Had a heavily soilded carpet. Thought I would bonnet with Procyon and Citus Solv (to help extract some of the soil)then use Releasit and my Cimex (immediately after). Carpet looked good when finished, but terrible the next day. Comments please.... Will running the mex and Releasit over it fix the problem?

My guess is that the Citrus Solvent and Procyon gummed up the crystallization process. Crystallizing polymer chemistry is sensitive to the introduction of other chemicals. It's also possible that the carpet was holding more moisture than was necessary and wicking occurred. Using multiple cleaners with multiple wetting agents can add to this problem.

Now that the carpet is dry you can re-clean with Releasit and it should correct the condition. Releasit does a good job of encapsulation dried chem residues that have accumulated in the carpet. Keep your moisture low too, you only need to dispense enough Releasit to see a very light smooth whitening on the surface of the carpet.

A good thing to keep in mind when cleaning a heavily soiled commercial carpet is to make additional passes. Agitation plays a big part! And if you're using a Cimex the agitation factor is huge. So be sure that you make extra dry passes to bring more agitation into the cleaning process.

Another consideration would be is it BROWNING that you're seeing? What was the color of the backing of the carpet? Is the backing black, brown, gray, or white? Anything other than white (the color of latex) can present you with problems. If the backing is not white, this indicates that the carpet is plugged with dry soil. A thorough job with a pile lifter and a good commercial vacuum cleaner will help somewhat. You can also add a little acid to Releasit which will help to overcome the browning. And keep the moisture down during cleaning and increase airflow by using fan.

I hope this helps.




Rick Gelinas
encapman

I believe you are correct and what I'm seeing is browning. How much acid rinse should I mix per gallon of mixed Releasit and water?

Learned my lesson on really dirty commercial carpet. Don't walk slow, just make those extra passes like Rick says.

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

Add enough acid to bring the pH down to 5. With citric acid powder, we only need to use a rounded tablespoon per 3 gallon bucket.




Rick Gelinas
encapman

where do you order your citric acid?

thanx --- D.

I've got an old jar of it that I've had hanging around for quite a few years. Several of the chemical companies have citric acid in their product lines.

Here's a site that has a reasonable price on citric acid...

http://www.viable-herbal.com/services/bulk/bulkio.htm




Rick Gelinas
encapman

Is an acid rinse required when using releasit? I thought that one benefit with encapsulation was that no acid rinse was required after the agitation phase.

Regards
George

You're right George, acid is not normally needed with encapsulation. Releasit alone will normally blow away any typical soil load that you may encounter in most commercial carpets. Guess that's why I've still got this same old jar of citric acid hanging around that I've had for years now. My guys may use some citric acid once or twice a year. The only time we might possibly see a need to use it is in the setting described above - browning caused by deeply impacted dry soil lodged down in the backing. This type of soil that can plug the backing of a carpet is by and large "earth" and is therefore cellulosic in nature. So treating these carpets for cellulosic browning does the trick. Like I said, it's a rare exception when we run into one of these problem browners where we may need to use an acid. But using the acid is a cool trick that might just save the day for you if you ever run into a situation like this.




Rick Gelinas
encapman

i'm confused, but i'm not that smart in the chemistry dept.

if a carpet has impacted soil which causes browning as you describe, isn't soil (dirt) a low pH (acid)? so adding more acid (citric in this case) would make the problem worse wouldn't it? wouldn't a higher pH (alkaline) neutralize this type of browning??

thanx --- Derek.

Derek,

Simply put, acid's will correct cellulosic browning. And in the situation described above, lowering the pH to about 5 will fix the browning problem. Dirt from natural earth material largely consists of decomposed celluolosic plant life. So for this situation adding a little acid to the mix works.



Rick Gelinas
encapman