I have cleaned a very large car dealership ever since it opened 3+ years ago and for some reason three spots in the service lobby always come back. I used to HWE it and tried every chemical I could on it. They still would always come back in a couple of weeks. When we got the Cimex/Releasit 2 years ago we started cleaning it with that. I was there again last night and the same three spots were there again. We clean this place every three to four months and so I have tried everything I can think of. What is amazing to me is that these spots still come back with Releasit. No other spots are able to survive the releasit. Originally, the spots started out as drink spills. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Kevin Pearson

Kevin,
Try this, treat stain using the releasit method, then spray CTI's ARA (Anti Resoil Agent) on it. Otherwise, you may have to take up that part of the carpet, if possible, clean the subfloor and backing, dry it, reinstall and reclean the spot. It probable is a glue down & you will have to cut & replace the piece. You may have to take a piece from a hidden area i.e. closet or under file cabinet if you cannot clean the original piece. There is a way to do it so that it is not noticable. See if anyone you know is certified in carpet repair.

Kevin,

If the spots are not too large, try using stain magic with a steam iron. You probably know the method but if you don't I can let you know. Releasit is unbelivable for recurring spots, but I use stain magic as my next defense...I hate having to remove stuff from carpets so stain magic suits me well.

Bob.

The spots go away when I clean them though, then reappear in the same area a week or two later.

Kevin,

I have a carpet cleaning laboratory in my house called the family room. The first time I HWE'd it I did a lousy job and soaked it. I could swear that spots appeared that I didn't see before. One area in particular I really hit hard and thought the spot I caused was browning. I used a browning treatment (awful fumes) to no avail. The next time I attempted to clean the family room carpet I was much more experienced. The carpet is middle of the road cut pile light green...Well, those spots appeared again! That was last summer. I began to think....what about my customer's carpets?

I decided to clean them again. HWE....This time I did a perfect job!!!!! The spots came back...and I followed all IICRC processes with the best chemicals on the market???

There were about 15 spots that I could see. Most people may not notice them, but I am supposed to be a professional...I decided that Stain Magic may be the answer. I sprayed the Stain Magic on each spot and systematically steamed them out with the iron. I even dried the areas with a hair drier...It worked great, but the process was absolutely ridiculous!

Not long after that I decided to use a sample of CTI Brush 'n Bonnet I had received on my brother's house (9 kids, tan carpet). Unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I discovered ENCAP. I researched the technology and discovered Rick's site and Releasit and how to actually make carpets clean vs. just cleaning carpets (as someone said on this board).

I'm long here and I've rewritten this a couple times, and will get to my point....I think it's the moisture. I compare residue (in solution) in a carpet to salt water in the ocean. When the salt water evaporates, the salt gets left behind. The residue in the carpet gets left at the surface when the water (H2O only) evaporates. Everyone knows this but it is the key to everything....The spots I treated with Stain Magic did not come back because of the great properties of CTI’s product, but also because of the low moisture and fast drying.

Now I ENCAP everything. Releasit is great! But some spots cannot be removed (and are not meant to be removed) by Releasit. My step two is Stain Magic with the iron. If you get a stain out with Stain Magic and the iron, you know it won't come back! The reason is the low moisture! If it's a spill, maybe I would mist a little 50/50 over it after the Stain Magic treatment. Of course, Stain Magic cannot get everything out either and other "stain treatments" may be necessary. I like the ones that don't require rinsing and extraction aka MORE MOISTURE...

Getting back to my family room...Last Christmas a kid spilled a can of Sprite on the family room carpet...12 oz to the floor...I didn't find out until a couple hours later....Confident me soakled up all I could with one of my white towells, sprayed Releasit DS 4oz/gal on it, agitated it and went to bed. Don't even know where the spill is now! I think I may just HWE again to find out where it is!

One last thought. Someone talked about amonia a couple weeks ago...did you ever try it?

You are a guru but I hope this helps.

Bob

Kevin,

I read your post again and found it was most likely a drink spill. Now I really think the Stain Magic approcach would work, and with future cleanings, limt the moisture in the areas where soda is to the floor.

Or even 50/50 with a scrub brush

Bob

Good suggestions above.

CTI Stain Magic is a great product for "Stain" removal. However in most cases drink spills create recurring spots as opposed to stains. With the excpetion of dye stains from drinks that can leave a stain. However the typical soft drink - coffee spill is going to be knocked out with the steps outlined below. And since Kevin can make the spot disappea,r and then it comes back later indicates that it's not a stain but rather a spot.

CTI ARA is a great product too. I used it for a couple of years in our cleaning business. Then I discovered that we could get similar results using concentrated Releasit.

Since we can assume that it's not a stain... I think that the recurring spot can be treated with the normal spill stain method.

How To Eliminate a Recurring Spill Stain:
1. First. Scrub the spot for at least 60 seconds (scrub for 2-3 minutes if the spot is a tough one). Scrub it with next to no moisture in the pad (practically zero moisture). So you're scrubbing the daylights out of that spot with MINIMAL moisture. I will normally scrub a circle around the spot with the Cimex first, leaving the spot bone dry. Then I'll run the machine over a section of dry carpet for a few seconds to dry out the pads. Then without squeezing the solution valve, I'll criss-cross over the spot for a minute or more as outlined above.
2. Next. Spray a few good mists of concentrated Releasit Encap-Clean onto the area using a trigger sprayer. The concentrate is mixed 1/3 if you're using Encap-Clean DS, and it's 50/50 if you're using regular strength Encap-Clean.
3. Final step. Work the concentrated Releasit down into the fiber by running the machine across the spot one last time.

This process works perfectly just about 100% of the time, if it is performed to the letter. You must scrub intensely with minimal moisture first. Then apply the concentrated Releasit. Then work the concentrated Releasit down into the fiber. The fluoro-chemical retards the wicking process during drying, and the concentrated polymer crystallizes any spill residue remaining at the base of the carpet. BaddaBing-BaddaBoom the recurring spot is gone for good. Even if the carpet is cleaned later with HWE, the spot won't reappear.

The rare exception of a spot coming back only occurs when one of our techs get sloppy and doesn't follow these instructions carefully; or in the case of some kind of crazy residue that's down in the carpet. And if you've already followed these steps (as I suspect you have Kevin) then you probably have some kind of crazy residue. Possibly some type of spotter was used by the building occupants that's tenaciously hard to remove. Simply put, if the process outlined above doesn't work, there has gotta be something crazy going on, cuz this process WORKS without exception on recurring spills.




Rick Gelinas
encapman

You are right Rick I have tried the recurring spot treatment with the Releasit. I think you hit the nail on the head. The janitor crew probably put something on it that I can not remove. I encapped it again this time with the new Encap-Punch and kept the moisture down so I will let you know how it goes.

Kevin Pearson