I know Rick has stated on several occations he feels that encap is better suited for commercial than residential. My question is this?

If both environments have nylon (80%+) carpets, whats the diff??

I say that the residential environment requires ALOT more dry soil removal for encap to be successful, and I find that educating the customer to the importance of them doing regular vacuuming helps too.

Ref

PS I have my 12 year old daughter help me during the summer, and I have let her run the host machine with no problems. She ran the Cimex today for the first time at a retirerment home also, and although she had a good head of foam in some spots, she did just fine. I say GLS for residential, Cimex for commercial.

Danny,

Since I started my business in 1982, we've been a commercial company. I dabbled with residential a little, and then went back to commercial only. So commercial is what I'm most comfortable with. I know commercial, so I feel well qualified to use and recommend what I know works.

There are reasons why I feel encap is better suited for commercial carpeting. The average family room contains dog/cat hair and dander, make-up, skin oils, toenails, dog oils, urine, vomit, beer, wine, juice, pizza droppings, scrambled eggs, ice cream, cookies, cake, potato chips, oil from the garage, etc. Obviously the commercial carpet is exposed to a lot of soil too. But I think the average house carpet normally gets a wider variety and a larger quantity of trash embedded in it. Also the average Saxony carpet is much thicker than a commercial glued down carpet. So there's a lot more room for the garbage to hide. I have said before that I think it’s too much to expect a filthy Saxony carpet with this type of a soil load to be encapsulated. It's more than I feel comfortable expecting a polymer to accomplish.

On the other hand the average commercial carpet is designed to withstand high traffic and still look good and clean up well. The typical soiling that comprises most of the commercial carpeting is mainly tracked in soil including some oily residue as well as spill stains. Encapsulation rocks for this type of soiling. Decent vacuuming and encapsulation can maintain a commercial carpet beautifully over an extended period of time.

But if you’re seeing that encapsulation works in a residential setting – that’s great. If encap can handle this well, then I’m obviously not giving it enough credit. As a rule I generally prefer to err on the side of caution. But hey, I’m always open to new possibilities. If encap proves to be able to handle residential carpet too that will be awesome.

So how is it going for you on residential? Are you seeing consistently good results? What types of soil loads are acceptable? How are your customers liking it? What’s your average production speed? Enquiring minds want to know. Thanks!


Rick Gelinas

If a home has all that "embedded" in the carpet, chances are they could care less about paying a professional to clean it. $69 whole house special gets those, and the only bag for the vacuum is the one that came with it from Wal Mart!

I have gone back to clean several rentals that I encapped and found them in good shape, spills mostly on the surface came right out. I have a couple friends who's carpet I clean about every 60 days with encap. They have kids and pets, lots of spills, but they vacuum almost daily, so that is my best test bed.

I don't think it's whats dropped on the carpet as much as if it's vacuumed properly that will determine success in the residential encap market. I ask about the vacuuming schedule for the house and tell them why it's important to do so regularly since we will use encap to clean with.

Ref

We use encapsulate in all our residetial(VLM) with great results. Chemstractor with our dirt napper/with vac ring works great and looks great in front of customer...beats slinging a rag! (customer perception)

The only time I encapsulate residential is on stairs and some move outs. It does an awesome job on the steps and is quite easy. Encapsulation rules on commercial jobs!