I'll be doing a new commercial account next week. It's the first one I've seen with carpeted stairs so I ordered the soft bristle brush from Rick for the portable drill to encapsulate the steps. Has anyone used it? If so, what technique works best on a very low cut pile nylon carpet with flatten fibers from foot traffic. Also, how long should it take to do each step if just moderately soiled? The carpet is a dark navy blue.
I've had my cimex for about a year now and am getting great results with customers telling me, "I've never seem my carpt this clean before." I'm definitely sold on encapsulation. Thanks for your help.

Bill, Pacific Carpet Care

i have one of those bristled brushes and they take awhile for steps...only used it once, results were OK. i prefer the results i get with my Host machine....you can use a GLS if you have that to. others use a Oreck Orbitor.

maybe someone has used it more and can tell you better.

thanx --- Derek.

Like Derek I used mine once and didn't have very good results. But the stairs were filthy and even with hot water extraction we had to towel down all of the stairs twice to get them clean. But they finally did come clean.

Since all I clean is commercial I don't clean many stairs but the next time I do I bought a cheap buffer for waxing cars (I forgot the name brand $20.00) at walmart and put some velcro on the bottom to attach a white floor pad or a cotton type pad for absorbing the soil. Hopefully I'll get better,faster results with this next time.
Jeff Cutshall

I worked from small small bucket and used pad from Cimex to clean stairs.

George Barnett
Owner: G & G Services
HydroTech Representative
www.webnow.com/HydroTech

Like george I use a doodle bug pad and a bucket for stairs, really aint to bad. easy to get the lips clean that way.

Brian

Go to Sears. Buy a $20 Craftsman 6" orbital polisher. Slice off the foam
head all the way down to the plastic base. Using a good quality glue,
glue on a 6" circle of heavy-duty velcro. The cut a FiberPlus pad down to the
same size and stick it to the velcro. The dirtier the stair, the more
Releasit you want to spray down. Scrub for maybe a minute or so, pushing down
the outer edge of the pad into the carpet fibers where it is the dirtiest.
You're done in maybe a minute or so per stair. I charge 3.50 per stair for
normal width stairs; more for wide ones.

We do something similar. I tried the orbital but it was too much for my wittle hands. We took a pad driver for a 15" Cimex and ran a 1/2" bolt through the center with washers and a nut. Put an 8" carpet bonnet on it and put it in our 19.2 volt battery drill. I like it better than pads. I have never tried RG's brush. But I have tried one like it from Hesco and me no like.

the Hesco one is what i tried to Dave...i think it may be more practical on some upholstery.

thanx --- Derek.

I used the brush last night on 37 stairs, and I was using a dewalt 18v cordless. I was doing fine until my bateries wore out........lol. I think that the brush would do wonderful on uph or car seats, but it is too small for stairs. I going to sears right now.... Tom

Bill, I use the Oreck Orbitor with the 12" FiberPlus Pads from Rick. It works well. I like the pivoting head of the machine, standing on the step above the one I am cleaning works great and the pivoting head lets me really scrub the nose. I use a towel to clean the risers. It normally takes me a little over a minute per step.

I also have the ROTA Drill Brush that Rick sells and use it on some of the sturdy upholstery cleanings. It works well but have to watch the splatter from the spinning brush LOL.

Rich

Thanks so much for all your suggestions. Now I know to ask first before buying. I do have an orbital car polisher, but didn't think to use it until I read Mark and Jeff's comments. I guess I'll just save the drill brush for uph and car seats as Tom suggested.
This is a great BB. Often I've had a question answered by someone else's post before I had a chance to enter it myself.

i agree Bill, this and the other forums linked up above are GREAT assets to the CC'ing community!

thanx Rick for the great forum!

be safe fellas --- Derek.

If you showed up with an electric drill with a brush attachment to clean my carpets, I would send you packing. Yea it works but I would get something more professional looking than a drill.