Ive been noticing that when I clean some commercial carpet with the mex n DS that at first it appears REALLY clean, looks excellent infact. However, after about a minute it gets dark again, which is a minus when im doing demos, case in point today:

Doing a demo for a large local car dealer, and do one wet pass then come back dry, nice light foam, carpet looked awesome. The prospective custy was amazed, at first. His response was, "wow that looks like new!" but in my gut i knew it would darken, and a min or two later it did. He commented that now it didnt look as good, but still somewhat better.

Am I doing something wrong? my dilution for this job was 6ozDS per gallon water, warm, max pads n mex. Prevac'd of course. Any ideas? any one experiance something similar?

thanks

That is typical that when you first go over it, there is a bit of foaming action even on your scrub pass and that gives you a false illusion of being brighter. Make sure you lay down a complete even layer of foam (no missed area of foam). Then on you scrub pass, go nice and slow to allow the machine to do the work. Make even a second scrub pass if the carpet is real soiled.

The neat thing is that when you see it tomorrow, I'm willing to bet the carpet will be way better in appearance than when you left it today. Always on a demo, it's important to clean a fairly soiled carpet, but only do half so you and your customer can really see how far you were able to take it.

Rick Thode
rick@releasit.ca

A litle moisture on most any carpet carpet will appear brighter because of the light reflecting off of that mositure. Remember, most commercial carpet is basically plastic. Follow the steps as described above and you will be ok. I am sure you did that in the first place. You just ran across someone who was more astute than the average person and noticed it. If it looked fine after drying, all is well.

Bob

Rick Thode and Bob made some excellent comments above. I'd just add one more thing. Make extra dry passes. On a heavily soiled carpet - there's no substitute for plenty of agitation. Making 3 or 4 passes on a heavily soiled carpet will usually produce some pretty amazing results. And as you make EXTRA passes, resist the urge to pull the trigger too much (you don't want to over-wet the carpet). Simply take your time, really working at scrubbing the carpet thoroughly, and you should see an impressive POP in your traffic lanes.






Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Thanks for the info guys! It is hard to resist hitting that trigger though, some times I just dont get any foam by the time the carpet is plenty wet already. dont know why, hard water maybe?

Matt touched on a very good point "maybe Hard water" I learned when working with Plus Mfg. in Vancover, Washington how hard/soft water effected the efficacy of their product. If you have soft water in your area, Releasit will foam better and go farther. If you do not have soft water you might consider getting a small water softner to use when you mix all of your chems. You will notice the difference. C-ya

Where would I find products to take care of hard water? tried lookin on the internet didnt find much...

Matt, first thing, check with your Water Authority (I'd like to know who gave them authority over the water anyway.) and find out what the hardness of the water in your area is. If it is hard then I will help you locate a small water softner if you would like.

Thanks ray, will do.

We have pretty soft water around here, but sometimes i still get some distilled water at the store. You can buy it by the gallon. But if you have hard water get a water softner