Do any of you own the icapsol and use it by itself (not followed by op or rotary or hwe) for some encap work? If so, how well is it working for you?

Thanks much!

I own a Sprint CRB that Rick sells.  It works quite well.  But NOT as good as a Cimex for larger spaces and for a stand alone encap cleaning the Cimex gives better quality.

I have GCD in the house that I live in right now (don't ask) and I clean it with my Sprint every 4-6 weeks.

Make you own luck,

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Grant, I have the iCapsol and use it as a stand alone cleaner most of the time, both in commercial and residential (every time I mention Stand Alone and Residential, I take a beating) but it works for us. I also have GLS CRB 15" and 20" so I use all of them. But the more I use the iCapsol the better I like it. the only dislike I have of the iCapsol is that I cannot clean stairs with it, so I use the GLS on the stairs. The key to good cleaning with it depends on the encap solution you use, and I highly recommend the Releasit products. I used the iCapsol this past Thur. on a sculptured nylon in a 1.5 million dollar home and the customer/client was more than happy. I find the black brushes that come with it will work on most carpets, but I would not use them on wool. I also like the ease of removing the brushes to clean them. On good quality carpet you can clean 1000 square feet of carpet w/o removing the center tray to dump/clean it. On cheap Builder Grade you are better off to post-vac, as the tray will fill up rapidly. The weight of the machine (heavier than the GLS) seems to be just right for deep scrubbing IMHO For the cost vs. other CRB machines, it is a bargin. I called Jon at Whittaker to order another 15" machine and they will not sell it seperately, they "bundle" meaning you have to buy the sprayer, spotting brush ($89) 5 cases of their cleaner, ect. driving the price to twice the cost of iCapsol. I told him to keep his machines up there in New Castle, Pa, I would not be buying anymore. Didn't seem to bother him one bit.

I have to agree with everything Ray said. I have done several jobs (residential) with the iCapsol and Releasit on cut pile. Worked great. One customer told me I did a better job then 2 leading national companies with there super sucker trucks.
Never owned a Whittaker so I have no opinion on them but for the price of the iCapsol you can't go wrong IMHO.

Rambo, How in the world do you get away with using a scrubber as stand alone for residential? Don't take this as any type of bashing beacuse the truth is I admire the heck out of the idea. It sure would make things more simple. My van is loaded with equipment. I have a Prochem TM, Rotovac 360, a glide wand, a Sprint,and an OP all just for residential. On my other truck that I use for commercial I have a Cimex, and another OP.
Concerning residential though I wish you would answer some questions.
1. How do you deal with a heavy soil load? Most residential that I do is usually pretty dirty and even after encap the soil is still quite visible so we end up using OP or extraction.
2. Do you do just high end clients?
3. I still have customers that do not feel that their carpet is clean if it is'nt steam cleaned. How do you sell the idea of encap to resi clients?

You are obvioulsy successful at what you do, I would just like you to share some tips on how to encap resi carpet successfully.

Thanks for taking the time Rambo!

While I am not Rambo I can answer how I do things

Always vacuum the carpet very thoroughly
I can spend more time vacuuming then the rest of the process

1. If your clients think the only way the carpet is clean
is by HWE you more then likely sold them on a method not on your company providing professionals service, or they are just entrenched with HWE because of the popularity of it.

The Client is shoveling the money in your wallet so give them what they want.

In my view the Sprinter is a great machine for agitation but
my feeling is it is not the machine I would use for a standalone tool for carpeting, I do not think it has to zap that a GLS Icapsol or a Mist N Brush machine has, It may work better if it had stiffer brushes on it.

If you see visible soils after encaping there are two options
vacuum out the soils if they are light or fuzz balls, or extract but what ever means you see fit.

I have more of a problem not extracting residential then my clients do, most of the time after I am done scrubbing with the CBM the client is thrilled and thinks I am all done. I feel I am cheating them if I do not extract so I do it, proving that most of the time objections are in our minds not the clients, but using my method of cleaning separates me from the everyone else.


How do you sell the Idea of encap to residential? I do not If I feel that is what will do the job I just do it, they are buying my service not a method, Chem Dry and many other VLM companies exist so I see no problem, how every if you have already positioned your self as a HWE company then switching to VLM or trying to push it may confuse your clients and give you a bit of a challenge.

Well said David.
I agree totally with all said. I just had a n account question the vlm method part of my business. At this moment its the only method i have.
At any rate, He saw the swirl marks from the Cimex and asked me what kind of machine do i use, and how am i extracting the soil? So i explained him the the process. He then Ask do i do hwe? If so lets use that method this time.

At this point i thought that i was gonna have to call Rick and order a Demon with expedited delivery as the cleaning was set for the following week.

I explained : "As your proffessional cleaner i DO NOT recommend HWE for this cleaning and then explained why. (cgd)Commercial building.
I asked him : "WHY USE A HATCHET TO REMOVE A FLY FROM A FRIENDS HEAD When you can get better results using your index finger"?
I told him i will grant his request but it will cost way more because of the risk involved.

After being educated he changed his mind about HWE and told me to just get rid of the swirls.

Education and promoting clean carpet seem to have done the trick.


Thanks
Your Servant Alex

A sign of the times!

Sorry it took me so long to answer, but today was homecomming at our church, all day singing and dinner in the grounds. I will answer Joe and David. Joe I do not do high end only. I do several trashed investors properties, about 12 a month. Heavy soil load: You would be supprised how well the stand alone CRB method works if you follow a few steps. First like David said; Spend more time vacuuming with a good vac, I use the Hoover Conquest. Double the dillution ratio that is recommended (sometimes I tripple it) and use very hot water. I pre-spray w/ Multi-sprayer and allow some dwell time, at least 5 minutes. The nastier the carpet, the stiffer the brush. I have 4 different types for the Whittaker; Grey-Blue-Black and Berber Bomb (very aggressive) brushes from Jim England. On normal soil and light soil, there is no need for two methods IMHO. My customer/clients depend on me to deliver clean carpet to them not just carpet cleaning. Steam Cleaning; I was the only one at the first VLM Mini-Fest in Macon with a "truckmount" as a matter of fact I have owned 7 of them, Butler,Prochem,Bane, Hurricane just to name a few. I sold the last truckmount over 4 years ago and will never own another. I can do anything I want including Water Damage Restoration work with what I have now. David mentioned; I feel I am cheating them if I don't "extract" which brings me to the Message Title. If you Google the word Extraction you will be asked, which one? Tooth/Molar, Blackhead, DNA, Distillation, Menstral, Sperm to mention a few. This fixation on "extraction" as in HWE is in our heads, not the customers. Is Encap not a extraction method? Read my post about the 10% of the soil we are trying to remove. 98% of your customers don't know what your talking about, but they want you to show up on time, looking presentable including your clean well letter van, clean carpet that dries fast, smells fresh and is safe for them and their pets. I give them all of the above. Proof of that is they keep calling and paying us. We have done over 2000 residential jobs using VLM as a stand alone method, we have also HWE a few too. Don't try to over sell your customer on your method or methods, most of them really don't care.

Good information all.

Del, do you do much residential or are you almost strictly commercial? What do you use for your resi work.

Thanks for the info Rambo, great stuff.

I'm doing about 10 empty apartments a week for a property management company and am looking for a way to speed it up a bit. Was thinking of this as a pre-scrub prior to OP for most of them, but if the light to medium soiled units look good with just that maybe I'll think about it as a stand-alone occasionally.

Grant,

I work for whoever pays me right now.  I do more residential then commercial currently, but that is all referral based from previous clients.  My focus is on growing my Commercial end.

I will do whatever is appropriate to clean the carpets.

Have I ever used just a Sprint and Encap DS to clean a residential cut pile- sure I have.  A)  Apartments don't like to pay well and that is a way that I can offer a lower price.  B) I market a 6 Month touch up cleaning to my clients, I almost always do a Sprint/Encap-DS for this at a lower price to keep them in the loop as clients.

However, with that said on MOST residential cut pile I generally prefer to extrtact.  Since I have a porty and not a truckmount it is alot more work to HWE a residential then to just Cimex a commercial building.

When I HWE I go all out though:

1) Pre-vac.

2) Sprint with Punch for pre-spray/pre-scrub.

3) HWE Extract with Olympus M200H portable and Rotovac.

4) Apply Soileze protector with Sprint machine.

I charge .30 per sq ft for HWE cleaning and .15 for protector (only areas cleaned and protected).  On the 6-Month encap I charge .20 per sq ft (wall to wall).

Make you own luck,

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Do you prefer Releasit DS or Encap Punch for residential? I personally like Punch better for resi. By the way Rambo, sure am glad that you share on this board.

I prefer Releasit DS. I use the punch as a pre-spray on any thing that has grease/oil and still follow with the Releasit DS

If you are going to extract Punch, otherwise have some defoamer on hand if you use DS.

Make you own luck,

Del Scrivner
Owner/Operator
Cowboy's Carpet Care

Rambo you made my point it is in my head not the clients
most think it is fine and it does look nice, I know I could just walk and be fine.

The problem I have is every time I put the Demon down and start HWE it WOWS the client with how much dirt is coming out of the carpet even though it looks great.

I have spent years explaining to people just because a carpet looks good it does not mean it is and I'd bring out the Demon and show them, now in a residential setting I feel like I am doing half the job it I just encap.