How many Rug Only shops started as wtw cleaners?

[Mikey P]

and moved out of low life fitted carpets..


Do people get into the rug washing business with no carpet backgrounds?

must be rare..

 

[rhyde]

I did, Robert mann, theres a guy in south of me that was in retail rugs that transitioned to rug cleaning and out of retail but it seems somewhat rare.

 

[Mikey P]

Thanks Randy... Hire was the show?

 

[rhyde]

it was good all types of cleaners from newbies wanting to get into rug cleaning to 3 & 4th generation cleaners. low volume hand washers to hight volume mor plant owners.

 

[Ron K]

and moved out of low life fitted carpets..

I'd love to.....I'm just to successful at Carpet Cleaning. Nobody could ever do as good a job as me. Where would all my clients that wanted great cleaning go?

steve chimes in in 10 9 8 7 6 5 .......

 

[rhyde]

I misread your post mikey it's the other way around I started as a rug washer not a carpet cleaner.
I believe most of the old Mor plants started started as retail rug shops and branched out into cleaning
orientals and lose lay carpet .

 

[T Monahan]

and moved out of low life fitted carpets..


Do people get into the rug washing business with no carpet backgrounds?

must be rare..

Mike,

Are you asking among the group that read this board, or just a guess regarding the outside real world? The real outside world has a variety of answers to your question. In addition to what you might expect, I have seen restoration companies, dry cleaners, drapery cleaners, power washers, painters, as well as others that are completely removed from textiles but saw a business opportunity in rugs.

 

[Mikey P]

In general, not just the washers here..

 

[Shane Deubell]

Seems to be several multi-generational rug washers, even the 2 specialists here have been in business at least 50 years or more.

Why is that?

 

[The Great Oz]

In the way old days there wasn't any "broadloom" carpet so there wasn't much installed carpet. Even in the early days of wall-to-wall there weren't any really good ways to clean it, and many rug plants had installers that would reinstall carpet after it was pulled up to be washed in-plant. Many of the old-timers never accepted HWE and never got into on-location cleaning.

Today it seems like everyone that does any kind of cleaning at some point tries cleaning rugs.

 

[T Monahan]

I started Wolverine Carpet Cleaners in 1977. We cleaned wall to wall mostly, but also did rugs from time to time. Since those early years I got more serious about washing them. Our trucks for the last bunch of years are rigged with a tray to carry rugs to our dedicated rug washing shop (Area Rug Cleaning Company) and then back to the client. Here is a picture of one of todays delivery of 11 rugs to our first client this morning:



This is a Butler unit. We had Butler drop the tray legs 3" to allow for a bigger load of rugs as you see here. The job ticket for washing these rugs was $1756. (Unfortunately, no other treatments were done as add-on to increase service and the ticket )