Steam Cleaners Testimonials | Steam Cleaning Kills Bed Bugs
Gum comes in many colours, sizes and shapes. You can chew it and blow bubbles with it. You can alleviate stress by chewing and after a meal it can also freshen your breath. Hmm! All those flavors too! Who would ever think that something so neat is not so “neat” after all?
Have you ever noticed all those black spots on side walks. Believe it or not this is gum! It is not tar spread here and there it is aged gum that has been discarded out on the walkways.
Steam cleaners can clean this – read on.
Facilities Management has had the task of cleaning up gum around campus. The housekeeping staff has found the sticky stuff on carpets, desks, stairs, and inside elevators. The grounds department is also finding the goo on sidewalks, brick pavers, and outside walls all around campus. Between Brian Guns and Penny Franki’s staff, approximately 500 hours has been put into finding a solution to clean this up. Believe it or not, this has not been an easy task. Penny Franki with the help of Frank Milone have tried ice scrapers, Muriatic Acid and Goof off. This was labor intensive and none of these came out with good results. Brian Guns, with the help of Gracie Caldwell, tried a gel on the gum, and also an aerosol, which would freeze it. Results turned out to be just a lot of labor used to get one little piece of gum cleaned up. Different vendors were brought in, but no one seemed to have the correct solution.
Brian Guns was not about to give up on this. There had to be a way to clean this up that would not take so much labor and that cost would be reasonable for the University. “Whatcha gonna do?” “Who’s gonna help?” “Who you gonna call?” There it was; “Gumbusters”! Finally, Brian stumbled upon an ad in a cleaning magazine one day. This ad was for a company called “Gumbusters North America Inc.” This sounded like the vendor they had all been looking for! After talking to the company, Brian was pretty confident this was our solution. He asked the company to come in and demonstrate their steam cleaners.
Duane Cummins of Gumbusters Inc. agreed to this and met with Facilities Management staff and Vice Chancellor of Facilities Phil Jones. A tape was brought in to show everyone what the company was about and how the equipment worked. Once that was viewed everyone stepped outside to actually see the work in progress. When everyone saw the ease in using this equipment, the decision was made. Not only will it alleviate numerous hours of labor, it uses an environmentally- friendly solution, with a harmless chemical, non-flammable, non-toxic and a 9.8 PH. It uses 8 gallons of water per day thus creating a 270-degree low-pressure steam, which is used to clean up the gum. The equipment consists of a cart with the solution and a hose with small bronze brushes for walkways and nylon brushes for carpets. The operator exerts only minimum pressure. The gum can be on a surface for 2 days to 5 years and this method will still dissolve it. It must stay on contact for 5-10 seconds per piece of gum. Now this is much quicker than the time it took to scrub with an ice scraper or waiting for the aerosol to freeze and then try to scrape it off. Another neat thing about this cleaning method is that instead of having smelly solutions you have a pleasant scent that comes off from the flavor of gum you are cleaning up. While you are cleaning it up you will get fragrances like spearmint, wintergreen and cinnamon. The list can go on and on. This could make an unpleasant task a little more pleasant! While inside cleaning carpets the noise level is very low and will not bother anyone near by. Outside a generator is used to prevent the use of long cords, which could create a tripping hazard.
Gumbusters started out in the Netherlands. Their reputation has spread quickly around cities in Europe and is now popular in the United States. Many Facilities use the company, from Universities to Sports Arenas and Restaurants. The company is a patented franchise and Facilities Management will be leasing their equipment on a trial basis for 3 years with a lease- to- rent option. After 3 years, if all goes well it will become a yearly rental.
Let us applaud all the people involved on their hard work and efforts to come up with what sounds like a great solution. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
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Sunshine Coast Pressure Cleaners has the steam cleaner for your business. Over 30 years in the cleaner business.