A bit of market research - really sorry!

[cr0ft]

Hi all,

This is probably more focussed on those of you who do bathrooms and plaster or use cement based tile adhesives really.

Please forgive me using you all for a bit of market research. I currently have a patent pending on what is essentially a flexible bucket liner designed to fit into a flexible bucket. If the product went to market it would be available in a standard range of sizes to fit different bucket volumes.

I would be looking at aiming it at plasterers/tilers and builders, i.e. users of cement and gypsum based products where buckets need to be fairly clean before they can be re-used.

My experience has shown that cleaning buckets out is quite labour intensive and ties up my apprentice, especially when we do plastering.

The idea behind the liner is it is made of thin plastic and is simply thrown in the skip after the tradesman is finished with the mix, leaving the bucket ready to be reused instantly without any time spent cleaning it out. From an environmental perspective it means buckets are not being washed down drains in roads etc. The plan would be to make the liners from recycled plastic too.

My question is would you buy this product and if so what sort of price would you think is reasonable?

Thanks to everyone in advance for your replies.

 

[zeebeedee]

Hi all,

This is probably more focussed on those of you who do bathrooms and plaster or use cement based tile adhesives really.

Please forgive me using you all for a bit of market research. I currently have a patent pending on what is essentially a flexible bucket liner designed to fit into a flexible bucket. If the product went to market it would be available in a standard range of sizes to fit different bucket volumes.

I would be looking at aiming it at plasterers/tilers and builders, i.e. users of cement and gypsum based products where buckets need to be fairly clean before they can be re-used.

My experience has shown that cleaning buckets out is quite labour intensive and ties up my apprentice, especially when we do plastering.

The idea behind the liner is it is made of thin plastic and is simply thrown in the skip after the tradesman is finished with the mix, leaving the bucket ready to be reused instantly without any time spent cleaning it out. From an environmental perspective it means buckets are not being washed down drains in roads etc. The plan would be to make the liners from recycled plastic too.

My question is would you buy this product and if so what sort of price would you think is reasonable?

Thanks to everyone in advance for your replies.

I think you've got an angle with the green aspect with big firms, but I reckon you would struggle to sell them to sole traders just an extra cost they don't need for a few minutes work

 

[cr0ft]

Great thanks for the feedback. My thought was to market them to small businesses more to be honest, i.e. one man bands. My idea was that 3 minutes work to clean a bucket when you are the guy/girl charging out at £30 per hour say is a cost of £1.50 to clean that bucket out. Times this by 4 buckets a day say and that's £6 per day of tiling. I'm not decided on pricing yet as I'm waiting to get details back from the manufacturers I'm talking to but I am sure they could be sold at significantly less than that for a pack of 10.

 

[zeebeedee]

Big firms love getting accreditation for whatever they can. Considerate construction ect ect. You could market that to them for some kind of green accreditation I'm pretty sure in this day and age there's a good few out there

 

[Ray Stafford]

3 minutes work to clean a bucket when you are the guy/girl charging out at £30 per hour say is a cost of £1.50 to clean that bucket out.

Hi Keiran

The problem with that analysis is that you can buy another bucket - virgin clean - for less than £1.50. So why clean one out? Or, indeed, line it?

Buckets have become disposable items. You pay significantly more than a coffee than you do for a bucket.

So I am not sure that a market for disposable liner for an already disposable bucket has much future...

Sorry.

 

[tamz]

Most mixing in buckets is probably done with a paddle mixer these days which would burst any liner in seconds.
Even mixing with a trowel, unless you were carefull would burst through it.
I think it is a non starter but wish you luck.
Mixing plaster, compo, adhesives etc is nothing new unless it is to the retrainers who find some things a pain that those who grew up in the trade (any trowel trade) think is a normal part of the job and is included in the cost.

 

[cr0ft]

Ray, the product I am aiming it at is using it with the decent builder's flexible buckets that are normally cleaned out and used time and time again if that makes sense. I think you are on about the cheapy plastic ones that B&Q and the likes sell? They are no good to tilers and plasterers due to the size of them really. If that's what you mean anyway!!

The ones I am on about cost between £4.50 to £9 and are designed to be reused lots of times to recoup the cost.

Like these ones: -

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=flexible+bucket+40+litre&tbm=shop

The main aim is to save on cleaning labour if that makes sense. At £5 a bucket you are going to want to spend the time keeping them very clean and it's quite time consuming especially when using cement tile adhesive and/or plaster.

The calculation one of the tilers used is that he spends 10 minutes cleaning out each flexible bucket ready to go again. Based on a low rate of £24 per hour and 2 buckets a day that's a cost of £4 to clean the buckets out ready to go again. I reckon it's possible to sell a set of plastic liners for £5 for 10 which is a £3 a day cost saving to the business. Is that not logical??

The feedback seems pretty positive on the tilers forum but not at all so on the plasterers forum tbh!

 

[Nostrum]

Hi Croft,

i thought the the purpose of a flexible bucket was so you could leave it to set and give it a wiggle when solid, resulting in all the muck falling out? That's how I use them anyway?

In this case, it's just buy 4 buckets for the day and clean them out the following day.

As much as I can see your idea trying to be green, surely those credentials go out the window when you take into account manufacturing & shipping (probably from the Far East ?) then the recycling and processing to remake, my personal opinion is that this seems quite wasteful for such an insignificant inconvenience, sorry.

Wish you all the best with the idea though, sorry to be negative but you did ask!

 

[tamz]

The best buckets i ever had were the asbestos and rubber ones. You just let whatever was in it set then battered it against the kerb to clean it and they truly were unbreakable.
Unfortunately they banned them incase someone inhaled a bit bucket :lol:

 

[jase158]

I am really struggling to find a good thing to say, yes it is annoying, trying to clean buckets out, getting much up your arm, all down your trousers etc, yes it is even harder to get the bucket completely clean so you dont have any bits in your new mix. It is also hard to keep the drive clean when swooshing a brush around a bucket to clean it out.
However if I was that prepared I would just buy a few buckets, instead I forget and have to clean bucket out, just like I would forget to buy liners.
The only market you have really is for plastering, however as mentioned before how would this work with the mixer? when mixing, my bucket gets a really good scrapping all round with the mixer as nothing worse then getting dust in your mix. Also while holding my mixer in one hand, water in the other and powder between my legs, last thing I want to worry about is breaking a plastic liner.

So my opinion is that I would forget to buy, would struggle to use and would end up cleaning my bucket out anyway!!

Good luck though.

 

[Ermintrude]

Use silicone rubber. Tough plastic shell with removable silicone liner. Take out liner, roll it and fold it all junk comes away . Silicone will always be watertight and it won't get rough with use - trowel scrapes.
All brilliant till apprentice uses bare bucket!

 

[cr0ft]

I'm starting to think a silicon liner would be handy. There is one company in Australia that manufacturers them already. It seems like they use tiny buckets there though!

The problem is that silicon liners would be very expensive. The Aussie company are selling them for around £20 a shot. They do clean up completely just by screwing them up though once the adhesive is dry. Very quick to clean. The problem is that same bucket would cost £60 or so to fit a 40L flexi tub and you would need at least 2, one drying out and 1 being used.

The buckets would last forever though as said, silicon is pretty much indestructable.

@Norst, they work very well for non-flexible adhesives but flexible adhesives don't come out very easily at all by their nature!

 

[tamz]

Absolutely nothing lasts forever!

 

[jase158]

so your market research told you that plastic is no good and another company already have the market leading silicone!! hmmm, surely this is telling you something???

 

[cr0ft]

Yup it does indeed. Which is exactly why I got on here