I know encapsulation is a great method,but is it the be all and end all?

At what point, or in what circumstances do you think it would be better to HWE? I am talking commercial cleaning.

You could use HWE whenever the carpet is so plugged full of soil that you deem that flushing would be beneficial.

That being said, we run 3 Cimex machines on 100% of our commercial accounts. That's all. Sure I still own a handful of various extractors. But we're not needing to use them in our business. We're seeing that the Cimex/Releasit system is delivering adequate results for all of the accounts we maintain.

Yet I'm still planning that someday there's gonna be the exception. And that's why we hold on to those extractors. I just know one day we'll need them for something. And in fact I have needed to use them two times in the past year for minor contamination jobs (i.e. sewer back-up / I don't do major water-damage).

But we keep waiting for the carpet that needs more than the Cimex/Releasit system can deliver. I'm not saying that the need for HWE will never come - the need just hasn't arisen yet. And I'm guessing that it might not arise any time soon




Rick Gelinas

im an Encap noob, but i will have a good test soon. a local high-end restaurant that specializes in prime rib called me up on my free demo offer. they have an olefin that the owner says just grabs grease off of the customers shoes as they walk in...i am guessing he has tried HWE but hasnt been pleased...i'll keep yall posted, i am nervous cause i've read that Encap isnt the best on grease build-up, but we'll see

thanx --- Derek.

I don't have THE answer, but I do have AN answer.

My son has been maintaining a very large church for some 5 years, monthly, alternating HWE and bonneting. Last November, when I did, he also did switch to encapping with Releasit.

Just before Easter, the building manager insisted on HWE for that month (20,000 sq ft to do).

Ok, too big for him to do in the time alloted, so I helped. I gotta say, the dirty waste water was about the same as when it was HWE each month. (Not much, but certainly some- they have about 10,000 people in there each Sunday and activities all week long, including a school and day care)

So... what's my point- it appears HWE is NOT better in this circumstance, it cost a lot more to the customer than encapping, there was absolutely no difference in appearance between the clean and dirty carpet, only where it was damp was visible where I had been and not yet. The carpet was dry where I started before I finished cleaning, and no difference in appearance to the adjacent carpet that was not cleaned- (encapped last time there)

So... I give an opinion- not asked for, but here it is- I would imagine, Rick, that if you HWE any of the carpets you have encapped for some considerable time, yes, you would get some soil in your waste tank, but the kind and amount would be about the same as if that carpet had been HWE the prior time.

Gary

We did do a store the other afternoon that sells fireplaces and gas grills. This is one of the few places that the cimex wouldn't clean. We last cleaned this store about 3 years ago though. We had to prespray and then run the fiber plus pads over the carpet first, which helped out a whole lot, and then hwe with truckmount.

While I'm sure your probably right Rick about eventually needing to extract, I had an interesting situation happen awhile back.

I was delivering a new Cimex/Releasit system in Regina, Saskathewan (that's up in Canada for all you rednecks)a while back. While I was there, he line up a very dirty light blue carpet to clean so that I could show him the proper way to use the system. Anyways, we prevaced the carpet really well to the point that we didn't get any more sound from sand and stones coming up the pipe. We then proceeded to clean the carpet. Needless to say, as usual, the carpet came out wonderfully. But as the new guy was practicing with the Cimex, I decided to just try vacuuming a small area that had just been cleaned even thought it wasn't quite dry yet. Wouldn't you know it, but it sounded like you had stuck your vacuum hose into a sand pit. When I parted the fibres, you couldn't find a whole lot of impacted soils in the carpet anymore.

This job was a long time client of the new guys and he had previously extracted the carpet numerous times with a Steamway Powermatic (no slouch of a machine) and he could always find a lot of soil in the base of the carpet from impacted soils.

My theory on why this happens is two fold:

1. Because of the nature of the Fiber Plus pads and they really work the carpet, they loosen up a lot of the impacted soils.

2. Because of the nature of the Releasit encapsulant, it also places the polymer on a lot of that impacted soild and then allows it to be more readily vacuumed away.

So it's not just a matter of what your system directly removes from the carpet, but also, what the system allows you vacuuming to do in the future.

So in some ways I tend to feel that maybe sometimes you truly can do a better job of actually cleaning by using the Cimex/Releasit system.

Rick Thode
Clean Effects Supply
cleaneffects@telus.net

I own one of the newer more powerful truck mounts on the market today. When cleaning commerical carpet I don't have a wicking problem, with the previous machine I owned I did.

No one system is perfect, but I have been very impressed with encap and the cimex. It is very cost effective, easy to train people, and enviromentally friendly. When cleaning commerical carpet, the only place I didn't like the performance of the cimex was with commerical carpet with a low face weight. This carpet I rinse with an encap product every 3rd time, water is filthy.

I did do a couple of cut pile nylon carpets, the first one I did I didn't like the results, The next one, I went over it with shampoo brushes first, then switched to FP Pads and made a dry pass. This to me came out looking more acceptable.

The salesman at the TM store laughed at me when I told him I had bought a cimex. Said it wouldn't deep clean the carpet. I asked him about the RX20 and Dri Master tools he was selling. One creates a wicking problem the other only clean the top half of the carpet, these where his words from previous conversations.

I asked him to explain to me now why encap cleaning isn't an acceptable cleaning process. He couldn't. I tell him I have to sell myself everyday, I have heard and used every line in the book, just like he has. This time it came back to bite him. This guy is also a friend, so we can talk to each other a little differently.

I think encap is ok, if it was shampoo brushes only I wouldn't use it, but the FP Pads are what makes it go.