Rick,

I was reading some of your post regards punch. I gathered that punch is designed for extraction but will work with scrubbing. Regarding this cgd job i have coming up Friday. This Carpet is old, the traffic areas are very matted. It takes effort to cattch a fiber with your fingernail. My approach was gonna be to pre-spray with punch then cimex with DS/punch in tank.


Since reading your post i wonder if i should change my approach to this project. Question: Since Punch is for extraction primarily, would it be more effective to (mex with bonnets/punch only) rather then (mex with DS/punch and pads)?

If punch/bonnet is the way to go is there any tricks of the trade i need to know about when using bonnets on mex? Such as use more sol, less sol, change bonnets often, or whatever? I have only cimex machine, no others!

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

What I would suggest is this:

1) Pre-vacuum thoroughly. Since you have an X-Vac pile lifter you are in good shape in this department. Try to remove as much dry soil as possible.

2) Spray approx 160 sq ft (8'x20') section of carpet with Encap-Punch mixed at 12 oz per gallon. Don't soak the carpet, just get it damp.

3) Mix your Encap-Clean DS at 6 oz per gallon with HOT water.

4) Scrub with your Cimex using the gray Max pads. Scrub slowly, take your time. Avoid over-wetting the carpet. Just use enough juice to see a very light whitening of the surface. Take your time, making as many "dry passes" as necessary to see good visible results.

5) After you've finished about 500 sq ft of carpet, put bonnets onto the Cimex and run back across the carpet to pull some top soil from the fiber, and finish it off. Flip or replace the bonnets as they get soiled.

This aggressive approach to cleaning this account should yield good results for you. Wishing you success!






Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

On the 5th step, is this all dry passes or shall i feed a little juice.

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

All dry with the bonnets. I did exactly what Rick just said on a bank entrance that had a lot of North Carolina red clay tracked in. Cleaned up very well.

Thanks Rick.
Thanks____________.


This should prove to be a faith building experience in the encap/mex/punch technique. Reason said is that the carpet look to be truly unrestorable to any degree.

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

Keep in mind, if it truly is beyond hope, then guess what? It's beyond hope. Don't over promise.

Try to remember that you are cleaning a textile here. Here's an illustration you can use. If a person wiped down the engine of their car with a perfectly clean t shirt - the shirt would now be RUINED! No amount of laundering and the best dry cleaner in the world would never be able to restore the t-shirt to "like new" condition again. Your client should be able to understand that analogy. Like I said, you're cleaning a textile (i.e. carpet). Are we to expect you to perform a genuine miracle? I don't think so, since miracles passed off the earth 2,000 years ago. Make sure the customer understands that damaged carpet is THEIR problem. They're the ones who neglected the carpet, not you. Thus it's not reasonable to expect you to miraculously resurrect their trashed carpet now.

That being said, Releasit Encap-Clean has done some pretty amazing things. The Cimex/Releasit combo has tackled plenty of nasty stuff and it has made a night and day improvement. If you will carefully follow the steps outlined above, you'll stand a very good chance of achieving some great results. The reason for my caution above about not over promising is because there are so many variables. And unfortunately it's possible that this carpet might be a pig that can't be saved.

Oh, and YES those passes are DRY passes. If you're tempted to squeeze the trigger DON'T. The greatest single cause for failure is getting the carpet too wet. Once you have achieved a light whitening of the surface you have maxed out the amount of fluid that you'll want to introduce to the fiber.

Don't forget to bring a digital camera. Snap some good before, during and after pics. You can post the pictures here if you'd like to. You can also use them for future marketing. BTW you'll get the best photo results if you turn your flash off. Flash washes out the photo and you won't be able to see the contrast between the sections. I've found that natural light works best for these types of shots.

I hope it goes well for ya!







Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com