but I recently cimexed the halls and main meeting room of a real estate office and they were delighted with the results. I, however, was not ecstatic. The meeting room looked great and all major spots were gone, but the halls still showed the traffic pattern in places. Could I have goofed and not have noticed that some areas were a little more soiled than others. I know, I know, I'm probably being too much a perfectionist. I just don't understand how the traffic pattern could show up faintly in some areas of the hallways and not others after cimexing. Has anyone experienced this or should I just forget since the customer was very pleased ?

Thanks,

Bill

Sometimes when I clean, I will look at different angles to see if I can spot a pattern. On traffic areas, I will go over it a couple of times to really work it in.

Joe

Bill

I’m glad to hear your customer was happy, that’s always a nice start. With regards to the traffic areas; is it that it still looks dirty to you or are you seeing that the fibers are just a little more worn or scratched? And have you gotten a chance to look at it after it was dry & post vacuumed?

David Gelinas

I'm assuming that you pre-vacuumed well before cleaning. Keep in mind that the majority of the soil hiding in the carpet is dry soil.

Dave has a valid point that the traffic area is also a wear area. Worn fiber can be damaged, scratched, abraded. If this is the case it will reflect light differently than the rest of the carpet. The carpet may also be more crushed/compacted in the traffic lane too.

Aside from the possibility of wear, I'd do as Joe suggested above. In dirtier areas I make additional passes. Making a few scrubbing passes in heavily soiled areas will normally bring nice results. On really heavily soiled carpets we'll also pre-spray with Encap-Punch, which helps to suspend the soil and provides some dwell time.

If the carpet is plugged full of soil there may be instances where HWE flushing would be a good idea to pump the high volume of crud from the carpet prior to implementing an encap program. Another alternative would be to do some post-bonneting to pull off some additional soil. The bonnets for the Cimex are just the ticket for jobs where you see a need to extract some extra soil http://www.excellent-supply.com/store/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=5&idproduct=3

Hope this gives you a few ideas.





Rick Gelinas
encapman

I followed the link to some Encap bonnets, its sounds interesting and useful if it is for what i think it is...use the usual chemicals to encapsulate and just bonnet with no extraction? Anyone have a better description of its use?

Thanks for the help. I think you're right - next time I'll first cimex the center traffic pattern treating it as moderately to heavily soiled then do the edges as lightly soiled. By the way, they want me back after the holidays to do all the offices. God, I love Cimexing !!

Bill

Bill - starting with the traffic areas may make sense.

For really dirty areas, even with the Cimex, you still may have to do some areas twice.

We promise customers if they aren't happy, we'll come back. It rarely happens anymore, but occasionally a second cleaning really does make that final difference. Might as well do it while you're there, and save yerself the extra driving.

For the few times that we do have to come back the next day, customers feel sorta shy about asking. When we don't charge extra or give them an emotional hard time, they are in a state of shock. Most don't abuse the privilege, but the few who do we just decide they're too expensive to have as customers down the road and let them go.