How many sq. ft./hour can Challenger Clean?

Hi Chris,
You have asked me a couple of times re. how many sq. ft. per hour can the
Challenger do? I did a job yesterday for the first in a 6-story downtown
Boston condominium building. Each floor contained 950 s.f. of carpeting.
Since I was working alone, my first choice would have been to use my
Orbitec CX-20 (or a Challenger Max, if I had one). But access to the
building was difficult, both as far as even using my ramp to unload my
bigger machines, as well as getting equipment into the building itself
(many stairs; no ramp; no loading dock with elevator) So using my
standard Challenger was my only choice. It took me about 50 minutes to do
each floor, which works out to a rate of about 1150 s.f. per hour. And
this included doing my own spraying with a standard 2-gallon pump sprayer,
since my electric sprayer is on the fritz (Do eople still say "on the
fritz"?) All told, it was a job that grossed about $1100 in a day when
the actual work started at 9AM and finished at 4PM. Of that time,
probably about an hour was devoted to running outside to feed the parking
meter, buy coffee a couple of times, and toss down a small lunch. So
dollars-per-hour for each hour actually worked was about $185. The job
was billed at a rate of .17/sq. ft., and there were a dozen or so stairs
cleaned as well.

This particular building is managed my a property management company which
specializes in condominium buildings - as opposed to rental properties.
I got my first building from them a couple of years ago - as kind of a
test - when a condo owner in one of their buildings kept calling their
office saying how much better HER carpet looked after being cleaned by
Drysdale's than did the common area carpet, after being cleaned by whoever
was doing their work at that time. She was such a pain (to them) that
they finally gave me a shot. Now I think I have all of the buildings they
manage - about 15. One building alone - which is done twice per year -
grosses over $3000 each time I do it. It requires two days - one day
working alone, and a second day with a helper to assist me.

Mark D., Boston, MA