bet i can dig way more up with a GLS than he can with any of his OP's!!!

and my Cimex pads always have soil in them when i remove them to wash out???

 

[John G]

Not a chance Danny... not even a chance..

Porky, if your experiences are as you say with OP, I doubt you do HWE very well either....

 

[AnnaAgostino]

I'm sorry but I have to add my two cents to this thread, even though it is an extremely long thread.

We use mostly HWE (95% of the time) in all our cleaning but from time to time we do use the OP method and if done properly it is a very good system.

I know John very well and I do know that he's been using and perfecting his system for many many years and his work is second to none.

Is OP perfect, absolutely not and John will be the first to admit it, but HWE isn't perfect either. I don't think there is one system out there that is perfect. We HWE'd a commercial job last week and some areas were not clean enough until we post padded it with the OP system.

The OP system if done properly is one of the best systems out there and I have seen the end results time and time again.

Anna

 

[nathanroberts]

hi Nathan.

are you Steve's bro?

thanx --- Derek.

Yes I am but it's not my fault.

 

[diamond brian]

I think there is some very profound wisdom to be taken from this thread... Move to Victoria Canada and get rich quick.

 

[Jimmy L]

Defender is Clark's machine.

 

[hogjowl]

I'd just like to take a moment to bring to the casual readers attention these few points.

PadSon dodged my questions regarding the mounds of carpet fiber ripped out of carpet with the OP system not by denying it, but by trying to shift the attention over to HWE cleaning. When pointed out that HWE cleaners don't routinely find carpet fiber in their filters, especially not to the degree that OP cleaners have to deal with it, he then dodged it again by trying to cast doubt regarding my cleaning abilities. As if you can't be cleaning well if you aren't damaging the carpet pile.

Also, he made a point of not addressing the accusation I made that OP cleaning is not an officially approved method for cleaning carpets made by Shaw and Mohawk. He, once again, deflected this by accusing me of being a substandard cleaner.

By-the-way, he'll keep saying this until a portion of ya'll start believing him.

 

[Mark Imbesi]

C'mon PigCrap! John is correct. It's either your truckmount or your abilities. When I was HWEing, I constantly had to clean the waste tank and filter from carpet fiber. Try increasing your vacuum or lift weights so you can scrub harder!

 

[Mikey P]

How come Prissy, er, I mean Piggy was not this hard on John when the Blue Board was up?

 

[Guest]

It must be that time of the month....

Use the new pads Martin....they do not pull out the "staple fibers" like the old cotton ones did, leaving you with a floor full of fuzzies...

And somehow, they still scrub while picking up more dirt...

No tip bloom or fuzzy worries with these pads....

He might of sent you one to try before, but not now...

 

[hogjowl]

Tell me this Mike. Do YOU find actual carpet fiber making up the bulk of the material you find in your waste tank filters? Or, for that matter, in your cannister on your vacuum cleaner?

I find hair and dust-like matter, but very little actual carpet fiber. The carpet fiber that may actually be found in a TM waste tank filter is very minute, if any, and certainly nothing more than fiber that has been abraded away from the bundle by foot traffic over time. Certainly NOT fiber that has been torn away from the pile by the action of the wand, as is the case with OP cleaning.

For those of you who doubt me, go out to your truck today and pull your filters and tell me just how much matter that you find that you can directly attribute to carpet fiber. If, as John claims, you find that it is mainly carpet fiber, then I would suggest that you TOO are damaging the pile, and might consider looking into what you are doing wrong.

 

[John G]

Seems you have huge problems others don't Porky, could it be the operator as I have suggested to you for YEARS?