A while back the previous owner of my company did an office carpet with disasterous results. The lady always used a steam cleaner with excellent results, but being in the same networking group gave his Encap a try. Well the rug looked good for the first two hours, then black splotches started to appear. He returned three times with no relief. She had it steam cleaned again with no results either. The carpet was ruined. Well just the other day she replaced the carpet just as i was going to take a peak at the damage. Apparently under the carpet was tile, that was held down with a black "tar". this "tar" seaped outof the tile and was obviously the reason for the spots. My question is, has anyone had this type of reaction using the Encap? Why didnt the steam cleaning cause the same reaction? Any ideas? Luckily she didnt use our insurance for the new $3,000 carpet that the Encap system most certainly destroyed!

If anybody was able to do that kind of damage with an encap product they'd have to be complete morons working with some very odd chemistry. To do what you described, they'd first of all need to wet the carpet all the way through to the backing. And then their encap detergent would have to be capable of penetrating between the cracks of the VCT tile and dissolving the mastic under the tile. This would equate to some serious solvency. The situation you described seems like a mighty far stretch for encap cleaning; something here doesn't add up.




Rick Gelinas
encapman

I agree, it's all about depth.

One of those unfortunate problems with being self-employeed. There are no easy fixes; skilled observations get the best results.

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

I will agree with Rick. I suspect that this is a problem that has benn getting worse while hidden from view. Traffic, moisture from previous wet cleanings and many other factors may have contributed. Unfortunately for this cleaner, his encap cleaning was just the last straw. The long hidden problem was revealed after his cleaning.

Scott Warrington

Scott Warrington
Tech support Bridgepoint & Interlink Supply

There were cracks in the tile, and parts where there were no tile at all, with just tar exposed. I dont know if that makes a difference!

was this a glue down or stretched in carpet???

I suspect that excessive moisture, combined with heat and chemical, over time has liquified the tar.

Vaccum would have drawn it to the surface, also capillary action, similar to wicking.

Encap; has cleaned the carpet of the surface soiling and the liquifies tar has then continued it's capillary action to the face of the fibres, where it was more readily noticed on the clean fibres.

Strange though that the underlay (pad), did not stop this, if there was any.

It would have to be gross operator error for encapsulation to be the sole cause of this problem in my view.

That's my two bob's worth anyway.

Cheers,

Shorty.

"It would have to be gross operator error for encapsulation to be the sole cause of this problem in my view."

How? Something way wrong there. It was hwe after encap to try and correct? With no results?



Greg Loe
Chico,Ca
www.gregs-ucs.com

This wasn't a problem caused by Encap, it was a problem caused by wetting. Encap was the straw that broke camel's back. IMHO