I am officially another amazed convert to encapsulation technology. Did my second encap. job Friday. I stopped by a townhouse development to measure 20 common areas for a cc bid. Stopped by the clubhouse to check out the carpet we HWE cleaned a week ago. I was horrified! The carpet looked like crap, like we never even cleaned it! Lots of small spots and ugly shadings. I asked my tech who cleaned it and he said it looked fine when he was done. I just happened to have the Cimex and a vacuum in my truck, so I took them out and cleaned the carpet again. Went back Saturday and the carpet looked great!
Just a few very tiny spots and the shadings were gone. My only concern were the swirl marks from the Cimex that did not vacuum out very well, how long does it take them to disappear on average?

Mark,

It's GREAT to hear about your encapsulation success. You're obviously a cleaner with many tools. You clean wool rugs "immersion style". You're a HWE cleaner. And you now can offer encapsulation cleaning too. Multiple tools and methods is a great approach.

On the point of multiple tools and methods:
We recently sold a Cimex to a WOMAN who runs an all women janitorial company. She cleans some large government buildings. One of her buildings is a very large public library. DuPont was bidding against her contract. DuPont did a demo. It looked like DuPont would win the bid. She was scared because this entire government contract is very large and is the core of her business. She got in touch with me at this point and ordered a Cimex. We walked through the job together (many phone calls). We came up with this game plan. She first cleaned the carpet with a pre-scrub using the Cimex followed with a HWE rinse using her CFR machine. After the section was dry she recleaned it again using the Cimex and Spin Vac. The end result... she blew DuPont out the door. It was fun being able to help her save her business. My point is that in some cases having multiple tools is a great way to offer a premium service.

The swirl marks are natural, kind of like the impressions left in the carpet from vacuuming. The swirling pattern in the pile will soon disappear after some normal foot traffic and vacuumings occur. We clean several thousand sq ft of carpet each week and the swirl patterns haven't been a problem with our customers. Yet if swirling is ever a big concern you could rake the carpet while it's still wet. But that would be a pain.

I actually like the swirl marks. I started out in business with a full janitorial business in 82. In the early years we did office cleaning (soon switched to just floor & carpet care). I used Sanitaire commercial vacuums to vacuum the offices. I always made certain that there were distinct markings in the pile from the vacuuming. I wanted the customer to open the door the following morning and immediately see that we had been there. I guess I'm still partial to that idea, because I like to see the Cimex swirl patterns for the same reason. I've even heard customers say that they LIKE the pattern it leaves behind.


Rick Gelinas