CM/Spotlight: Sustainability In This Corner Kenneth Snow is president of Hagopian Cleaning Services in Oak Park, Michigan, and his company cleans carpet in offices and industrial facilities using hot water ex-traction truckmount steam cleaning. Snow says Hagopian began decades ago in the low-moisture cleaning market, but the operation changed to all hot water extrac-tion in the late 1970s. When Snow was still cleaning carpet, his company performed a large quantity of low moisture cleaning jobs, and he estimates that he personally cleaned 2 million square feet of carpet using very low moisture (VLM) methods. “Today we just feel we’re giving a better product and able to do very good produc-tion with hot water extraction methods,” Snow explains. “It’s removing more soil and more beneficial to our clients.” Pointing to technological advances with the heating systems and vacuum perfor-mance, Snow states that hot water extrac-tion now uses the generated heat to better break down soils and the improved vacu-ums to remove the moisture and dry the carpet as much as possible. Kevin Pearson is president of Pearson Carpet Care, LLC (PearsonCarpetCare. com) in Houston, Texas, a cleaning and res-toration business that also sells equipment. In contrast to Snow, Pearson used hot water extraction on commercial car-pet for half of his 21 years in the cleaning industry. Starting in 2005, he decided to utilize en-capsulation cleaning methods instead. “I was reading an article … about this crazy encapsulation method of cleaning, or at least I thought all low moisture methods were crazy back then,” Pearson recalls. The author of the article said encapsula-tion would help prevent spots from wicking back. Wicking was a problem Pearson had seen often when cleaning commercial carpet us-ing hot water extraction. Still, having used a truckmounted unit from day one, the concept of encapsulation was hard to envision. After a number of phone conversations and a lot of reading, Pearson decided to try cleaning with encapsulation. because VLM equipment can be moved using a more fuel efficient vehicle than the typical mounted cleaning setup, according to Pearson. On the chemical side of the equation, Snow says he has seen increased chemical expenses for VLM carpet cleaning, espe-cially more recently. Chemical usage has to be increased with this type of cleaning because the system does not use as much water. Round 1: Taking Less Time To test his newly-bought rotary scrubber and encapsulation chemicals, Pearson first vis-ited a church next to his office and offered to clean their dirtiest, worst carpet for free. “They took me to a room with three huge commercial coffee pots and said, ‘Good luck,’” Pearson remembers. “In less than 30 minutes I had the whole room cleaned, with all the coffee spots gone, and was on the way back to the office.” This seemed “too easy” to Pearson be-cause it took him 30 minutes with his truck-mount system just to run hoses up the stairs. Before, where it took Pearson’s operation 11 or 12 hours to finish 10,000 square feet of commercial carpet with one truckmounted unit and wand, now it takes just over two hours using two machines. Cleaning can be done at a faster rate per hour — 2,000 to 3,000 square feet per hour vs. 800 to 1,000 square feet per hour with hot water extraction using truckmounted equipment, according to Pearson. “The best part is, I make more money per hour, and I can still finish that job in the morning and have the rest of the day to do other jobs,” Pearson says. “So for me and my business, the benefits of using this low moisture method are great.” Round 3: What About Water? Sustainability and the conservation of re-sources and chemicals have become an important issue in the professional cleaning industry. Obviously, more water is needed for hot water extraction when compared to VLM cleaning. Yet, in most cases, workers with Snow’s company actually transport the water they need to the job site. If it is a large job, workers may need to re-fill the fresh water tank once, and Snow es-timates that it costs about $1 or $1.50 to fill a tank. Overall, Snow feels the environmental ef-fects and costs associated with water us-age are minimal when it comes to hot water extraction. “Other than as a marketing perspective, I’ve never heard of anyone truly saying any-thing about hot water extraction consuming too many natural resources,” Snow notes. “That’s just marketing hype in my opinion.” Round 2: Comparing Costs Increased production can save a company when it comes to labor costs, but that is just one cost concern when it comes to carpet cleaning. Other areas of consideration would be: ■ Gasoline usage ■ Vehicle wear and tear ■ The amount of cleaning chemicals needed. Snow’s company uses an all direct drive system, so the vehicle is running and gas is burning when an operator is cleaning carpet. Thus, gasoline usage would be a higher cost factor for hot water extraction. Pearson states that his company’s fuel expenses are less per job using VLM clean-ing techniques because he does not have to run a truckmount’s engine while cleaning. Further, transportation costs are lower Round 4: Drying Advantages Still, when it comes to carpet cleaning, what goes down must come up. How does hot water extraction compare to VLM when it comes to drying time? Pearson points out that VLM cleaning op-tions have quicker dry times compared to hot water extraction. As drying times are so short, VLM options allow many commercial jobs to be done during regular business hours if the equip-ment is quiet enough, Pearson states. This advantage can eliminate the need for overtime pay to employees. Snow remembers that, in the early 1980s, a commercial carpet cleaned with 14 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • August 2013
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