A store I do monthly, usually by bonnet, alternating with tm steam system, tonight I did with the encap system.

They have a very special walk off mat, blue nylon with their logo in white embedded in it. This walk off mat is usually filthy, I bring it in to my rug plant and wash it. Fully saturated, scrub it, usually 3 to 5 times, with a rinse between the scrubbings, final rinse and hang up to dry.

OK, I had some encap formula left after the job, enough to do this walk off mat. Shampoo it, and hang it up to dry.

From an appearance standpoint, it looks every bit as good as after several washings and rinses.

Time to clean it, maybe 3 or 4 minutes, instead of about 15 to 20 minutes. The amount of water used- negligable, probably about a quart or so, instead of about 50 gallons. My cost of product- maybe 10 cents- I have not calculated it.

Now, tomorrow, when it is dry, I am gonna wash it, and see if I get a lot of dirt that has been encapped, or something. Watch this space for chapter 2.

Gary

Gary,

I have a BUSY shoe store that has a colorful nylon entry mat with their logo too. It goes from dingy muted colors to POW bright every time. Whodathunkit?




Rick Gelinas

So I take down the mat today. Totally dry, of course.

Appearance was good- the same as when hung up.
(No browning or discoloration.)

The pile was stiff as a board. Like a new toothbrush. Hmmm... The pile is about 1/4 or 3/8 inches long, cut pile, like a Saxony. I was a bit surprised to find this.

Ok, sometimes when pile is stiff, it softens up with a vacuuming. I intended to vac it anyway before washing it. After vacuuming, that softened it up just fine.

OK, it's good to have something a person can test, and for a LOT of years, I have used these mats for testing machines, chemicals and techniques, because I have 2 in my hands a month, every month. (2 stores, each done monthly)

So, I decided at this point to bonnet it, and then I can see the bonnet, if there is soil on it or not.

Yep, some soil on the bonnet. I figure it is the case that you can ALWAYS get more soil- from any carpet with ANY second go. Not much soil though, but enough to see. No change in the appearance, which means that the encapping got MOST of the soils, which was to be expected.

OK, so now I hang it up again, and rinse it with the garden hose, and watch the drain area to see if the water is dirty- or not.

Hmmm... as far as I can tell, nothing in that water as it goes away. I had a fairly close look by the drain, and the floor was clearly visible, just like clear water would be, not like dirty water that comes from any freshly washed rug.

A litle foam coming off the mat as it is rinsed, which showed there WAS some detergent in it that is now being rinsed away. There is no way to tell if the foam was coming from the residue of the bonnet solution applied to it a few minutes before, or from the encap detergent.

Oh yeah, before I vacuumed it, when I noticed the pile being stiff, I parted the tufts to see if there was any visible dirt on the sides of the tufts, or down in the backing, and if I could see the crystals that had encapped the dirt. I did not use a microscope, just bare eyeballs. Nothing to see. Perfectly clean to the naked eye.

At Winterfest in January this year, when Rick put on a demo of encapping, I did look through a microscope, and at that demo, there was nothing to see through a microscope on the cleaned area, but plenty dirt visible in the uncleaned areas.

So... encapping DOES work, pretty much as advertised, I am convinced.

Now my only question is- do all cut pile rugs/carpets dry stiff? Does anybody else have experience with cut pile rugs and encapping?

I am gonna try this again with the next rug I get in, whatever the pile is- I have none on hand at the moment.

Gary

Which Encap Chem did you use?

I've Encapped our living room many times, heck I've cleaned it so many times with so many different things it's amazing there's any carpet left after all that scrubbing and rubbing. When I encap it I usually use Whittakers Crystal Dry.

But anyway,...my Girlfriend says the carpet feels softer after encapping with the GLS than it has felt with anything else so far. (The next softest was hwe with the RX-20.)

BTW, she also likes the speed, and ease of the cleaning compared to HWE/OP'ing/Bonnet/Host.

I used Releasit.

I also did a job today in a residence with it. the hallway and 2 kid's bedrooms were commercial loop on a pad, perfect for encapping. she also has a wool berber oin her Family room that gets a lot of use, spills, and soils.

Thinking that the suggested dilution 8 ounces of Releasit to a gallon of water, might contribute to the stiffness of the mat- I am not sure about that, so I diluted at 4 ounces of concentrate to a gallon of water.

This customer is a pretty steady customer, I go there for something about every 3 months- different rooms usually. I told her I was trying something new, and keep an eye on it, and if there was any problems to call me, and I would come and fix any problems at no charge. She was fine with that.

Gary

I have been telling my customers that it is a form of shampooing and explain the technology. I also ask them to call me if there are any concerns. I often call them 2-3 days latter as a conformation for myself that i'm doing good work.

i know alot of cleaners think there's a difference in commercial v residential, but my feeling is nylon is nylon, oly is oly and good cleaning procedures will get it all clean.

Ref

What about dilution ratios? Do you use the same 8 oz per gallon- more- less?

The 4 ounces I used today seemed to do the job just fine as far as appearance is concerned.

Gary

Been using 4 ounces per gallon on 99% of our jobs ever since trying this cleaning method, have been more than pleased with the results, the only time we use 8 ounces is on jobs that are thrashed out.