Just dropping by to say hi and that this wonderful world of carpet cleaning has supported me through high school and university.  Throughout the years I have been in and out of the business but now have a renewed desire to build it beyond a one man operation.

I know, I have a long way to go.  Just looking to get a few pointers from the masters on this site ( whomever you may be)!  And offer my two cents whenever I get inspired. 

Hey gmoney welcome to our site.

I was watching you watching us and was wondering when you would join in and say something. Did you by any chance save the equipment that helped you through school, or were you working for someone else at the time?

Gmoney: Happy to hear from you! I also notice you appreciate the value of getting carpet dry fast. That is a good thing, as long as you beleive in getting them clean first! I have been working on this area for 7 years now, just shortly after getting my Cleanco TM. If you are interested in learning how to clean carpet well and dry it fast, using HWE(hot Water Extraction), I beleive I can help you.

The first thing you need to know is how to loosen the soil in the carpet without using alot of water at the preconditioner stage. Too much water added here without the use of vacuum will cause you to over-wet the carpets primary backing. Once you do that , you are in for 24 hour dry times. This can be avoided for the most part by applying a high strength pre-conditioner to the carpet at 100 psi or less and then working it into the fiber with a grandi-groom brush. I'm assuming of course that you have already pre-vacuumed the carpet before this step, cause if you haven't, you are going to be making mud, and all subsequent steps taken after that become less effective. When finished raking in your preconditioning solution, let it dwell for 15 to 20 minutes for optimum results. If you want to use a TM and be able to have the carpet dry to the touch within 2 hours using a wand, you are going to need to use a glide with that wand.

Here is why. Modern TM have blowers in them that are capable of moving 300 to 400 cfm of airflow at 12" mercury(HG) lift, but they dont. The reason they dont is because the vacuum system they use is only as strong as it's weakest link, or area of greatest restriction. That place is where the wand lips meet the carpet. We call this area the wand/carpet interface. WCI for short. Because a wand has very narrow SS lips on it in most cases, when these lips are sucked down to the carpet under vacuum load, not much air makes it through them. How much you say? In my testing of this with an anemometer, I have found this to be 100 cfms or less most of the time at a 12" HG lift, even when used with a TM with a 400 cfm rated blower! The net result of this is carpets average close to 8 to 12 hours to dry in the GTA.But there is a way to improve this dramatically.

The glides I developed for wands(Superglides)are designed to double the airflow that can get through the wand lips while cleaning to close to 200 cfms. They do this through a wider surface area of up to 4 sq inches on the surface that comes in contact with the carpet. Compare that with the .5 sq inch of surface area that SS wand lips have. The increased area means they can not lock down onto the carpet and choke off most of the airflow.But because of the slot on them being placed at the lowest point of the curvature of the glide face, they actually remove more water from the carpets back. Because you see, that except in the case of wool, the face fibers of the carpet hold onto very little water. Most(over 80%) of it lies on the carpet backing. A conventional wand has the least airlow when the lips are on the carpet, and cannot get alot of this out. Why does that matter? Because it is actually the cfm (airflow) that carries the water away, and it has a saturation point. Onced reached, the available air cannot carry any more water out. The only way to overcome this is to letting additional air in to carry additional water away, or make extra vacuum passes. Doubling your available airflow up to 200 cfm from 100 cfm to do this makes more sense than having to use double the vacuum strokes.

You should still do 1 dry stroke for every wet stroke of the wand to get the best extraction however. After doing this, the payoff will be a carpet much cleaner than the competition can deliver, and a carpet that will feel dry to your customer in 1 to 2 hours most of the time. Your customers will be thrilled with results like these. You will get so many referrals that you will be forced to raise your prices to keep up with all the new work you will have. This happened to me. From .10/ft I was charging in 1997, I was forced to move the price up to .50/sq ft by 2002. In my case I was using a RX with specially designed skids that both cleaned the carpet very thoroughly while drying it in 1 hour or less, but the same can be done using a wand today with the use of glides on a wand. The end result is the same, with slightly different routes to get there is all.

Today I still clean part-time during the warmer months out here in Calgary, both to test out the equipment I develop and to look after some of the customers I have been cleaning for for over 20 years now, but most of my time gets spent designing equipment to improve the businesses of carpet cleaners still working out in the trenches. My job is to help make there job an easier and more profitable one. Anytime I can be of assistance in this regard, just ask. I will post my answers on this board so as many cleaners can be assisted with the answers as possible.

Regards,

Superglide Ken

Yes Adwa,

I like to observe.  I guess you can call  me a voyeur.  Just joking!

Most of the time I was scanning through the archives and enjoying the banter back and forth between individual like Mr Steamer?, Doug, Nightrider, Padman etc.  Reading all of these threads consumed all of my time on the board that no time was left to post.  But I have dipped my feet in and you will be hearing from me a lot  more. 

I have kept almost all of my equipment; not that I use it anymore though.  I have a gigantic Clarke steam cleaner (100 PSI) that is ancient.  I would not take this to a customer's house now no matter how desperate I was for a machine.  It would be the equivalent to driving a Renault le car or Skoda (remember those) to an import car show.  But to tell you the truth it works well as far as I know except that it is SO unsightly.  If anyone knows of a carpet cleaning museum I just might donate it.

Next I have a little blue 60 psi Cleancare that also works fine.  I used to specialize in car interiors and did a lot of dealership work and this machine was ideal.  I now have a 400 PSI machine that I use for residential and commercial with great results.

The rotary I have is fairly old but I still use it and it has never given me problems; more than I can say about my steamers. 

I have worked for a few companies over the years ie. Interior care, Diligent but never lasted more than a few weeks.  Prefer working for myself and just can't get over the unequal sharing of profits.  Some of the positives about working for a company was the ability to learn because they try and keep you busy and the steady stream of work.

My worst experience working for another company was when I would do a call in the west end at 12pm and have a call in the east end 45 minutes away at 2pm.  That was crazy!  I was driving more than I was cleaning.  Left that company quick.

Get it clean, and get it Dry!

Had a teacher that taught me that about 20 years back. Still true today.

Thanks Superglide,

You make a very strong case for your superglide technology.  Do I get a free sample!  The 1 hr or less drying time with your modified RX sounds impressive.  Almost not believable but I am keeping an open mind.  I wonder if Ted has any in stock so I can do an test drive. 

Thanks for the advice on carpet cleaning procedure.  I currently do not pre-vacuum but I will start to encorporate it.  And my pre spray is at about 50 PSI with hot water and I get good results.  I personally like the idea of pressurized Pepsi canisters as opposed to the Hydroforce.  Just my preference.  Rarely do I clean at 400 PSI I think it is overkill (correct me if I am wrong) and clean in the 250 PSI range after a good pre-spray and agitation.  Although I have not measured drying times, the carpets I clean probably dry to the touch in the 4hr range tops.

Looking forward to putting your superglides to the test.  Will invest in them if they pass my test and are reasonably priced of course! 

Welcome aboard gmoney...  most times I have nothing of substance to say, but a forum without any post is very dull.  Hopefully you'll feel comfy posting your interest and Ideas.  Don't take anything anyone has to say to heart, you have to make your own choices.  GREAT to have you aboard, any help I can provide don't be afraid to ask

Mr. Steamer Carpet Cleaner

Gmoney: Using pressures greater than 300 psi with your HF sprayer is only not neccessary, but counter-productive. It causes much longer dry times. What you are using now sounds right to me.

Regarding the Superglides: One thing I forgot to mention, cause I was concentrating on the drying improvement with using them, is the increase in productivity you get using them. Because the wanding requires less than half the effort as before, you clean at least 20% more carpet per hour than before. If you were a cleaner doing $100,000 per year in gross sales, and could fill even half of the extra time with more cleaning, you make an extra $10,000 per year, nearly all profit! Considering the glides cost $125 and last more than a year in use, the payoff is pretty good.

Regarding the RX skids. Ted used to sell them last year for us, but does not have the new ZRX2 models in yet. I hope to change that soon. I may be down to Toronto in November for some glide demos if there is enough interest for that. I would bring a set of them with me for demoing for anyone interested in seeing them.

Superglide Ken

Thanks for the welcome Mr Steamer.  You always entertain me with your posts and I have even learned a bit from you by reading between the lines. 

My first question for you and anyone else on the forum is: what your take on the superglides?  Do you use them and if you have you noticed any improvement in terms of effort and drying times.

Not that I don't believe you Superglide; I would just like to get a cross section of feedback from those in the field who have used or are presently using it. 

Great idea, Gmoney. I always do the same or do a demo of the products I buy first before I buy them. That is why I love the Try before you Buy program that Ted offers at Kleen Kuip. You give a deposit on the glides and you take them out and try them for a few days to make sure you like them, before you buy them. As risk free as you can get!I do not want anybody buying them that is not satisfied with them. That is bad for business for everyone concerned. Glides I sell myself all come with a 30 day satisfaction or money back guarantee as well.

Superglide Ken

Danmarck: We are the only manufacturer that makes the Superglide style of glides. We have asked Butler(and other manufacturers of wands) to send their wands to us so that we may fit them with glides. Butler chose not to respond, so there is no glides currently available for those wands.

The SSU802 glides that we currently sell will fit more than half of all capet cleaning wands currently in use . It is 12" wide and fits all wands that have a 5/8" lip thickness and use replaceable SS lips. That covers the majority of them out there. We also make the glides for the Prochem Titainium wands and the Prochem 4 jet wands, as well as the glides to fit steamway wands. The Cleanco 2 jet wands do fit the 802 glides BTW, so there are lots of you out there that can use this. Ted tells me that the Century type wands that he sells fit it well too.

Superglide Ken

Hello gmoney,

I see by your picture that you use a Hydramaster Jetless Rotary Machine. This means you are already cleaning a drying well above the national average compared to wand cleaners. Not bad for a part-timer.

We will be watching your company expand.

Congratulations!

You know Ted, I thought the same thing when I saw that RDM in the picture. But then I thought the shark I have in the picture was not a true likeness of me either, I better proceed on the assuption that Gmoney does not have one. Because if he does have one, the only thing that can leave the carpet drier than one of those is the glides I make, as was demonstrated last October when we were doing the demos in your store.

Superglide Ken

Well Ted and Superglide,

I wish I had a drimaster because then I honestly would not be looking into the glides because I would abandon my wand.  Tried out the dry master a few times and was amazed that it could clean in any direction (forward, back, side, to side, diagonal) with the pressure constantly on and still dry in less than an hour.  The amazing thing about that tool is that is does such an efficient job of picking up the water that a dry pass picks up nothing but a few drops.  And no I am not a spokesperson for the company; just appreciate its backsaving ease of operation and efficiency. 

Thanks for the welcome Allen.  I basically plan to focus on a few markets such as residential (immediate money) and small commercial properties (slow month and winter income). 

 My marketing strategy right now is to work my warm market and get referrals from friends and friends of friends; do good work and expand from their.  I have also had some success over the past few months with flyers and small community newspaper ads.  I offer a money back guarantee and a slight percentage discount; this seems to draw them in.  I will admit you get your fair share of bargain hunters but I stick firm with my price and tell them what exceptional work I do.

There is a lot more I have in the works but I have to run to go make some MONEY!

The Dri-Master (RDM) is a good tool for certain applications, and some people love it, but it is not a tool I would own. The reason for that is how it cleans the carpets. I have always believed that the first rule of cleaning is source removal. That means you get the dirt out of the carpet. Even though some on this board love products like" Hide" and encap machines, they go against this basic principal.

The RDM only cleans the tips of the carpet and leaves the soil further down at the base basicly intact. The water never gets there so you have very little flushing action happening where most of the soil is. The carpet drys fast because it is easy to extract water off the top of the carpet where the vacuum can get it. The glides I make do not operate this way. They allow lots of water to be used up to 500 psi and do flush the carpet back to dislodge alot of the soil back there. Not all, because nothing cleans that good, but a fair amount of it. And the carpet still can dry in the same or lessor time than the RDM takes. If you factor in the price difference betwween the 2 items and the better clean the glide provides, and the fact that a wand with a glide does not make you work harder than the RDM does, I believe the market needs way more glides than it needs RDMs. But that is just my opinion. The market will decide wether most people agree with that opinion.

So what do you do if you dont want to wand, even if the glides make it easy and fast? Get an RX-20 machine! It does clean deep and thoroughly and can better the cleaning results you can get with a wand. And now with the new skids and glides I have developed for it, you can get 1 hour drying with it too! Using all the pieces described on your machine, you can have it all; great cleaning, easy on the body, and fast drying all in one package. Like  Ted likes to tell you "work smarter, not harder".

With both a glide wand and a modified RX20 in your truck, you can do almost anything you need in the way of residential carpeting  in a manner that gives high customer satisfaction and makes you lots of bucks. Upsell on the protector for the icing on the cake, and you have it made.

Superglide Ken

Well Superglide I have to differ with you.  It seems like we are going to have a friendly jousting match here.  In my opinion, nothing gets out dirt from a carpet better than a pile lifter.  And I will be investing in one in about 2 weeks to use before I extract or bonnet clean or both.

I can't comment on your glides until I see them but I have used the drimaster at 500 psi with the pump always on (cleaning in any direction I please) and achieving drying times in less than one hour.  Very impressive.  There is no way 500 psi is not cleaning deep unless of course the uplift is not there and most of the water remains in the carpet (which is not the case with the drimaster).

In my opinion the drimaster is so efficient at picking up the water because of the amazingly tight seal it forms with the carpet.  The head is also designed in such a way as to cause a vacuum (cyclone effect) and draw water up into the vacuum slots.

Until they make a wand that is self powered and cleans in all directions you will not convince me that a glide makes a wand as easy and effortless to operate as a drimaster.

gmoney wrote: If anyone knows of a carpet cleaning museum I just might donate it.

I believe the Carpetologist knows of atleast one. You may recall Nightriders Ram Van. Apparently a collector down in Florida wanted it for his cleaning museum.

http://www.kleenkuip.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=428&KW=r2d2 - You may recall this relic from the past in an earlier post.  

Definetely one for the museum.

Well Gmoney, it looks like I will have to educate you on how the RDM really works. Before I do that point by point however, let me commend you on your decision to use a pile lifter as part of your cleaning program. You will deffinatly be way ahead of the 10% or so that use a vacuum and the other 89% that use none.

First off I want you to know what I tell you about equipment is done from a high degree of understanding about how things work.If I do not understand how something works, I take it apart until I do understand how it works. I studied engineering long before I got into cleaning carpet or selling stuff to carpet cleaners.I do not make self serving statements about products I make working better unless that is a fact. I have studied the RDM extensivly and do know how it works and what it can and can not do.

First off the RDM does not clean deep. It directs it's water horizontally without the use of jets in a sheet-like pattern along the bottom of the tool. This is called cleaning by side shear.No water is directed down into the carpet like an RX20 or a Rotovac or even a wand does. Because of that, only the tips of the carpet are cleaned, not the carpet base or backing. As mentioned earlier, that is where most of the soiling is. It is not possible to get it out of there without the flushing action of the water to act as a carrier and emulsifing agent.

You might wonder how the carpet can still look so clean if this machine does not deep clean it? That is easy to explain if you know how carpet is constructed. The mills design the fibers to hide dirt! Isn't that amazing? They do this by shaping the fibers in such a way that a carpet can have pounds of soil in it and not even show it. Remove soil from the surface or the tips of it, and you cannot see what you are leaving behind. To the eyes it still looks clean.

The main reason that there is so little watter left in the carpet is because of it only contacting the tips. Extracting water from the carpet tips is easy to do because the filiment used to construct the face fibers holds on to very little water.The water is drawn across the bottom of the machine on its way to the 3 vacuum ports that are placed there. The tips of the carpet fibers that go into the horizontal water stream get washed by the water then extracted by the vacuum slot that follows. Very little water is retained by the part of the fiber that was washed. Hence, the fast drying.

Conventional tools clean down to the carpet back, and take longer to dry because at least 80% of the water is held there. Because the vacuum from a machine is only effective extracting water when the vacuum is within a 1/4" of the lips of the machine, a fair amount gets left behind in the deep cleaning process and has to exit the carpet through evaporation.Evaporation then takes hours to do because the carpet has to wick the water out and evaporate it through the fiber tips. that is, the back dries first.

The RDM does NOT form a tight seal with the carpet, just like my glides do NOT form a tight seal with the carpet either to reach fast dry times. To do so would be self defeating. When too tight a seal is formed with the carpet, cfm goes down. Since it is air that carries away the water and soil from a carpet, you want more of it, not less. By forming a less than a tight seal, airflow is increased and more water is carried away, leaving the carpet drier.Increased lift helps, but not if it reduces airflow.

And lastly about your statement about the head designed to cause a cyclone effect; this is simply not true. The RDM is designed to pull the air across the carpet fibers in a laminar flow pattern. This has been shown to produce the greatest drying effect on the carpet tips and move the greatest volume of airflow. To do it any other way would not have produced the rapid drying results they were looking for.

Bottom line here is the machine does what they wanted it to do, which is dry carpet fast and produce a good appearance of the carpet to the residential customer. It was just done with some compromise on the degree of cleaning acheived is all. Some people will be happy accepting that compromise for the delivered results. I happen to be not one of them. The RX20 machine cleans much better(residential and commercial carpeting), and can deliver 1 hour dry times with the ZXR2 skids I developed for it. That is only about 15 minutes longer than the RDM takes on average. More importantly though, if you have an RX20 with my skids on it, you will be able to add the Power-Dri system to it next year when I bring it out. For those of you that don't know what that is, it will allow you to dry the carpet to meter dry in 5 to 10 minutes by attaching it to your Cleanco Truckmount. I currently get $1.00/sq ft for carpet that I clean this way here in Calgary. It will be coming to Toronto soon.

Superglide Ken

Well, does anyone else have any questions on this subject. I do realize that because of my technical background, some of my posts go right over some people's heads. But I do want you guys to understand the concepts being explained here. I will go through any area of air flow theory you are not clear on.

Superglide Ken

Mr. Steamerski:  Don't you mean vasaline?

no I typed Teflon.... doug is a dirty little man

Well, well, well,

Ken it is time for me to be more direct.  I will give you credit as a resourceful salesman that always has an axe to grind and embellishes to the 'nth' degree.  I have been doing a little research myself and it is a known fact that you use posts and carpet cleaners' forums to market your current or up and coming 'inventions'.  A word of advice, be careful what you claim is your 'invention'.  There is no shame in taking a concept and trying to improve on it; Microsoft did it with the Windows Explorer browser. 

You have a fairly good understanding of the technology in the industry but lose the power of your arguement with your outrageous claims.  Cut the bull.  Honesty is the best way to go (most of the time).  I have been in many sales jobs myself and we all have stretched the truth a bit; the customer expects that. 

You know as well as I do that nothing will remove more dry dirt from the base of the carpet than a pile lifter.  If this step is performed, blasting the carpet backing at 500 psi and trying to now pull up more of the dry dirt is a exercise in futility.  At this stage extraction of dissolved soils (with the help of a pre spray and dwell time) in the carpet is the main goal of a carpet cleaning technician.  This can be achieved by a variety of methods; not only steam.  Steam gives the  best rinse but not necessarily the best appearance.  That is why many of us like Mr. Steamer when doing restaurants for instance will bonnet and steam.  I have tried and I'm really amazed and impressed by OP cleaning in a variety of situations.  But that is another discussion altogether.

Drimaster does shoot out the water in a sheet but this does not imply that it is not pentrating the surface.  Try throwing a sheet of water on the carpet at 500 psi with 360 passes per minute and feel for yourself if only the "tips" of the carpet are wet.  Do you know how close the solution slots are to the carpet?  They are almost touching the carpet.  500 psi from that close is not just wetting the 'tips'; impossible.

When trying to dry carpet there is a delicate balance between forming a tight seal and allowing space for air flow which in turn aids in suction.  The Drimaster DOES form a tight seal (not to the point of restricting air flow). We all know what happens you angle your wand wrong and do not get a tight seal; you get less suction.  Maybe we should all angle our wands 45 degrees when cleaning carpets to allow air and thus sacrificing a tight seal. 

My whole point about liking the drimaster was that it is easier on the body and is CONSTANTLY CLEANING.  I also like it because it hits the carpet fibre from all directions due to its rotation.   A wand cannot achieve this.  At no point did I want to get into a head to head which would allow you to find another way to plug your glides and their amazing drying time (supposedly).  If the material you use is slippery enough and durable then the ease of moving the wand back and forth will be a welcome benefit to some.  I will not argue with you on that issue. 

My understanding was that you sold your 'thriving' carpet cleaning business.  Now I read in one post that you are getting 50cents/square foot and now in this post it has doubled to $1.00/square foot; which is it?  Enquiring minds want to know!

Ken, I know you are trying to make a buck just like the rest of us and I admire your perseverance.  The best form of advertising for you and your products would be for many of your customers to come forth and say they have achieved 1 hr drying times using steam with your glide.  Have not seen it happen on any of the forums.  Another word of advice,  why don't you focus on the reduced labour needed to operate the glide and that improved drying over a regular wand is achieved.

Waiting to hear your next infomercial response.

You mean you were not being direct with me before , Gmoney?

Well Gmoney, you will not get any information from me here that is not of a factual nature, because that would be counter-productive to the points I am trying to make.So what is an outragious claim that you think I am making? I will give you that the style I write in sometimes(mostly) is definatly that of a salesman, but there is nothing wrong with that as long as it is based on the facts. You say stop the bull; I say prove one thing that I have written on this board that is not the truth! You have on the other hand said a few things that are not true, and are most likely based on ignorance of the facts that I shall be happy to explain to set the facts straight.Some  of these things are not germain to the discussion at hand, but since they touch on my credibility as a  spokesman here, I will cover them anyway.

First, regarding inventions. There is very little that is absolutly new. Most inventions are but refinements of all that has gone before. I did not invent glides for wands; PMF did that. But I refined the shape of glides to make the Superglide. The Superglide is superior to the flat glide because of that shape. The rounded bottom puts the vacuum slot closer to the carpet back where the water lays, thus removing more of it and allowing faster drying. The round shape also prevents the glide from locking down on the carpet like the flat glides do. Those 2 characteristics make the device very worthwhile. I did not invent the rotary air duct cleaning system either. Roto-Brush had a cable driven model long before I started selling my system in the US marketplace in 1999. Cleanco was selling a non rotary system before that as well. But it is a fact that most observers today say I improved on both those systems, and offer a more economical system for carpet cleaners to use in the process. Nothing wrong with that either.

I never said a pile lifter was not the most efficient tool for getting dry soil out of a carpet did I? That is true, but all soil in a capet is NOT dry. Even if it were all dry, you should know that over 99% of all cleaners will never use one. Heck, some industry studies say that over 90% of all carpet cleaners never use a vacuum cleaner on the job, so there is not much hope for pile lifters!Industry figures place the average dry soil component at 79% of what is there. The remaining 21% is classifed as OILY soils. Being a Newbie to the biz, you might not have known that. Oily soils bind to the face fibers of the carpet and are not easily removed by even a pile lifter.They also hold a fair amount of the dry soil too by binding to the fibers so that over time, less and less of the overall soil load in the carpet becomes removeable by the homeowners vacuum. Thus the appearance degrads over time. That is why we cleaners have jobs in this industry. I would not want it any other way, would you? They must be emulsified by preconditioners to get them out. That is also why we have dwell times. It is also the reason that you need to use water to the carpets back, not just its tips, because after the preconditioner is applied and allowed 15 minutes to dwell, alot of it goes to the back. Gravity is a bitch sometimes.

Drimaster does not shoot water at 500 psi or anything like that pressure. There is a pressure reduction built into it just like the Hydroforce sprayer has, to bring the pressure down. You can prove this to yourself by connecting either 200 psi pressure to it or a hydroforce and measuring the water consumtion used.Use a graduated bucket to do this. Do the same with either of these at 500 psi and measure consumption. The 2 volumes will be very simular. If there was no restriction built in, the 500 psi pressure would have provided almost double the water of the 200 psi pressure. That is why your statement that the RDM must be getting the carpet back wet rings false. At 500 PSI that would be true, but not if the effective pressure were only half that on low volume, which it is.

Nobody said that there is not a delecate balance between seal and airflow. There is. Our glides deliver that balance automatically by virtue of their shape. Regular wands do not. Because of the thin metal lips on them, the surface area they rest on deliver high lift when they lock down to the carpet, but little airflow. For the most effective cleaning you need a balance of both under working conditions.Measured in inches of water lift the lift number should be close to the cfm number. But that is not what happens on a regular wand and TM. Commonly you will see 100 cfm airflow with close to 200"WL, a 1:2 ratio.  With portables it gets even worse. Most portables produce only about 30 cfm on the carpet at 150"WL! that is a 1:5 ratio.The glides correct that on the TM, bringing cfms up to meet the lift figure so that they are much closer to the 1:1 ratio you are looking for. The ratio will not get that good on a portable machine ,but will be better than the 1:5, with the glide on it.

The situation with the RDM in this sense is just the opposite on the steel wand. The RDM has so much surface area resting on the carpet, that it can not form as tight a seal to the carpet as either the regular wand or a glide wand. It is simple . The weight of the machine divided by the surface area resting on the carpet gives a value of only about 1 lb /sq inch, vs the 2 lb per square inch the glide wand has or the 5 to 10 lb per inch that regular wands have.5 to 10 lbs per inch restricts airflow, 1 lb per inch lowers lift too much, IMO.Like the 3 bears and the oatmeal, it is good to get it just right. 2 lbs per inch allows both good lift and good airflow. 1 pound per sq inch does NOT form a tight seal. Tight enough to clean perhaps, but much more effective for producing high cfms. Point made.

The above not withstanding, many cleaners like the machine, and I have never argued that point with anyone. Only thing I said here is that I am not one of them. It has nothing to do with the fact that I make glides that essentially compete with it. Because of the cost difference alone, I would buy the glide over this machine even if they were made by anyone else besides me. But I do realize there is a market out there for both cause some people just plain want a powered machine that can do what the RDM can do. That is fine with me. I know that my glides will get their share of the market too, and because more than 80% of cleaners use wands exclusively, that will still be alot of sales.

Regarding my carpet cleaning business(s). The problem with reading info from a post here and a post there, is you do not get the whole picture unless you read them all. That is the case here. Aqua-Jet Carpet Cleaning was sold last August to my 3 nephews. It was in business for 23 years in total(1980 to 2003). At that point in time, it was primarily a WD business doing over 60%of its biz from that source.3 trucks went with the sale.They took all the WD business and most of the carpet cleaning customers I did not want. I also have a higher end carpet cleaning company(Calgary's highest priced cleaner), Caremor Carpet Care that has been running as long. Since I needed a TM to keep testing products, and have some customers that pay me very well for over 20 years now, I kept that one, and rolled the customers I kept from Aqua-Jet into that company. In Caremor we charge .50/sq ft for regular furnished cleaning.This is done with a Superglide wand and delivers about 1 hr dry times.In fact we advertise that 1 hr dry time, and use it as our USP. Nobody else useing HWE can offer the same service in this city. If the customer wants protector, the rate goes up to .75 per ft. But we also offer the POWER-DRI for any room for an additional .25 per ft. That brings the rate up to $1.00/sq ft. Most people that get it, only get the LDH or perhaps the Family room done this way. Only people that get a whole house done this way is people needing to move in and cant wait for the carpet to dry. You know the type; moving van waiting out front when you get there.For those that want scotchgard on the carpet before they move in, this is the only way to both dry and cure it in only 10 minutes per room so that they can have it. I use the POWER-DRI in basement  WD too, like broken water heaters or washing machine hoses, where the source is clean water and am able to dry the carpet and pad totally in under an hour. This is where the greatest use will be in future IMO.

Well, I hope this clears up a few points for you Gmoney. I must say that you do sound like the most knowledgeable Newbie that I have ever corresponded with on the boards the last 3 years I have been doing this.That covers thousands of posts BTW.I really don't mind you asking questions about anything you are not sure of, but do not call me a liar about what I post here unless you come here with more than opinions, and have actual facts to back it up. Cause I have plenty, and will use them on anybody that says otherwise.

Regards and Best Wishs in your Full-Time career,whatever that is. Because I don't think for a minute that you are really a newbie. I have talked to industry vetrans for too many years not to recognize one when I debate one, either in person or on the boards. But writing under a name that is not your own and not filling out a profile gives one that luxury doesn't it?I do have a good idea who you are though, but for now will keep that opinion to myself. Unlike you, I wont say what I think unless I am fairly positive of my facts. lol

Superglide Ken

Ken I have to say I admire your spunk.  Thanks for your latest infomercial by the way!  Before I get all hot headed let  me say that my only goal in continuing this dialogue with you is to bring out the FACTS and make this board as productive and educational as possible.  And a little debating never hurt anyone; much safer than weapons of mass destruction! An expert I am not and that is why I am on this board; to learn as much as I can. 

The one that has to do the proving is YOU not me.  I told you to have your current clients speak up in your defense regarding the drying times of all your innovations.  This I have not seen still.  Toot your own horn as much as you want but SHOW me and I'll be satisfied.  Why don't you send a glide down to Ted this week and I'll invite those from the board in the GTA and local media to witness it going head to head with a drimaster.  That would make me a believer since you already said it can achieve faster drying times.  

You should also be a millionaire already if you can dry a carpet in 10 minutes and and a water logged underpadding in 1 hr.  And if you are not, then we should talk about your marketing strategy and funding structure.  Their should be feature stories on you and your 'innovations' in the local newspaper, industry publications and the like.  I could go on and on, but I digress. Sorry, that is the salesman talking again.  

Now lets clarify my identity.  You know what they say   Their are a couple of people that you might thnk I am because of your interaction with them on other boards but I assure you are wrong.  I live in Toronto and buy chemicals off of Ted at Kleen Kuip and talk with him often.  In fact, if you read one of my previoius posts refering to an ancient Clarke machine, it was purchased from Ted about 15 years ago. 

This brings me to my next point.  I am a newbie on the board (the first I became part of) but not in this industry.  My IICRC certications have been acquired through Ted and Chemspec. 

And stop ignoring what I saying.  I was the one that said their is no shame in attempting to improve on an innovation because Microsoft did it with their Internet Explorer.

And I was the one that said I was going to be using a pile lifter to remove the dry dirt and then a pre spray to loosen the soils that are adhering to the carpet fibre prior to extraction, bonneting or padding.  This is my method, I do not care if most carpet cleaners don't do it.  So don't try and reword what I just said claim it as your own.  I'm starting to see a pattern here Ken!

Now lets get technical.  You cannot be over technical with me Ken so give me your best shot.  Since you are vocal about your mechanical egineering background I will tell you mine. I have a degree in the sciences from university and I'm well schooled in physics (one of my favourite subjects).

Let me school you on water consumption and PSI.  Doubling the PSI does NOT double your flow rate.  There is a slight increase but it is not directly proportional.  Enough said. 

I'll contact hydramaster and see if your claims of built in pressure reduction are valid.  So you are telling me that if I was to dial up 500 psi on the drimaster it automatically cuts my psi half!  Like I said I will call the manufacturer and get back to you on that one.

Now I think I need to explain to you a little bit about seal and lbs/square inch.  Two of the main variables that seal is dependent upon is the amount of surface area in contact with surface in question and the amount of force (lbs/square inch) exerted upon that surface.  The weight of the drimaster coupled with the amount of surface area (validated by you I might say) in contact with the carpet ensures a tight seal.  Like I said before you need a delicate balance of seal and lift.  You also support my argument because despite all of the drimaster's shortcomings (seal, airflow etc)  it still outperforms a wand and wand plus glide.  And I repeat again, this is with the trigger being pressed constantly.  Which proves your theory on cfm:lbs/sq inch ratio incorrect.  Time to go back to the drawing board Ken.  When you get it right I will be the first one to applaud you.

You need to pick your battles more selectively.  Once you heard me mention drimaster in my previous post you were all over that like flies to -----!  Why?  Oh yeah, informercial time. 

Then you thought your technical talk would impress me and the others on this board.  Like I said before, you are knowldgeable and your knowledge is an asset to our industry.  But I will speak up when I feel you are not giving the other board members 'the straight goods'.   

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Gmoney: Like I said, I could tell by your post that you were far from a Newbie to this industry. I was not refering to you being a Newbie to this board when I said it. Thanks for clearing up a little of your background. I don't hide any of mine, but I will give you the benefit of any doubt why you don't use your real name. Perhaps to do so would prevent you from being as candid with your comments here. I would not want that to happen. I figgered you were from the GTA when I said I think I know who you are, so I am not surprised to hear you say that.

As far as hearing from people on this board about my glides, you may be a little disappointed in the lack of response. It is still a very new product that has mostly been sold in the USA marketplace so far. I think that maybe all of 40 have been sold into Canada so far. A few on the board have them, but only  2 that I know for sure. Steamin Pile has our latest and has posted that it glides and cleans well. I am sending out a glide to Doug and Steamer so that others here can comment as well. I certainly don't want them to remain a secret to Canadians. I actually did test an SS glide against a Drimaster machine  at Kleenkuip last October while I was in town. There was about 10 cleaners present at the time. While not scientific by any means, most of those that were present agree that the glide left the carpet drier than the RDM. No moisture meter used, just feel on the fingers. I supose I will need to do it with instruments to convince you of that though.

I don't deny for a minute that my posts are written as infomercials BTW. It is a style that allows me to both inform and obtain sales for my products at the same time. Many people tell me that they like it. A few do not. The ability to scroll is a wonderful thing for those that do not.

We both share the interest in science and physics it seams. That was always my top subject. I have a pressure chart, but even without it I know that to double flow you must square(4X) the pressure. The flow at 200 psi will not double till 800 psi is used. I was just simplefing to make a point understandable to others reading this was all. You have not disproved  my pounds/sq inch theory at all. If you read what I said again, I covered both the surface area covered by the cleaning devices contact points with the carpet and the weight of the wand or RDM on those points. Each produces a distinctive number roughly in line with the rounded number I used to illustrate my point.

I enjoy your input here Gmoney, and can see that we agree on far more than we disagree on after our conversation  here. It is good to have a fellow technical person to talk to. On many of the boards I post on, many of my technical posts go over many readers heads, so it is good that I don't have to worry about that with you. I am still much of a novice in marketing  and look forward to learning a few things here as well. Not rich yet for sure, but I believe that better marketing in future will take care of that. All equipment mentioned on this board does exist and does produce the results I post about. Sometimes they do not do it consistanly enough for me to bring them to market yet in a big way. Being the perfectionist that I am, anything big that has the potential to revolutionize the WD industry like the Power-Dri system does, must be just right before I realease it. I have kept it to myself for 7 years now ,till I spent that time to get it right. When released, it will be in the industry mags and I will be there too. Being the super persistant person that I am, I will keep at it till it happens.But, I do not knowwhat time that will be.

In life, timing is everything.

Superglide Ken

I am anxiously awaiting the feedback from Doug and Mr. Steamer.  Nothing convinces people more than direct observation and qualified testimonials.  Of course I will not take your glide wand achieving drying times quicker than a drimaster until I see for myself because of what I have seen the RDM do.  It's like all the times over the years that a chemical salesman makes grandiose claims about what their chemical can do and then when I use it I am dissapointed.  Why don't you send one down to Ted and so all of us in the GTA can see for ourselves; instead of having to rely only on the word of two individuals.  Now that would cause quite a stir on this board if you decided to do that. 

I still think you are incorrect on your calculations regarding the RDM and glide wand because the undeniably tight seal it forms with the carpet in my opinion obviously does not adversely affect the air flow.  When Ted showed me the unit a while back even he told me that my high performance portable would leave the carpet drier than a truck mount.  And it does (when using the RDM).  Much less chance of wick backs as well.

I like how you tried to explain your way around the psi doubling issue we had.  If you knew the relationship between psi and water flow rate why did you have to refer to your chart?  And you have illustrated that  saying doubling psi will double flow rate when trying to make a point is an unacceptable oversimplification.  If flow rate doubles only after the psi is increased by a factor of 4, then your previous arguement is flawed. 

Regarding hydramaster incorporating pressure reduction into the RDM I have not had a chance to call; but I will.  You will be the first to know what the answer is.

I must say Ken, I enjoy our discussions because you get me thinking about the possibilities out there that can improve our industry.  My focus in my business has been more intense lately as a result of this board (thank you Ted) and your impassioned posts (thanks Ken).  Yeah, I did thank you for something.  Don't let it get to your head; although I'm not holding out hope for that! 

I'm actually curious about your power dri system since your claims regarding this technique has me looking forward hearing more about it.

Preparing myself for informercial #4567-65!  

Thanks again for your response, Gmoney. BTW, I did send Ted one of my latest SSU802 glides already 3 weeks ago, before I even started posting  in earnest here. I figured if I was going to talk about them, I better have one on hand that people can look at and try. Ted has been letting people take it out and test it out for themselves.Hasn't caused much of a stir yet, but maybe most here are not aware yet that they can do that.

A high performance portable on short hose and low pressure can dry carpet faster than most TMs. When we tested the RDM  and SS Superglide at Kleen Kuip last October, it was with a Ninja. Dry time was under 30 minutes. I even layed on the carpet being cleaned after that to show that at least on the low pile commercial carpet we used, it was dry to the back to and no moisture could be seen oor felt doing that.

I never looked at my chart to calculate flow when I said that BTW. Just a fast off the top of my head estimation. I should be more careful next time.That undermines what I say if I don't be more accurate. You are right about that.

The Power-Dri System, when released, has the power to change the way the WD business is done. It will only work with PTO TMs at this point. It would also require alot of capital to distribute in the very large US market. This is beyond my resources right now, and would mean that I would need to drop everything else I am working on to do it, which I wont do. The introduction of our new glides to transform how carpet cleaning is done is my main priority now, and is taking up most of my time. But I could afford to launch the Power-Dri into Canada next year if the interest is there. That is much more doable in both money terms and my time commitement required to do it. Since I designed it around the Cleanco TM, and most are here, that seems an easier way to go. Once established here, the money and infrastructure would be in place to start the US introduction after that.

Looking forward to your comments as the process unfolds in the months to come, and as the testimonials come in.

Superglide Ken

I'll be visiting Ted sometime next week and will see if I can test out one of your glides.  Besides my ability to play Devil's advocate with you, I have a pretty good marketing head.  Feel free to bounce some ideas off me and you know I will not hesitate to put my two cents in!

You should devise some sort of a professional looking poster that Ted can post in his store so customers have an 'in your face' introduction to your glides.  The poster would maybe have your mug shot cleaning carpet and a bubble caption coming from your mouth with all of your informercial points!  This way everyone that walks in his shop is exposed to the product and will approach Ted about what the product is all about.

I think my marketing services can go a long way on this board if I learn to post informercials as effectively as you!

Hey Ken

It seems like you'll be soooooooooooo busy working on your "new" and "Improved" SUPER GLIDES that you'll have no time to invent SUPER PADS!!

Carpet DIVA