I was trying to get a residential job to do encapsulation, and I was explaining to the lady how encapsulation works.
Her question was that, after the carpet dries, and before she had the chance to vacuum, it is hazardous for her baby when crawl on the carpet and breath the crystals? I had no answer to that. I wanted to say, well, vacuum quick, just kidding, but what is the answer??

Chris, you're supposed to shrink back in horror when she says that....

"Ma'am, we bring in the worlds finest encapsulation technology, with trained operators, using Spotless Cimex machinery, and then you have the poor taste to allow a BABY to crawl all over our spotlessly cleaned, flawlessly perfect carpet while it's still trying to focus on crystallization? You will RUIN our process, Ma'am!! Don't you know how germy and dirty babies are? You have no idea where they've been and what they've got all over their dirty little feets!!! A BABY!! What were you thinking, Ma'am?? Really!!!"

After that, she won't dare ask you any more questions.

I don't have laboratory data to offer you Chris. But this I can say - there's considerably less potential for exposure to hazardous agents in the carpet than there was when the child was crawling on the carpet before you cleaned it. Encapsulating the soil within a polymeric wrapping reduces exposure to soil.

I'm sure you know that there's no such thing as a totally clean carpet since it's impossible to remove all the soil with any method. If the mother wants to ultimately protect her baby she will need to get it to stop crawling on the floor altogether (just kidding). But you can see what I'm saying. There's simply no way to provide a totally sanitary carpet. We can only IMPROVE conditions through cleaning.

Babies crawling on residential carpet is a good reason to provide HWE cleaning for residential since it can flush a lot of the contaminants out of the carpet. Residential carpet cleans up well with HWE in most cases, whereas commercial carpet often falls short with HWE. Commercial carpets typically clean up better with encap. So each method has its place.



Rick Gelinas

come on Rick, quit being so careful. lol

i personally do encap on residential where young babies live... the difference is that i speed dry the carpet, and then vac before i leave. if that isn't safe enough, then Rick ought to quit selling it (don't do it Rick! i was only kidding).

Forrest,

I would probably also be doing a lot residential with encap if I were cleaning residential carpet.

But please understand my position here Forrest. As the man who is promoting a cleaning method to the entire industry, I feel obligated to do it in the most responsible way that I can. As soon as you give a green light, folks will invariably come back and say "but you said it's o.k. to do it that way". So I'd rather give a yellow light where caution is advisable. If you're seeing good results then I'll leave it to you to determine what you're comfortable with



Rick Gelinas

personally, I use encap on my rentals, and commercial, When I do my own house, I HWE and post bonnet.
I don't do any residential carpets except for friends.

Brian

This is an old topic, and the best advise is to not have children crawl on the wet carpet no matter what cleaning system is used, also tell your client that she could encounter the same problems again no matter which cleaning system is used. There is always something left in the carpet and vacuuming is important as soon after the carpet drys as possible.
Encap cleaning is meant for commercial cleaning going into residential you will be faced with explaining more about where the soil goes etc. and it is hard to convince a home owner that this is a better system than a truckmount system that extracts the contaminates to the outside environment.

All methods are tools to be used in their respective places.
Encap in commercials. HWE, pad and OP in residentials.

IMHO.
But hey, what ever works for you. LOL

Happy Holidays guys.

Dob

Steve Dobson
ProFloor
Custom Cleaning Services