cleaning concrete floor

[Ron Werner]

Hi guys
doing a quote for a condo. they've got a huge tracking problem, the grime from the garage is tracking onto each floor drastically. So before I clean the carpets they want the basement garage floor cleaned. I thought I'd prespray a degreaser then use the tile tool would to extract it.
14400 sf. plus some stairs and a small storage area. Price per sf would put it too high for them.
ie 25cents would be $3600. They wouldn't go for that. no sealing, just cleaning. I was thinking of an hourly rate, say $60-70/hr

Thoughts??

 

[Ron Lippold]

you might look into renting a riding auto scrubber. down here they rent for aabout 250 a day. you could knock that out in a hour or two.

 

[Guest]

I am thinking $125 per hour; Auto scrubber sounds nice too.

 

[Ron Werner]

wouldn't I be stopping to dump and fill all the time with a Autoscrubber?

 

[Gary T]

Also you'll want TxCon 4800 for this job. www.txconproducts.com

 

[Out of Character - 0]

14,000 sf is a lot of turbo cleaning, depending upon how rough the finish is you may eat a brush ring for the turbo. A 28-36" auto scrubber would be a 2-3hr job regardless of dumping and filling unless there's no locations to do such, and you're opposed to using your tm to fill and empty it.

 

[floorguy]

such as stripping and rinsing with my TM i wouldnt want that CRAP in my tank or system....ewwwww :shock: :shock: :shock:

Auto scrubber with brushes on it...(water fill and dump somewhere in garage???)

or rent a pressure washer and pressure wash it..(use the turbo tool type thingy)

Do what i did on a place similar...

Cost + what ever hourly you want.. I think i did $75 me + my $10 an hr guy...so $65 for me..

or if that scares you (letting them know cost) and they just want their own maint. guy to do it. Go figure what it costs and figure 5ish hrs..

 

[Bob Foster]

If your or their object is to make it new concrete perfect you need a 5000 psi unit and where you would legally be required to recover huge amounts of the waste making it completely impractical for your company to do it.

It's a $500-600 job max to get it somewhat clean but not new concrete perfect. This is usually a job for pressure washing company. Using your tile tool would be the same as cleaning a house full of carpets with a spotting machine and your truck doesn't have the psi to do the job to begin with. Go ask Mike at Victoria Chemclean for his advice before you bid it. He can set you up with what you need. He can supply you a machine at a reasonable price. If you do buy one don't blow the decals off your truck with it.

According to the CRD Source Control bylaws the waste water from this process would be considered to be "oily waste" if you were cleaning a garage with lots of big caked grease spots from underneath where cars were parked (as found on many older underground parking garages). Olly waste is very expensive to get rid of and cannot be disposed of like carpet cleaning waste water. If the place is really grungy I wouldn't want that stuff in my waste tank.

If the place is relatively new or clean - go for it. You will not make it look perfect because if you try to it will take forever and you will end up dumping your truck about 3 times.

I recently did a one level parking garage that was about a year old. I was called about a tracking problem too. I threw down what ever old prespray I had left over in a very deluted solution, powerwashed it and captured the waste water down by the floor drain where I caught about 95% of it before it hit the drain. I did about 5000 sq feet in under 2 hours start to finish and did it in one waste tank full.

If you think we have competition, there are lots of part timers with Home Depot pressure washers out there that will do that job for $300 bucks and flush it down the drain no matter how greasy it is.

To solve their tracking problem cleaning it just the first thing to do. It also should be sealed and proper walk off mats placed.

Good luck with the logistics of getting 50 blue haired grannies to all get their cars out of your way. Personally, I'd pass on the job in your situation as you have much easier money to make that you are better equipped to deal with.

 

[Ron Werner]

This is a 2yr old building, its not so much a lot of grease and oil, but more like a residue that comes off the tires from the paved road. You can see the black from the paved road coming off the road down the ramp.
I'm not trying to make the concrete look like new, and there aren't any problems with it, it just needs a wash to get the dust and oil residue off.
This isn't an old ladies condo building, these are fairly high end people, willing to pay a good price to get the situation corrected.
I've already talked to the guy about walkoff matts.

I was thinking of the Gator Wash, which can go down the drain. there's just all the dust and crap which wouldn't be a problem in the recovery tank, no worse than the soil I already suck up

 

[Lyman]

How long will it take you to vacum 14400 sq ft.

 

[Bob Foster]

The devil is in the details. If you are going to powerwash away the black traffic lanes from the tires on the ramps so they completely disappear then you are going to take a long time. If you make the areas generally way cleaner it won't be bad.

There is a machine called a whirl-a- way that looks like a tile machine only larger often with wheels on it. They will work OK on 2000 psi machines but much better on 3000 psi machines.

These clips are from Home Depot but Mike at ChemClean will match their price and take way better care of you ( you know that!).

I have had the exact pressure washer for 3 years and it works great and its reliable. I also have the rotary nozzle but do not have the whirl-a-way.

I'll tell you what. You buy the whirl-a-way and you can use my pressure washer but I get to borrow you whirlaway once and a while.

 

[Walt]

The tire marks can be pretty difficult to get off. We used to do it for .10 sqft - first time through.

I would suggest the 3500 psi / 13hp model at home depot as the smallest unit you would want. Otherwise it will take too long. Spinner tool is a must as well. The one from Landa is the one you want - it actually works. We owned several of them - none worked nearly as fast or as well as the Landa (even though it was the smallest one). The others fell apart and were problematic.

A scrubber would only be a good idea if the concrete is sealed and smooth. If it's the first time through, a single cleaning wont do it. Plus the rental company isn't going to like you wearing the brushes and squeegee out on the concrete. They will probably charge you for that.

 

[TimP]

I was thinking something like a pressure washer for that kind of job myself.

I think Bob is on the right track.

I have cleaned concrete in a garage before. It's not too tough. They make a turbo type tool with wheels on it too so that you can recover the water with a TM and I don't think you'll have as much lock down with the tool either.

 

[Ron Werner]

well. found out there aren't any autoscrubbers in my area for rent, or none that my supplier knew about.
The biggest challenge was dealing with the oil in the water, ie what to do with it.

Talked to a guy from Oil Gator, he suggested prespraying with Gatorwash, scrubbing that in. Then follow that with Oil Gator which would absorb the water and oil and trap it ( the oil gator breaks down the oil to carbon and Hydrogen), the end product can be swept up and thrown in the garbage. Then just pressure wash the floor of any remaining dust.
Have to find out yet about price.

There's a company already set up in town to do this work so it'll probably be more efficient to let them wash the garage and I'll look after the carpets.

Oh, I quoted cimex work for the 2nd building for you Bob. You can do the halls, I'll do the stairs