large warehouse cleaning--walls/floors

masterclean5

New member
Hi Everybody,
I’m a newbie here. I’m a stone restoration specialist, tile/grout cleaner and long time carpet cleaner. My friend from my church works with this company which owns a few warehouses, one of which has a lease expiring in April. I’ve done some minimal work for them before and my friend is going to do what he can to help me get the job. The tenant has been there 15 yrs, does a lot of metal cutting with lasers, etc. Apparently no in dept cleaning has been done there in the last 15 yrs. Apparently the tenant needs to have the place “cleaned up some” when they leave so they need to do some cleaning to a certain extent.

The bottom line is that the owners need the cement warehouse walls and the partially painted concrete floors cleaned for a new future tenant. The walls need to be cleaned so they are ready for painting. There is no tenant in mind yet so, for now, regarding the concrete floors, they want them cleaned for a new tenant move in.

For me, I’ve never done a job like this on this large of a scope. The concrete floors total approximately 22,000 square feet. The cement walls are 25’ high, in which there is approximately 500 linear feet of 25’ walls(12,500sf). There is another 125’ approximately of 15’ walls that are over the office section of the building. The office ceilings are covered by plywood.

My initial questions are:
1. What type of equipment would be best utilized for doing this job? I’ve done considerable pressure washing with my truck mount unit before, but it is limited to 1500 psi. I’m thinking of renting a 3500psi heated unit for pressure washing the walls and floors. Might I rent something bigger? What special type of wand attachments might I consider for this project? I’m also thinking of a 21” circular pressure washer on wheels for the floors. Doing some research re rental yards. I'm liking this Nilfisk-Advance Captor 4800 Ride on machine which has water supply, vacuum, waste tank, brushes. 48" path. I'm thinking of a heavy duty ride on machine like this, then I could consider using a high pressure surface cleaner(21") after it for any extra cleaning,(perhaps I don't even need this) then come back by with the Captor 4800 again. It says it can easily clean 85k sf per hour. I only have 26k sf of flooring. Sounds like I would have plenty of time in 1 rental day to go over the floor several times if needed. $710 per day.

1. A key cleaning question I have is how many sf (on the average) of a 25’ wall can be pressure cleaned per hour? Would a specific type of wand or jet be more suitable than another for this type of job?

The collected grime on the walls is mainly comprised of garnet dust and metal dust. (Apparently, Garnet is a natural mineral, a hard silicate compound which is treated as a gemstone when it has fine colour and clarity. It is used in preference to Silica sand to overcome the shortcomings of raw silica.)
Thanks, Kent

2. Very importantly, what might the competition be pricing this project at? The tenant is responsible for a certain amount, the owners for the balance for the results I’ve mentioned above. Apparently, if the tenant doesn’t have it cleaned, the owners will deduct their share from their deposit.

Thank you so much in advance for your help and advice. I appreciate it very much and look forward to interaction with the many professional on this site.

Kent
 
I had a great talk with Doug Tripp. He helped me out a lot. Yes Doug, water removal will be a big factor. There is no drainage. I talked with Doug T. regarding a strategy of water flow, using oil absorbing filters, then vacuuming with my truck mount and dumping into the sewer/toilet. We talked about using down streaming system or x jet for applying chemical, depending on the strength of chemical I need. We figured I could do all my cleaning with a 3500psi(5gpm) pressure washer, wand and a 21” Surface Cleaner, which I don’t know where to rent at the moment.

Regarding pricing:

Walls: ---500 linear feet x 25’=500 x $4=$2000
---125 linear feet x 15”=125 x $4=$500 (This area is over the offices, which are covered by plywood. I will need to tape down plastic, etc in order to avoid possible water damage issues. Therefore, $4 a linear foot.)

Floors: These should clear pretty easy with a Surface Cleaner.
---21000 x .15=$3150

Walls= $2500
Floors=$3150
Total =$5650
-exp. -$650 Misc. supplies(oil absorbers, etc) and 3 days rental of pressure washer
Profit $5,000

I’m figuring me and a helper should be able to do this in 3 days. Is $5650 too much? What type of bids might I be going up against? Thinking out loud here.

Kent
 
I usually look at jobs and give prices without doing much measuring except in my head so maybe my math sucks but...... Isn't that approx 200ft X 110 ft for 22,000 sq ft for the floor? IF that's the case than you'll spend more time putting water in the machine and dumping than you will actually scrubbing.

If you were to acid wash a wall like that it'd be easy enough to hit it up with some good quality soap removing all the filings etc. I know there will be an argument about this but that's what I do in old warehouses when needing painting. Remember.....they are painting so the only real worries you have are damaging the concrete floor which should be protected my neutralizing the acid with soap.

As far as the Condor rental goes...... it won't pressure wash the floor although it will do a great job of picking up the water and cleaning the floor depending on customers expectations. Scrubbers won't pick out heavy grime but they will do a better job than most customers would expect IF you know how to operate the machine properly. We use Tennant machines to pickup the water and then we dispose of it in an appropriate matter. I use SW 1000 degreaser in the scrubber as it works very well. My 2 cents.
 
I guess my post was misleading. Doug helped me with many of the aspects of doing a job like this, including how to take some of the oil, etc. out of the water. He said to check with the municipalities re what to do with the water after "some of the filtering". It was MY idea (as I typed out this post) regarding putting the water through the toilet, NOT DOUG'S. This is a new issue for me which I need to research more.
Kent
 
Never forget the cost of gas in this, if its a hot water job the fuel will burn quickly, if it were me I would buy a used washer and when we do shop cleaning jobs we usually just wash the floors with our guns to clean them up

_________________________

Collin Nelson

Moble Washer

320-766-4562
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I had a great talk with Doug Tripp. He helped me out a lot. Yes Doug, water removal will be a big factor. There is no drainage. I talked with Doug T. regarding a strategy of water flow, using oil absorbing filters, then vacuuming with my truck mount and dumping into the sewer/toilet. We talked about using down streaming system or x jet for applying chemical, depending on the strength of chemical I need. We figured I could do all my cleaning with a 3500psi(5gpm) pressure washer, wand and a 21” Surface Cleaner, which I don’t know where to rent at the moment.

Regarding pricing:

Walls: ---500 linear feet x 25’=500 x $4=$2000
---125 linear feet x 15”=125 x $4=$500 (This area is over the offices, which are covered by plywood. I will need to tape down plastic, etc in order to avoid possible water damage issues. Therefore, $4 a linear foot.)


Floors: These should clear pretty easy with a Surface Cleaner.
---21000 x .15=$3150

Walls= $2500
Floors=$3150
Total =$5650
-exp. -$650 Misc. supplies(oil absorbers, etc) and 3 days rental of pressure washer
Profit $5,000

I’m figuring me and a helper should be able to do this in 3 days. Is $5650 too much? What type of bids might I be going up against? Thinking out loud here.

Kent

huh? 500 linear feet x 25 = 500 x 4 = 2000 , am i missing something here?
 
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