And possibly tens of thousands more in lost revenue.
My associate, David, is a bit better at the whole health thing than I am. When I am enjoying a last glass of wine and a late-night snack, he is already asleep and energising his body.
When I am in a deep sleep in my middle of the night, he is answering emails from yesterday and getting ready to go for a bike ride (on a bicycle with pedals!) or heading off to the gym.
But a few months ago, he was considering changing gyms. He didn’t want to. The people were great, the equipment was good and best of all, it was convenient to where he lives in Brisbane’s southside.
The problem was that the change rooms stunk. It was the smell from the urinals. One day it smelled of urine and the next it was chemicals and urine. It meant an unpleasant start to the workout and an unpleasant ending to the session.
David was a bit frustrated because he knew we could fix that pretty quickly. He’s no shrinking violet but he doesn’t like to push things on to people. So, he was thinking that maybe he should just find somewhere else to go. Sacrifice a bit of distance convenience for a much more pleasant experience.
Then one morning he ran into the manager/cleaner and thought he may as well have a chat. He said: “You do realise that your urinals smell and it’s turning away customers, don’t you?”
The manager, Les, said absolutely. He has been working on it for four years with chemicals and deodorisers and every 3 months they do a “plumbing job”. The job means opening up the pipes and clearing the build up of uric acid scale.
We sort of know a lot about smells from toilets (looks GREAT on our resumes). Contrary to popular opinion, this is not actually from “men who miss” but from the build up of crystals from uric acid (in the pipes). We also know that there are only two ways to get rid of the crystals. One is to get a plumber to scrape them off. The plumber charges a lot for this and can only get so far and may damage the pipes (more big cost to fix). The other is Micro Pure which degrades the crystals and they disappear, even beyond where the plumber can go.
So …
David said to Les: “Look, I’ll give you some stuff (for free) to fix the smell and clear your pipes so it doesn’t come back. Just ditch all the chemicals and pour this in. 40 mls per day.”
Les said fine, why not. But he had a deep clean booked for the next week already.
Anyway, two days later the smell was gone. It was no longer an unpleasant place to go.
A few days after that the system was opened for the deep clean. And the pipes were clear! All the scale build-up was gone. There was actually nothing for the plumber to do (but I am sure he put in a bill anyway).
Les said that when they normally opened up the pipes there is all this “stuff” that they have to get rid of. But there was nothing. It was clear. (We know that. That is what REALLY causes the stink. And it goes far beyond what you can see.)
David said, great, here it is. Use it if you want. Buy it if you want, but really he just wanted to enjoy his time at the gym without the unpleasantness. Les wants it and ordered it. Of course, his bosses don’t do what Les does so they only look at the cost. So we’ll see what happens.
It will save them not just the smell, but also $4,800 a year in deep cleaning plumbing bills, possible extra bills from deep cleaning damage and thousands in lost revenue from people like David who say: “This place stinks. I’ll think I’ll go somewhere else.”
And all they have to do is pour a tablespoon of Micro Pure down the system every day.
Take care,
Graham