Looking at venturing into a little bit of encapsulation. Already have a 20" 175 rotary. How well does this method work on residential carpet, say an apartment that just needs a refreshing versus a heavily soiled one? Does encapsulation work on residential carpet at all or just better on commercial glue down? Thanks

We do all residential and commercial using encap cleaning. In apartments and residences, we use a two step process. We first padcap with a OP machine and cotton pads, which takes a lot of the dirt out of the carpet immediately. We then use our CRB machine to post vac, which digs dirt, hair and other debris that is deep in the carpet out and puts it into the machine. This also pile lifts the carpet and grooms it at the same time. If we are applying carpet protector we apply that before we use the CRB machine so the machine can also work the carpet protector into the fibers.. We always tell the home owner to vacuum the carpet as soon as the carpet dries which is usually about an hour, or as soon as they get a chance. We tell them that some minor dirt and fuzz may work its way to the top of the carpet during the drying process even though they may not see it, and vacuumng it will quckly remove it. We do not get into explaining how encapsualtion cleaning works, they don't care anyway, they just want clean looking carpet.

If we are doing commercial, we use the CRB machine with the tankless spray attachement, and only use the OP for scrubbing any stained or problem areas that the CRB machine isn't getting clean, which isn't often or very much.
This allows us to clean large areas very quickly. Encap cleaning in our
opinion has been a great advance for the carpet cleaner so don't be afraid to try it. By the way a 20 inch 175 rotary will do a good job but may be a little big for homes with furniture.

Jim E

We do encap just about everything. Commercial, Residential, wool rugs, upholstery, stairs. It works excellent. We dont own a Truck Mount, or even a portable (I am looking into the Steamin Demon though). We use the Challenger in Residential settings, and the Cimex in commercial ones. Sometimes we will use encap DS and scrub, other times when there is alot of soil to extract, we will use Punch and bonnet it.

I dont think ive had any complaints and Ive been running this buisness for over a year. By the way, Encaping is NOT recommended for Residential, it does not remove the soil load that HWE can. But I have not experienced any problems what so ever with my methods and all the customers are happy. Especiall with the quick dry times! (Beware, how ever. If you encap resi you may be labled as a "scrub n runner" by those who have not experianced the resi results with encap as some of us have. Apparently, the only way to clean resi is with High powered truck mounts and years of experience. Good luck!)

Mainly do HWE. Just looking for encapping for freshening up a carpet. I do a lot of apartment units. Lease state have to have carpet cleaned upon move out. Some are only in there for a few months. Carpet isn't always dirty. Figured encapsulation could be a decent interim cleaning method.