Wand Glides and their effect on our industry

[Sierra Clean Care]

Jesus...he's dumber than CRASH.....

Believe me Bob, I’m not a dumb person....
Foolish maybe, definitely not dumb...

 

[Sierra Clean Care]

While I find it a little expensive myself the fact is that really is a good value.

Why did you buy it?

and there are many other factors that come into play beyond material cost/machining

I bought the glide for all the reasons stated earlier in the thread.
Yes, I’ve run a wand without one.
Yes, I find it MUCH easier to use one.
I find everything in this industry overpriced.
But, it’s one of those, ‘you got to pay to play’...
I know that the better quality tools I use, combined with advanced industry knowledge, it makes me better at what I do...

 

[hogjowl]

I would hate to have to sell a product to carpet cleaners

 

[bob vawter]

Believe me Bob, I’m not a dumb person....
Foolish maybe, definitely not dumb...

OK ...sorry......dumb yor born wit
Foolish is acquired wit time!

 

[Mikey P]

You use that Glide for probably 2 years and produce phenomenal results and save your body for the cost of two tanks of gas..

Say it Marty

 

[FredC]

I bought the glide for all the reasons stated earlier in the thread.
Yes, I’ve run a wand without one.
Yes, I find it MUCH easier to use one.
I find everything in this industry overpriced.
But, it’s one of those, ‘you got to pay to play’...
I know that the better quality tools I use, combined with advanced industry knowledge, it makes me better at what I do...

So you don't find $159 to be a deal given the benefits?

Hell if anything you should want your tools to be more expensive so there is a greater barrier to entry. Any hack can buy a glide in less than two jobs.

 

[Sierra Clean Care]

So you don't find $159 to be a deal given the benefits?

Hell if anything you should want your tools to be more expensive so there is a greater barrier to entry. Any hack can buy a glide in less than two jobs.

Very valid point Fred. I can not refute anything you just said...

 

[hogjowl]

He has to know he’s an idiot
I don’t have to tell him

 

[Bob Pruitt]

Bought my glide at Phoenix MF for $100. Doesn’t take much work to cover that. Deductible at that!

 

[Jim Martin]

I have only been in this industry for 17 years....

In that time there has only been 3 significant game changers that have made a difference .. Glides... Tom's Devastator wand... and Eric's zipper.. Everything else is just the same thing in a different wrapper...

 

[Reg Rogers]

It amazes me how cleaners question the prices of the tools and then get super pissed when their customers question how much they are getting charged to clean the carpet. Same dynamics at play. It’s not easy to manufacture tools and then keep a company afloat to make sure you can support what you sell.

 

[Mikey P]

What if that $159 Glide wore out every 4 weeks and you had to buy a new one...

 

[J Scott W]

I bought my first glide from Ken in 2002. I was very skeptical, but he called me several times and I finally decided to give it a try.

Our company did all the steps in the standard - with or without glides. Prevacuum; plenty of prespray, brush it in and so forth.

I liked the glide because it was easier to push. Even at 50 my body was not in great shape. Too many years of sales and office work and only 1 day a week of actually cleaning carpet.

My son did not like it because he felt that most carpets were not as dry when using the glide. He had to make more dry strokes. So that first glide was on the Hydrahoe the days he worked and slipped off on my one (or sometimes two) days of carpet cleaning.

A couple of years later when I became a corporate shill, I pushed the glides. Thought they were great for cleaners. I knew too manywho had never gotten off the truck and still pushing the wand at 50, 60 and older. Guys with back problems and other failing body parts.

 

[J Scott W]

Regarding the price of glides. The cost of goods has little to do with the retail price of any product or service. No one should be cleaning carpets for the price of the gas they run through their truckmounts plus the cost of their prespray. Same for anything inside or outside of our industry. There is 10 cents worth of potato in a $4 bag of potato chips. You charge what people will pay. You charge what you think will give you or your company the best profit. If someone else wants to sell cheaper, they have that option.

Balancing profit potential versus what the competition can deliver in terms of price and quality is the theme of dozens of business books. Why single out the wand glide as being in any way different?

 

[Cleanworks]

Glides are still relatively rare in Canada. I will mention Teflon glide to a competitor and he will have no idea what it is. Really it's thanks to Mikey's board that I became aware of glides, crb's and many other things.

 

[SamIam]

I hated my first banana glide in my prochem quad it was a hybrid.

Tried a glide on a aw29 theres really no need there.

The prochem ti really was where I learned to appreciate a holed glide.

12 flow beast.

The sapphire 14 with a slot is still light and easy to use.

The devastator with a slot cleans best but it is work.

Having the ability to go back and forth easily with holed to a slot is great.

I like my 12 dev but it still feels like a toy at times.

But yeah glides are great.

 

[hogjowl]

Do you ever find folks looking at you funny after you finish talking in circles?

 

[SamIam]

Do you ever find folks looking at you funny after you finish talking in circles?

Sure

 

[Dolly Llama]

"glides don't clean as well, so we have to do more and become better cleaners"?
More/better pre-spray, mechanical agitation, vac, etc....


does becoming and industry guru and up 'n coming y-tube star turn one into an over thinking rocket surgeon?
or were you just bored?

glides are great for one reason ...they make wanding easier ....duh-uh....

..L.T.A.

 

[BIG WOOD]

I believe a wand without a glide will provide better results on dry time BUT not enough for the customer to notice a difference. Abusing the shoulder and hips to use a wand without a glide isn't worth getting a shorter dry time. I remember having to literally throw the wand (without a glide) forward on some carpet which had no benefits on the forward pass, because it either locked on it or I was fatigued, giving the only benefit on the pull back.

I still think they need to tweak the design of the glide. I remember seeing a boxy shaped glide and I wish they would try to make that design better. You can get closer to the edge of the carpet easier and if they make the design more right angle instead of round, it'll agitate the carpet more. If all they're doing is buying a long, round teflon tube to make our glides...that's lazy. They need to shape the glide in the same shape as the head of the wands to get the best cleaning benefits

I've had the best cleaning on just a single lip glide on my prochem quad wand, which showed that reasoning to be true

 

[Mikey P]

"glides don't clean as well, so we have to do more and become better cleaners"?
More/better pre-spray, mechanical agitation, vac, etc....


does becoming and industry guru and up 'n coming y-tube star turn one into an over thinking rocket surgeon?
or were you just bored?

glides are great for one reason ...they make wanding easier ....duh-uh....

..L.T.A.

Watch and learn young idiot

 

[Chandler Thompson]

What has it been, 16 years or so since Ken Harris, Lisa and Greenie brought the round teflon glide to the industry?

How many cleaners do we have now that have never used a glideless wand?

Glides have not only made it so that our bodies last longer but equally, if not more important, they made the industry as a whole "better", wouldn't you agree?

Cleaner carpets, drier carpets, happier cleaners and happier customers. Happier customers indeed, kinda amazing that all this happened without the general public ever realizing what was going on. I can still recall those first few weeks of using a glide and pointing out to my customers the white thing down there and what it was doing, the "yeah sure Mike, that sounds great" still rings in my ears..lol.. Little did they know...
Don't forget all those little fringe benefits such as less damage to base boards, transition areas, furniture etc, all thanks to a round stick of virgin Teflon.

Some may want to argue that a wand without a Glide cleans better and quicker, quicker until you're done with a sub standard job, maybe, but certainly not better. Think about it, Glides essentially FORCE you to clean according to the standards, both in the IICRC sense and in the logical and moral sense as well.

Glides force you to pre-vacuum, they force you to apply more and better pre-spray, Glides also force you to pre-scrub too, why? because the glide took away the agitation that cleaners for over 40 years relied on to "wandscrub" the soil loose. Scrubbing with your wand over wets carpet if you're a newer cleaner and have never tried it on a daily basis..

We can go into and argue over increased air velocity theories and all that but that's really neither here nor there. The cumulative results of pre vacuuming, pre spraying, dwell time and or pre scrubbing, followed by a slow methodical Glided wand rinse and (most importantly) DRY STROKES, is what the Glide has forced us into including into a process that for 90% off all pile carpet, is the most effective way to remove soil.
The other 10 percent will need rotary extraction which can also benefit from Teflon but we wont go there today.


If you cleaned carpet before the revolution, how have Glides changed your life, business and cleaning results?
If you're new to the game and have had the fortunate blessing of not knowing any better, go clean a room or with an old school wand and share your thoughts..

I too started cleaning without a glide. When it was first introduced to me I wondered was it worth it? The cost was $150 and many cleaners in my area thought I was crazy to pay that. Now I can’t even imagine cleaning without one! In fact I wouldn’t clean without one period!

 

[Mikey P]

I too started cleaning without a glide. When it was first introduced to me I wondered was it worth it? The cost was $150 and many cleaners in my area thought I was crazy to pay that. Now I can’t even imagine cleaning without one! In fact I wouldn’t clean without one period!

The Devs can't be ran without a Glide.


Well, in the sense that a car can't be driven without tires..

I'm sure some one has tried because Tom was in his cone of silence....

 

[Dolly Llama]

Watch and learn young idiot

I probably had glides before you

LTA

 

[Mikey P]

I probably had glides before you

LTA

Most definitely NOT.

 

[Dolly Llama]

I'm at a catholic funeral now

They're long AF

I'LL be back later to help you


LTA

 

[Andy]

Why are they 5 times more expensive than they should be?

I understand the price shock. But the value of a tool isn't in the cost of what it took too make but in the money it saves. Without a glide how many chiropractor visits would you have made and what would that have cost you. Now compare that to the price of the glide. Or how much money would you lose if you didn't have a glide because of fatigue and other health related downtime.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Bane had what they called a glide in the mid 1980s. It was a much wider lip on the back side of the slot which made pushing it forward easier. Any attempt by any in the flock to improve it met with ridicule and worse.

I had more than a few of their wands, 2 brand new, when we moved on. Justin sold them for scrap metal. We couldn't in good conscience sell them to a newbie. (That was '96, maybe Boyle would have bit?)

 

[SamIam]

I too started cleaning without a glide. When it was first introduced to me I wondered was it worth it? The cost was $150 and many cleaners in my area thought I was crazy to pay that. Now I can’t even imagine cleaning without one! In fact I wouldn’t clean without one period!

Yeah cause you can't push a devastator without one

 

[rwcarpet]

X100

Let me add this:

Glides have allowed late middle aged and senior cleaners to continue cleaning carpet.

In a perfect world, cleaning businesses would grow to where young employees would do the work while the older founder would sit back and run the place, then when "retirement age" hit, they would sell the business for a bundle and enjoy wealth in their golden years.

But that world does not exist for the vast majority of cleaners.

The real world has cleaners still pushing a wand in their 60s, 70s, and with a few guys I know...their 80s.

That would be impossible without glides.

Perhaps it would force cleaners to make other decisions if cleaning got to be just too hard, but the fact is glides allow people to have productive business lives and maintain a nice income where otherwise they would be living off of social security.

You talking about me, Jimmy???

67 and still cleaning, because of glide technology.