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Grease and Oil Attract Dirt on Commercial Carpet

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Commercial carpets can get really greasy with high foot traffic from greasy or dirty areas. Restaurant kitchens, auto repair shops and manufacturing facilities track grease in and out from work areas. The grease is deposited on the carpet and then dirt gets tracked in and it builds up. Not only do you have grease and dirt to deal with your carpet will have developed a bad smell as well.

A regular steam cleaning by Commercial Steam Team 952-224-7222 can solve that problem!

For a list of how often businesses should clean their carpets read more… https://commercialsteamteam.com/carpetnews/when-should-i-have-my-carpets-cleaned/

Grease on Restaurant Carpet

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Over time grease can build up on commercial carpets and cause an unpleasant odor that your customers will notice, even if you do not. Even if you are careful to only place carpet in specific areas your staff will unknowingly track grease from the kitchen.

Food and grease buildup under tables is also how grease builds up in carpets and it happens frequently in restaurants that regularly have teenagers and guests under 12 years old.

Having the carpet in your restaurant steam cleaned to remove stains and odor will make a huge difference in the air quality of your restaurant.
Remember, Commercial Steam Team is here for you. Call us today at 952-224-7222 and see how we can help improve the positive impact of your carpet on your overall image!

Commercial Office Buildings and Carpet Cleaning

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It is important to try and protect your commercial carpet from salt and chemicals in the winter. Corrosive chemicals get deposited in the carpet and start to damage the carpet almost immediately. To protect your entrance carpets put down large mats outside the door to first collect the salt from people’s feet then place mats inside to collect any water or additional chemicals.

 

Mats with loose pile texture or nubs that stick up like fingers remove more sludge than tightly packed pile mats. Make sure you have someone clean your mats as they collect dirt and sludge and a dirty mat is not as effective at collecting salt and chemicals. Regularly have your carpet steam cleaned by a professional to make it last longer.

If we can help you clean your carpet please call us for a free estimate 952-224-7222

Reliability in Carpet Cleaning

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I own a carpet cleaning company in Dakota County, Minnesota.  The other day, the head of public works for the city of Hopkins informed me that the last company he hired to clean the carpets stood him up.  This was a job large enough to send two vans out.  Neither van showed up.  He was surprised because he hears their commercials on the radio several times a day and they claim to be the best in the industry.  City accounts are very large and lucrative accounts.  I don’t understand how any company, no matter how large or how fast they grew, could overlook any account, let alone one as large as a city government.

The problem with standing up a client is not as simple as just losing that account.  Everyone he speaks to about carpet cleaning now will hear about his negative experience.

There needs to be checks and balances to make sure that no account gets overlooked.  Phone calls should be made at the earliest sign that crews might be late to a job, even if only by a few minutes.  Waiting and wondering if a vendor will show up on time, or at all, is not a comforting feeling.  This anxiety leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the client, even if the job does end up being completed in the end, and the carpet cleaning turns out well.

At the very least, being late or standing up a client removes any chance for referrals, though usually the account is also lost forever.  To large franchises that advertise to get their business, this may appear less important, however, to any growing business referrals and satisfaction is a matter of survival.

Gum Removal From Carpet

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If you were to search the internet for ways to remove gum from carpet, and maybe you are, you will find countless remedies.  This is because there truly are countless ways to remove gum from carpet.  You can freeze it and smash the gum.  You can use lemons, peanut butter, and any number of chemical concoctions.  You can scrape, poke, prod, pinch, and pull.  The truth is that when removing them yourself, any number of these will work.  However some of these methods have a risk involved; Using utensils, brushes, and rags can all wear out the carpet around and under the carpet fraying the fibers.   Any method using natural or unnatural chemicals can bleed, bleach, or leave an oily residue that will attract dirt.  Pulling on gum can pull fibers out of the carpet leaving a hole or fibers that stick out higher than the rest of the pile.

The best method of course is to have a respected professional carpet cleaner with a direct drive truck mounted carpet cleaning unit remove the gum.  These professionals will use citric acid on the gum to loosen the bond of the gum or “emulsify” it.  After emulsifying, this professional will use the heat and pressure from their cleaning solution to strip away the gum and also rinse any potential residue away.  This cleaner should rinse thoroughly and use extra vacuum strokes to dry the carpet as much as possible.

In extreme cases, due to the type of carpet, volume of carpet, type of gum, or a combination of the three, the complete removal may be not feasible.

Who Starts Carpet Cleaning Companies?

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To understand the carpet cleaning industry in Minnesota, it is important to understand the different types of people who start carpet cleaning companies.

  • The first is the most common type of carpet cleaning company owner.  This is an easy industry to get started in.  For as little as a few thousand dollars, anyone can buy a small portable carpet cleaning unit and start charging their friends, family, and acquaintances to clean their carpets.  These are often people who have either been laid-off or have quit their jobs, and want to be their own boss.  Despite the best of intentions, carpet cleaning is easy to get into but very hard to succeed at.  The term, “fly-by-night” is used quite often in this industry for this reason.  Sometimes the very qualities that made them want to be their own boss, are the same qualities that keep them from succeeding on their own.
  • Second is the investor.  Investors have the money to start a carpet cleaning company.  They might be a lawyer, dentist, real estate mogul, etc.  They intend on starting a company, watching it grow through mass-advertising, and then selling it off.  This can be successful for the purpose of profit, but causes very poor quality-control since they don’t intend on being around when the complaints start coming in.  It then becomes the next owner’s job to try to fix the problems caused by the original owners.
  • Third are the franchises.  Someone who invests in a company with the pure intention of having a successful business.  The franchise, however, takes their cut whenever they can, leaving the owners of the franchise the need to find profits where they can.  These tend to be heavy marketing companies that stress sales at all cost.  It is very common to see the crew chief go an entire day without touching a carpet cleaning wand because he is too busy selling to the customer, while his assistant does the cleaning.  These companies would classify as sales and marketing businesses more than carpet cleaning companies.
  • Finally, is the independent, specialized, carpet cleaning company.  This company is started by someone who has experience in the industry, found their niche, and for some reason or another decided to break out on their own doing what they believe they do best.  This can be anything from upholstery specialists to commercial carpet cleaning specialists.  As with all companies, the goal is to be profitable.  However, without the franchise’s hand in their pocket, it is possible to turn a profit without cutting costs or high pressure sales.  While not all of these companies live up to their potential however, this is the most likely business owner to find his company both profitable and respected in their field.

One thing I recommend asking when hiring a carpet cleaning company is whether or not the company shares its profits with its employees.  This says a lot about the owners of the company.  I believe it is both a smart move in motivation and what every business owner should do to be responsible in the community.

Who Would You Like to Have Clean Your Carpets?

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Commercial Steam Team

  • Career employees

  • Carpet cleaning technicians who make 10% profit sharing at the end of the year
  • Technicians who are trained to clean carpet

  • Crews who are supplied with everything they need to do a great job

  • Technicians rewarded for quality of work
  • Crews who make a living they can be proud of

Corporate Franchises

  • Short term employees (very high turnover)
  • Technicians who are treated like numbers

  • Technicians trained in marketing and sales

  • Crews who have to pay for their own cleaning agents

  • Technicians rewarded for how much they sell at each job
  • Crews who make just enough to get by


Everything in the Commercial Steam Team column of this article is the standards by which Commercial Steam Team treats our employees.  The Corporate Franchise column is a conglomeration of the different trends that they each individually make.  Not every franchise makes all of these mistakes with their employees, however each franchise is guilty of at least one of these.  Personally, I wouldn’t want to any company who makes any of these mistakes do work for me.  I would want a company that takes pride in their employees and treats them accordingly.

Property Managers Can Avoid Billing Headaches!

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Businesses, especially property managers, tend to have a lot of problems setting up their billing with residential-heavy carpet cleaning companies.  Often, these companies force these property managers into yearly contracts.  Now these property managers can be stuck with these headaches for at least a year:

  • Bills being sent to the job site instead of the billing address.
  • Companies expecting to be paid on site or in advance, instead of 30 days out.
  • No understanding of budget restrictions.
  • Locations of cleanings not listed on invoices causing confusion about which locations have been cleaned or paid for.

These may not seem like big issues, but when you’re in the property management business these problems can happen over and over, even hundreds of times a year.  Even if they are minor headaches, they add up.  I own a commercial carpet cleaning company in the Minneapolis / St. Paul area and surrounding suburbs.  I have found that it takes a lot of the stress away from property managers to know that they do not have to sign a contract and they can leave at any time.  After all, if we don’t make them happy then we don’t deserve their business.  Most residential companies do less than 10% of their business with other businesses.  As a commercial carpet cleaning company doing over 85% of our business with other businesses, we have learned the importance making billing simple and easy to reduce the stress and headaches that property managers face on a daily basis.

How Often Should My Business Have It’s Carpets Cleaned?

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How often should businesses clean their carpets?  I am asked this question all the time.  One would think after focusing on commercial carpet cleaning for 13 years I could give a definitive answer to this question.  Unfortunately, I can’t.  There are many variables that alter the frequency in which the carpets in Minnesota businesses need to be cleaned.  Here, in the Twin Cities Area, we deal with a lot of sand and salt.  This increases the frequency of cleanings needed considerably compared to other areas of the country.  These cleaning schedules listed below are for Twin Cities and surrounding areas of Minnesota companies only and based on my personal carpet cleaning experiences:

  • If you are a retail store with lots of foot traffic.  You should be having the carpets cleaned and protected every 3 months to every 6 months depending on the amount of people who come in off of the street and the cleanliness of the parking lot.
  • If you are a restaurant or Bar you should be sure to have the carpets cleaned and protected quarterly.  This is important because of how often people spill and as well as the grease that gets tracked in from the kitchen.
  • Office buildings should have their carpets cleaned every 6 months to a year depending on the number of employees and the conditions they walk in on the way to the building entrance.
  • Automotive and trucking companies tend to be heavy in oil.  This oil attracts dirt and will cause the carpet to rapidly soil. I recommend that these companies clean and protect anywhere from quarterly to twice a year.  Falling behind on this causes the oil to compound exponentially, meaning the longer it goes without cleaning the faster the damage will occur.
  • Churches should have one thorough cleaning and protecting a year on all carpet.  However they should have certain areas like their entrances or narthex cleaned multiple times a year depending on their size.
  • Industrial companies rarely clean as often as they should.  Metal shavings and oil from factory machines and forklifts do a real number on carpets.  They often accept the fact that they will need to replace their carpets eventually and let it go.  This is not necessary however.  Cleaning and protecting quarterly will almost always prevent permanent damage from forming in the high traffic areas and although the carpets will still get discolored eventually between cleanings the fibers themselves should stay sound and the cleanings will provide a night and day change.

I’m sure it goes without saying that these are not concrete numbers.  Every business is different and the weather has to be considered as well.  A carpet will get dirty faster during winter months than summer months.  Total number of people, exits, and how often people go from the outside to the inside of the building are variables that I have had to average out.  The amount of sand and salt used on roads and sidewalks in your specific area are factors that affect Minnesota businesses as well.