Over the Counter Residential vs Professional Cleaning Chemicals

Episode 7.

Ray

Joel. We are talking about chemistry, not just yours-and-my chemistry, by the way. But over-the-counter chemicals versus professional cleaning chemicals. So, listen, I can go to the store and, uh, just pick up a bottle of the blue stuff and get my windows clean. What’s the problem?

 

Joel

You know what? You’re absolutely right. You can go to the store. But what are you buying as a business to consumer and you’re only going to buy that once every so often. Or are you buying it? Is that you are a business and you’re looking to clean businesses with that blue product. Another mistake that I’ve seen people make over time and starting a business. They think that going to the dollar store and buying a dollar or, you know, depending where you are in the United States, because of minimum wage costs. Maybe the dollar and a quarter store and buying over the counter ready made liquid. And okay, you’re only spending $1.25 as opposed to going to your local grocer or your local do it yourself or your local drugstore that also sells it, where you might be paying for $4.79 a quart up to $7.99 even $9.99 a quart for some type of cleaning chemical or window cleaner or whatever it is. That sounds like, oh well, it’s only this. But when you buy commercial grade chemistry from a JanSan provider or Factory Direct, you’re buying products that are tested.

They have a research and development team that works to be able to release the soils properly. And when you read the label, which is very important in any type of safety OSHA requirements, is how the label is written. Buying that dollar store brand or the brand that’s sitting on the shelf at your local grocer and take it into commercial venue. It is in violation of so many of the OSHA requirements just on the label alone. And that’s if it cost you the same. But the funny thing is, is that when you buy a product that’s made by a professional company, that that’s their job is to make the cleaning chemical and to sell it commercially. There’s many ways you can purchase it. There’s RTU, which is stands for ready to use, which are typically in quart bottles. And then you buy a case you have 12 ready to use bottles while you’re paying for that product. And it’s going to cost you several dollars a bottle, plus whatever the shipping cost is, which is going to add cost to that product.

But it’s ready to use and you’re buying mostly water.

 

Ray

So you’re effectively you’re paying for convenience.

 

Joel

You’re paying for convenience.

 

Ray

But the convenience you’re actually paying for is sounds to me what you’re described is mostly shipping and water.

 

Joel

Shipping and water when you buy it, “ready to use” from a major chemical manufacturer. But what if I told you that there’s other ways that I could drive your costs down even further with these companies. And that is to buy it. And depending on the size, you know it, you can buy it, you know, in a 55 gallon drum, you can buy it in a 250 gallon dispensing unit if you’re using large volumes. But for a typical small contractor, you might buy it in what’s called a four by one, four by one gallon. Some companies even use super concentrates, which might be as little as a little over a liter bottle. But when you put it through a dilution center, it’s mixing products as low as half an ounce per gallon. Oh well. So that’s a half an ounce of product per almost a gallon of water. And the mix rates? Oh, it is not almost a gallon. It’s exactly a gallon because the ratio is a quarter ounce or a half ounce per gallon of water.

So you provide the water. So therefore when you take a cost of a product and you divide it by the amount of ounces in the product that you’re buying. So let’s just say that, hey, I buy a product, it’s 1 to 1. Well that means one gallon of product for every account. So you make two gallons of the product all the way to, hey, one ounce per one gallon, which is 1 to 128. And then you can make 128.

 

Ray

So if I really calculate out the cost of that concentrate, I need to take that into consideration as part of my operating expenses.

 

Joel

Correct. So let’s just say that you are able to buy a gallon of product, and there’s 128oz in that gallon. And let’s say that it’s a two ounce per gallon. So then you divide that number. So that’s 64 gallons of solution that you’re able to make. Well, if you’re filling it into court bottles, which there’s four quarts in a gallon, you’re able to mix 256 quart bottles worth of cleaning chemicals.

 

Ray

And that’s most likely the size that either is an operator or my staff are actually going to be using on site.

 

Joel

That’s correct. And typically when we go to that home grocer, local grocer, or do yourself or wherever you’re buying your product, you’re probably spending almost seven. We’ll say the average price is around $7 to create that 256 times $7. That means that over the course of time, when you make that 256 quart bottles, that is going to be $1,792 that you will be spending on that $7 product. So in looking at this problem a slightly different way. Now, we say that that gallon a product costs us $40, which seems insane. Oh, I’m paying $40 for a gallon of cleaning chemical. No, you’re paying $40 for a concentrate that’s going to produce 256 quarts of product. So now that $40 is going to result in a cost of $00.1562 per quart.

 

Joel & Ray

As opposed to seven bucks.

 

Joel

Okay, so as a cleaning company is a cleaning contractor, even as an in-house operation, we’re all looking at costs. So one of the biggest benefits is you’re getting the research and development done by professionals that’s included in the cost of the product. You’re getting product that actually cleans, you’re getting the safety data sheets and the the, you know, will end up being global harmonization down the road. But you’re getting the data sheets that you have to have on file for the right to know laws. So that people know what’s being used in their facilities in case of a chemical exposure or an allergic reaction or whatever. And being able to understand all the ins and outs of it, the safety equipment that’s needed to be worn when using it. What do you do when there is an exposure? You don’t have that when you purchase it over a counter and you’re doing that all for, In this example of a little over $0.15 per quart.

 

Ray

That’s pretty impressive, Joel. I guess all of that in relation to these really are our professional responsibilities in the cleaning industry.

 

Joel

They are required by law, by the government, you know, through OSHA, and these are the things that they’re going to look for. If they do an audit on a building, you might be doing the things the right way. But is the company that you’re doing has there been an OSHA violation and some other portion. So you might get drawn into an investigation without even knowing it.

 

Ray

The job’s not done until the paperwork’s done. One last item on that likelihood that someone’s going to have a reaction, it’s probably pretty low.

 

Joel

Is when you’re using the proper safety equipment and teaching and training people how to use the proper safety equipment that they need to have. So if there is a respirator that has to be worn, if there is a face shield, nitrile gloves, whatever it is that’s going to be listed on the safety data sheet.

 

Ray

But the issues in the event that something does go wrong, even with all of the proper safety protocols in place. All the all the proper PPE in place right up until the point that someone has a reaction, everything’s fine. But after that, if you don’t have the correct paperwork…

 

Joel

That will definitely create a bigger problem. And you may not be in business tomorrow, right? So doing your due diligence and being proactive on the front end, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

Ray

Great advice Joel. Thank you again. Appreciate your wisdom.

 

Joel

And I thank you for the opportunity.