Under the Big Top    

Improve Tent Inventory Turns - Speed Up the Drying Process

If your tent rental operation is like most, you've put together an elaborate system to manually dry washed tent material.  The problem with hanging tents to dry is that you're at the mercy of time and the environment.  This is especially true as we move into the summer months when humid air makes for challenging drying conditions. 

     Teeco Solutions tent dryers are specifically designed to safely dry tents-gently, efficiently and completely (usually in 30 to 90 minutes).  With a Teeco dryer there is little risk of tent shrinkage, stretching, or delaminating our dryers utilize forced, dehumidified airflow to dry tents without heat.  This is a critical factor in maintaining the quality, integrity and long-term durability of tent material.

Teeco's Tent Dryers are designed and built to improve the efficiency and quality of tent maintenance operations by:

• Eliminating the need for large areas of floor space and high ceilings usually required for hanging tents to dry
• Drying more tents using less floor space
• Reducing the labor required to hang and take down tents, leaving workers free to perform other tasks
• Drying tents effectively regardless of outside conditions
• Completely drying vinyl and webbing, enabling you to confidently store your inventory without the threat of mold or mildew
• Effectively drying any shape of tent and any amount of webbing, including flat panel sections, pole tents, tension tents, high-peak tents, frame tents, sidewalls Pagoda, Chinese hats, marquee, etc.

"Previously the manual washing of marquees failed to get them properly cleaned.  Now with the washer and dryer combination provided by Teeco Solutions, the crews can turn marquees around quickly without having to rewash or expend any additional labor." - Justin Jol, National Manager Special Projects, Moreton Hire, Australia

All the Best

Making the Most of Manual Washing of Tents

Moving forward in our series of articles on best practices in the tent rental industry, we'd like to share with our readers who have yet to move forward and mechanize the manual process of tent washing some thoughts on how best to manually wash tents. The following provides some valuable tips.

• Washing Location: In most operations, floor space is at a premium, so when assessing the best possible location in the warehouse for tent washing, make sure that the space is clean and free of contaminants. Tents washed on contaminated surfaces can easily come out of the washing process looking worse then when it started.
• Floor Surface: The concrete floor should have a "no brush" surface - brushed surface concrete is highly abrasive and may quickly damage vinyl tent material. Additionally, the brushed surface creates a situation where dirt that is trapped in the miniscule crevices of the tent material can get trapped and difficult to remove. When working on a smooth concrete surface, one can more easily remove grime with the use of terry cloth material and soft bristle brushes. Avoid the use of soft, smooth cotton rags such as t-shirt material, as this material is not capable of getting into the tiny crevices to deep clean tent tops.
• Drainage: The floor should have a slope to allow for proper water run off. A floor drain should be within close proximity to allow for ridding the floor of the excess water. Assuming that the tents are dried in the same space as they are washed, getting rid of excess water will aid tremendously in the tent drying process.
• Mops and Brushes: Having an inventory of traditional heavy large capacity floor mops much like the type used by the roofing industry along with4" soft bristle brushes with soft tips to the bristles will help to rid the tent top of embedded dirt.
• Squeegee Machine: Much like the Zamboni machine used on ice rinks, smaller scale squeegee machines are available for removing much of the excess water that will collect on the surface of the floor. Keeping the floor free of standing water will help greatly in the tent drying process, again assuming that the tent is dried in the same space as it is being washed.
• No Water Method: A number of tent rental operators have found the "no water" method for tent cleaning to be quite effective when facing space, water drainage and drying space limitations within their operations. With this method, the operator sets up a row of folding tables end-to-end to accommodate the width of a tent panel (e.g. 10' wide panel would likely require two tables end-to-end). Sections of tent material are placed on the table and tent cleaning solvent is applied. Specially formulated solvents such as Teeco's Pure Clean or Teeco's Tent Stain Eliminator will work best and with terry cloth material without the need of soap, water or rinsing. (Check out the special promotion on Stain Eliminator under News From the Front).

 

News from the Front

Last month Teeco Solutions launched its first joint service offering with 12 of its customers.  The Tent Washing Services program represents our effort to expose more tent rental operators to the value of mechanizing the manual and moving from manual tent washing to the machine washing of tent tops.  The following is a list of these 12 customers along with links to their websites. 

 

Atlantic Tent - Leominster, MA  http://www.atlantictent.com

Beachview Tent Rentals - Brunswick, GA  http://beachviewtentrentals.com

Chase Canopy - Mattapoisett, MA http://chasecanopy.com

Commercial Tent Tental - Sussex NB, Canada http://commercialtent.com

Dallas Party Tent & Event - Irving, TX  http://www.dallaspartytentandevent.com

EventQuip - Lansdale, PA  http://www.eventquip.com

Grand Rental Station - Middlebury, IN  http://bit.ly/grandrentalstation

LaCrosse Tent Rental - LaCrosse, WI   http://www.lacrossetent.com

Prestige Party Rental - Prospect Park, NJ  http://www.prestigepartyrental.com

Regency Party Rentals -West Palm Beach,FL  http://www.regencyparty.com

Stamford Tent & Event Services - Stamford, CT http://www.stamfordtent.com

Sturdy Stitches -Wayne, MI http://www.sturdystitches.com

 

If you're a Teeco Solutions customer and interested in promoting tent washing services click on the following link and let us hear from you. fromthefront@teecosolutions.com

 

Stain Eliminator Promotion - For a limited time, Teeco Solutions is offering a special Buy 3 and Get 1 FREE promotion on its Stain Eliminator product.  Check out the details of the offer on our website by clicking on the following link.

 http://www.teecosolutions.com/stain-eliminator-offer.asp

 

If you have a story to share with us about your operations, please drop us an email at fromthefront@teecosolutions.com or visit our blog at http://www.teecosolutions.com/blog/