I got one, yahoooo.

House job, low loop berber type. Don't know the fiber type and neither does the cust.

One coffee stain, one soda stain. She has no hot water on site(her water heater busted a few days back).

So this will be a cold water job.

Will be using the challenger doing op with Ricks encap Punch.

What can I expect?

I am a little nervous as this is my first job doing a resi.

Any advise please.

Don't be nervous!! it's a cinch, I clean resi Berber
every week. I use encap ds. Coffee and soda should not be a problem. Mix a spotting bottle with half encap and half hot water before you get to the job. Any tough stains this will do the trick.

As far as no hot water... Why not bring your own. I always
do. I get two or Three 5 gallon buckets from home depot. Fill with the hottest water I can put the lids on and head off to the job. I put encap in the buckets as I go .. not to waste any of this precious stuff. Good luck



Ralph

OR........better yet, use your pump up sprayer(s) (if you have one) to carry your mix. If it/they are the metal ones, they should hold the heat rather well.

Another good idea could be to introduce yourself to the neighbor, offer a discount for a future service, and use a few gallons of their water if they'll let ya. I did this when we started. We only had a porty, and had a h*ll of time getting water/elec occasionally. For that matter, offer to clean a room for free, I'm sure you're still gonna profit due to the RTU cost of chemicals being next to nothing. Not to mention you're in another house showing whatcha got!

Fortunately, I have a truckmount that i can carry 110 gallons of hot water with. In this area, 85% of my residential work is due to a rental move out. (No Electricity, no water)

Hope this helps

Aaron

For thirty bucks you can get a bucket heater...may not help now, but in the future! Has come in handy for those jobs with no hot water avail.

No worries, Encap-Punch will work just fine with cold water. Not an issue.

Joe,you need a bucket heater along with your 5 gallon buckets.fill with cold water,set up heater.While that is going go and do your prevac so that by the time you are finished vacuuming your water will be nice and heated.In my experience,Punch is more effective with HOT water versus warm.
Patrick

You should ALWAYS know the fiber type you are cleaning- not only to prevent damage or complications of cleaning- browning, shrinkage, etc- but to also impress your clients with being a professional cleaner. If you get sued just one time and have to go into court and tell the judge you don't know what fiber you were cleaning that's all she wrote.



Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

But how much damage can be done with VLM cleaning. Is it something that I really have to worry about that much?

Am I really going to shrink a carpet by wetting it that much?

That is sort of the reason I started in VLM type cleaning to avoid these type problems.

Now how many of you guys really do a burn test?

Am I missing something here, is it something I need to do?

Thanks

Joe,

Here's an idea or two that will help you simplify the identification of a couple of your more common fiber types...

Snip off a tuft of fiber and drop it into a cup of water. If it floats, it's olefin. Olefin is the low cost leader of carpet sales so it's very common today (especially in cheaper Berber carpets). All other fiber will sink. And if it sinks you can now lean toward nylon, since that's the other most popular fiber. If you want to go further, you can do burn tests to determine exactly what type of fiber it is. There's a possibility that the fiber is also polyester or acrylic, but these fibers are not as common as olefin or nylon. Polyester is frequently used in some of the crappiest rental grade carpets. Regardless of whether it's olefin, nylon, polyester, or acrylic - all of these are synthetic fibers and they clean up pretty similarly.

One fiber you'll want to rule out the possibility of is wool. So take a lighter and burn the ends of the fiber tuft. If it singes and smells like burnt hair, it's wool. Another way you can tell that you're cleaning wool is that it smells like a wet animal (like a wet dog) when you get the carpet wet. If it's wool you'll want to take extra care to clean it appropriately.

A lot can also be told simply through common sense. For instance, this is a Berber carpet, right? And the overwhelming majority of Berber carpets that are sold in this country are olefin. Olefin is cheap, therefore it's popular. Sometimes you can even look at the carpet and tell that it's olefin just from the texture and appearance. But occasionally you can be fooled from appearance. So do a float test.

But at the bottom line, you're right about not really needing to worry too much about the cleaning process. None of the typical carpet fibers can be harmed with Releasit, so there's nothing to worry about. Yet as mentioned above, it is good to know what you're dealing with. If for nothing else, it will make you look more professional when you're dealing with the customer. Plus it will help you to be more confident in what you're doing.






Rick Gelinas
encapman

One thing I learned from Mr. Whitcamp is, that, while berber is olefin, the colored speckles are nylon, hence, no bleach.

is not a correct statement. Berber is a "style" not a type. Berber could be Wool, Nylon,Olefin or a blend.