vct

[SRI Cleaning]

Hey guys. We just got offered to bid a whole foods (chain health food supermarket) It would be monthly striping and waxing (so i was told) of vct. Does that sound right to strip and wax every month? And what price per square foot should I be at?

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Let me update...... They want a recomendation on what should be done to keep it looking good. And apparently this is a small one, only 3000 feet of vct. i dont have any vct experience, so advice would be welcome. Thanks!

 

[Lee Stockwell]

I used to do all grocery store vct before I got into carpet cleaning. Late 60's to 71. That used to be the model before the high speed buffers caught on.

Look up Fon Johnson from his profile here, he's going to be up to speed on current practice.

Thanks,
Lee

 

[John Olson]

If you are not currently set up to do this type of work you might want to pass. Your start up cost to purchase the equipment alone will put you 18-2 years out before you make a profit.

You will need an auto scrubber to clean and resotre the floor 3-5 days per week. You can use the auto scrubber for stripping as well but you will still need a good 20' 175. Lots of mop buckets and mops, scrapers,pads, dust mops, doodle bugs, safety signs etc.

You'll scrub and re-coat the main traffic areas monthly and strip and wax quartley. You'll be stripping and waxing every 2 to 3 weeks. You don't strip the whole thing at once you break it up in to quadrants. Your welcome to call me if you like and i'll be happy to tell you everything I know. Well maybe not everything that would be a short conversation :shock:

 

[Lonny]

Stripping is easier the more frequently it is done. I would rather clean carpet, tile, etc. Stripping is a serious pain in the backside. I agree with John's recommendation on frequency, along with a burnishing at least weekly, most retail places will do nightly but that depends on the kind/ amount of foot traffic they get. There is a direct correlation between clean, shiny floors and sales.

 

[joeynbgky]

Strip and waxes whould probably only be once a year. You should take your auto scrubber in once a week. and burnish every week. If you dont have an auto scrubber...... mop once a week and burnish. Scrub and recoats only need done every 3 months depending on the traffic.

 

[John Olson]

Joey, I will have to respectfully disagree with your post. It is a super market not a office building. It is a Tree Hugger supermarket at that. It will have to be shiny at all times. Depending on the foot traffic and the hours of operation my post might not even cover it.

 

[joeynbgky]

Well, we do 6 busy office depots.. this is how it works there..


Once a week.... autoscrub and burnish...

4 times a year scrub and recoat

every 18 months strip and wax.....

Sure it should be doe more. But thats how its set up... Our floors shine like you wouldnt believe

 

[Ryan]

I do a couple supermarkets, my "bread and butter" comes from VCT. I don't see where John gets his 18-20 years figure. There are other ways to do it but here is how I would do it.

Strip and refinish the entire thing once a year. Every three months scrub and recoat the high traffic areas that need it. You will need to completly strip the front and check outs when you scrub and recoat. Depending on traffic and how good they want it to look, go in with an autoscrubber and propane buffer and maintain it 2-5 days a week. Give them one yearly price, and get them into a contract. Buy your buffer off ebay, you can get almost new ones for $500-$600. Pioneer and Aztec are good brands. Don't get anything smaller then a 27" you will regret it. A good auto scrubber can usually be found for $2500 then you will need about another $1000 for batterys. I like the Clark encore for a good all around scrubber, the inflateable tires on it are a god send when stripping! Leave your equpment in the back room of the store and have a sub or employee come in and do it if you can manage to talk them into a 5 days a week contract.

EDIT: I must have missed the size, 3000 square feet is tiny! Do not do the above. Go in maybe 1-2 times a week and autoscrubb and burnish, if all your going to be doing is this size accounts you can buy smaller equipment. I would strip and refinish the entire thing evey 3 months or as needed. You should be to easily knock 3k square feet out in a night by yourself if you have an autoscrubber.

 

[John Olson]

That sounds about right for an office Depot. I understand your post better now Grocery stores have consideably more foot traffic and they are selling food products. Drop something in Office Depot no problem. Drop a jar of pickles and you have a big dull patch. Also the floor in Office Depot won't influence someones buying but a dingy floor in a grocery store will.

A good person to talk with would be Jeff Carter of truckmountdeals.com he has 9-10 grocery stores here in Utah that he has been taking care of for 15+ years. He has employees that are locked in at night 5-6 days a week that sweep and autscrub and burnish (propane) nightly. I base my experiance on grocery stores from what I have learned from Jeff. When I was in commercial janitorial I stayed away from grocery stores because of what I learned from his stores. Just wasn't enough money for the headache's unless you had a good contract and lots of stores.

edit that was 18 months-2 years not 18-20 years and that was based on only what a 3000 sq ft job might potentionally bring in

 

[joeynbgky]

That makes more sense.. Its a pain though. I actually will start contracting mine out again.

 

[steve frasier]

without auto scrubbers and propane buffers you will not be able to compete on price

I am almost to the point of no stripping, when the floor is in bad shape we just scrub it with thin maroon pads. It takes off quite a bit of wax, plus it doesn't take many coats of floor finish to rebuild the wax.

27" buffer may be to big, you might want to measure the checkout aisles

 

[sweendogg]

Something to think about..

If its a green store.. they like this approach.. then again with all the dust.. maybe they wouldn't.

but just an idea:

http://www.squarescrub.com/

 

[CleanFreak.com]

John sounds like he has major experience in this. I would listen to everything he said.

The only thing I would add is that the grocery store I used to work in (about 12 years ago) had their own auto scrubber, and would scrub nightly with it. This eliminated a lot of secondary work for the cleaning company we subcontracted out to. However, if you can get someone in there scrubbing every night, that can be a nice 2nd source of income for you, besides the recoats, and stripping jobs.

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Lots of good points here!

 

[sweendogg]

let us know how it goes!

 

[dealtimeman]

sweeny do you know anyone who has one of those square units?

if so have you seen one work?

 

[steve frasier]

I have a Boost auto scrubber, it has the square head. If you don't have a lot of finish on the floor, the maroon pad stripping works fine. If there is a lot of finish it wall take you a few times/passes to get rid of it.

One plus is you only strip done to the tile, so some finish is still there in the base of the tile. So now it doesn't take as many coats of floor finish to build the finish
back up. So if you are use to putting down 5 coats, 3 should be plenty for you.

You can get right up to he edge without slopping the crap on the walls. A lot less detail work. I use a maroon on the rotary all the time. Works fine with a wet process. If you do it dry it may swirl quite a bit.

 

[dealtimeman]

do you have any pics of yours?

 

[Ryan]

I have a Boost auto scrubber, it has the square head. If you don't have a lot of finish on the floor, the maroon pad stripping works fine. If there is a lot of finish it wall take you a few times/passes to get rid of it.

One plus is you only strip done to the tile, so some finish is still there in the base of the tile. So now it doesn't take as many coats of floor finish to build the finish
back up. So if you are use to putting down 5 coats, 3 should be plenty for you.

You can get right up to he edge without slopping the crap on the walls. A lot less detail work. I use a maroon on the rotary all the time. Works fine with a wet process. If you do it dry it may swirl quite a bit.

What type of finish are you stripping off? I tried the maroon pads on my 175 and thy seemed worthless. Maybe I should revisit them.

 

[sweendogg]

I've never used the the square scrub as prescibed but I do have a lighter version of the square scrubber. Never had a chance to use it as prescribed though I don't think I have enough weight. They aren't useing simply a marron pad for that video..

they are using these:

http://3m.hillas.com/pc-7756-135-3m-spp ... n-pad.aspx

a little bit more aggressive if I gather correctly. its used for many types of finishes from vct acyrilic to polyurethane on wood floors.

 

[sweendogg]

And remember its a random orbit compared to a rotating 175 so just like a random orbit sander, you'll get more oscillations per minute then revolutions from a 175.

 

[SRI Cleaning]

So with the square random orbit type unit, I would strip the floor dry? And then mop it up i guess? Then reapply and buff with a 175? Sorry for all the questions, i am just totally new with this.

 

[sweendogg]

http://www.squarescrub.com/

Check out the video.. on VCT.. it gives a great explanation of the process.

Also To learn the basics of VCT maintenance the normal way:

http://www.betco.com/Training/Pages/Tra ... ideos.aspx

I found these very helpful!

expecilly this one for VCT:

http://www.toledofilehost.com/BetcoVide ... 0x412.html

 

[steve frasier]

If you watch the video it clearly shows a maroon pad with a red pad as backing. It is the same SPP Maroon pad you can get from Interlink, Home Depo or a Wood Floor Refinishing store.

This is my 28" boost auto scrubber, it has adjustable head pressure so you can apply some weight.

Hammer Head we use to buff with

I have a heavy duty 15" clarke that must weigh 80#s that I use to scrub with.

As with anything you watch, it doesn't always work as advertised. It you are trying to remove 10 coats of floor finish, you are going to have to make several vey slow passes. If you are trying to remove 5 coats or less, not that big of a deal. Would you really run your upright vacuum over a floor to vacuum with?

You have to remember, it doesn't remove all the finish, so you don't have to apply as many coats. If you ran a propane buffer over the floor she just stripped, you will see the finish that is still there. You really need to get that point in your head. Now you know where the term "Stupid Janitor" comes from

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Going to look at it tomorrow!

 

[sweendogg]

If you watch the video it clearly shows a maroon pad with a red pad as backing. It is the same SPP Maroon pad you can get from Interlink, Home Depo or a Wood Floor Refinishing store.

This is my 28" boost auto scrubber, it has adjustable head pressure so you can apply some weight.

Hammer Head we use to buff with

I have a heavy duty 15" clarke that must weigh 80#s that I use to scrub with.

As with anything you watch, it doesn't always work as advertised. It you are trying to remove 10 coats of floor finish, you are going to have to make several vey slow passes. If you are trying to remove 5 coats or less, not that big of a deal. Would you really run your upright vacuum over a floor to vacuum with?

You have to remember, it doesn't remove all the finish, so you don't have to apply as many coats. If you ran a propane buffer over the floor she just stripped, you will see the finish that is still there. You really need to get that point in your head. Now you know where the term "Stupid Janitor" comes from

My apoligies... I thought the maroon pad (only source I saw them was at jon don) was different than the spp pads. We use to use spp pads all the time between coats for wood finish in our spray booths.

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Ok checked out the job. Half of it is tile and the other half is vct. I had a few questions. What is a good price per foot to strip and refinish the vct? They are concerned about the "greeness" of the chems so maybe that square scrub is the way to go.

Could i use the dry methed with an op mahine? and would I also be able to buff the floors with it? Right now i scrub carpets with a procaps so i dont even own a 175. Can i do it all with the op? Thanks guys!

 

[steve frasier]

Do you mean half is sheet vinyl or ceramic tile and the other half is VCT? To me, vct and tile is the same thing

hard to strip old finish with a green stripper

I personally wouldn't use the op machine

 

[SRI Cleaning]

Half is vct and the other half is ceramic tile. What should i charge for stripping the vct per foot?