Eric Farrell with crew member and friends
Stanley Steemer is widely known as a high quality carpet cleaning and flood restoration business throughout the United States, but many of the franchisees have made the logical choice to add Air Duct Cleaning to their line of services. That combination suites Eric Farrell and Stanley Steemer very well in their service area of Delaware, Maryland, and Northern Virginia.
When the remnants of Hurricane Michael blew through the area in October, 2018, it dumped a whole lot of rain in about 4 hours. Since the whole Delmarva Peninsula sits just barely above sea level, there simply was not anywhere for all that rain to go. There was a lot of flooding in basements of residential and commercial buildings. Of course, Stanley Steemer was immediately ready to help with their flood restoration services in the homes, schools, and hospitals that were affected. But with all of that extra water comes extra humidity, and that often means people will need their air systems cleaned as well. Eric says, “In about 70% of the business we do after flooding, whether it’s a home or business, we always end up coming in afterwards and doing air duct cleaning, just because when someone has a flood in their home, with all that added water, it really bumps up the relative humidity in the home, cycling through the system. So, if you have a system that already has a lot of dust in it, then add all that moisture to it, you can end up with some serious microbial problems.”
The Farrell family has run the Stanley Steemer franchise in Delaware for decades. They had been running a similar business in California for several years, but Delaware had family ties so they moved to Delmar and started their new carpet cleaning business in 1993. In the beginning, they concentrated on carpet cleaning, but saw a need and an opportunity for a Power Vac truck in their area. Eric remembers, “Air duct cleaning was already going in our area, but everyone was just using portables. We started researching different equipment. Back around 2007 we were at a Stanley Steemer convention when I saw my first American Caddy Vac. After seeing that truck, I pretty much made up my mind that I wanted to get into air duct cleaning and I wanted a truck like that! So when we actually started looking to buy a truck, we started looking at all the options out there. What really led us to purchasing our first Caddy Vac was that we would see Mac Mattoon at all the conventions. Even though we didn’t have a truck, he was so easy to talk to. And he was interested in our business before he knew we were even interested in air duct cleaning! Year after year we had talked with him. I guess just meeting someone and noticing the type of care they put into a conversation when you don’t even own any of their equipment… just imagine the kind of support you would get if you actually used their equipment! And that’s what more or less led us to choose an American Caddy Vac.”
But even at that point Eric didn’t buy a new truck. They knew they wanted an American Caddy Vac, but their budget was a bit limited. So, in 2011 they purchased a used Caddy Vac from Mac that had belonged to another Stanley Steemer franchise.
“When the opportunity came up to buy that first (used) truck, I called Mac to ask him some questions. They had built the truck in 2008 and here we are at the end of 2011 and it sounded as if he had just built it yesterday. He knew exactly who had purchased it from him, all the options it had on it. And he kind of helped us work up an offer on it because he knew the value of it. He kind of helped us purchase that first one. Obviously he didn’t get anything out of that. It just shows that he cares about everyone, not just people who have bought stuff from him.”
“We started with one truck. And again, everyone else in the area was using portables. So as soon as we got the truck we just started advertising pictures of the truck. So all of our money mailer coupons, we put an ad in there for air duct cleaning with a picture of the truck. We’d go to home shows and set the truck up out front. We just pretty much marketed the truck, to separate ourselves from the other companies, and the truck sold the business! Then, I think, maybe 2014 we bought our first truck from Mac. Then at the beginning of this year we bought one new truck from Mac and another used truck from another Stanley Steemer franchise.”
Eric has two favorite features on his American Caddy Vacs. First, the (optional) Quincy 370 compressor allows him to run two different crews at the same time. That extra power really makes a difference on commercial jobs.
Then the other favorite feature is storage. “Because for us, we service three different states so at any time we may be as much as an hour and a half away from the shop, so we need to be able to carry everything we may possibly need on the truck. And it’s not cluttered, everything has it’s place and there’s plenty of space for it.”
Eric and his crew are often in touch with American Caddy Vac. “When we started in 2011 we didn’t have a lot of experience so quite often I found myself calling Mac with questions about different jobs coming up and the type of duct work and what to use… and he just pointed us to the right tools for the job. That’s why I like to purchase tools from him because I can let him know what we’re going to be cleaning, and what I’m looking for and they always have the match for it. And even though they’re all the way across the country from us, they still have great pricing so it’s always very fair.”
“With a couple of our trucks being used trucks, we did kind of inherit some sloppy maintenance. My brother does all the fleet maintenance and I know he’s called American Caddy Vac when we’ve had a few things that need to be repaired, or if we had funny noises going on… They are able to walk him through what to look at and how to correct the problem. But other than a few minor things from the used trucks we had there hasn’t been a lot that needed repair.
They’re really easy to work with and it feels like it really doesn’t matter who you’re talking to… even when we bought the used trucks, we’d tell them what kind of truck it was and pretty much everybody, not just Mac, but everybody knows the truck no matter who you talk to! It’s a quick conversation to find the problem or find out what needs to be looked at.
I would recommend American Caddy Vac to every air duct cleaner… except for the ones in my area!
No question about it, the next time I buy an air duct cleaning truck, it will be an American Caddy Vac.”
