What would be the reason that a carpet cleaned with Releasit and a Cimex would cause people that walked on it to have their socks turn black? This has happened twice now and I'd really like to avoid this problem in the future.

Dirt

Like David said, Dirt. Too much dirt to do just encap probably, you need to extract with bonnet or water...

Or both.

Can you share a little more about the type and location of the dirty carpet?

Extract the carpet or have them wear black socks.

Encap is a "maintenance" cleaning system. It is ideal for keeping the carpet looking clean, and helping it to stay clean for an extended period of time.

What are we doing with encap? We're breaking the soils bond from the fiber and we're packaging the soil in a polymer. The routine of regular vacuuming removes the soil.

Keep in mind that the soil is still in the carpet, waiting to be vacuumed. If there was a heavy soil load to begin with, there will be a large quantity of encapsulated soil. Although the soil is no longer on the surface of the carpet where it would be visible, it's still there until it gets removed through the post vacuuming process. So it could show up on white socks.

The only way to completely avoid this would be to give the carpet a good flushing with HWE first. And then once the soil levels are at a manageable level you could effectively maintain the carpets appearance with encap.

In most commercial settings (which is the predominant application for encap) most of the time people are not wearing socks or going barefooted around the office. In a commercial setting people are walking in and out of the building and are there to get business done. All they're generally concerned with is that the carpets look good. Encap delivers what they want and need... carpets that look excellent on a day-in day-out basis, quick drying, no wicking or recurring spill stains, and an affordable price.

Encap is a powerful tool! But it's not the only cleaning tool. If the desired goal is to immediately bring the carpet's soil content down to a reasonably low level, then a good HWE flushing is what I'd recommend. On the other hand, if a good maintenance program is appropriate, then performing encap cleaning cleaning with a good crystallizing detergent like Releasit can keep the carpet looking bright and clean for an extended period of time.











Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

Rinoclean, you must be talking about residential carpet. A large soil load must be extracted by OP, Bonnet or Steamin Demon after the Cimex.

For residential, always give them some booties to wear. The ones we have are blue but we can also get black

I use blue booties and explain what rick said. The dirt is still there until you vacuum. I think if your doing a straight encap you should let them know how it works.Anyhow the carpet should be dry in about an hour so why are they walking on it while your cleaning? By the time you get finished with the last pc. of carpet in a residential the first pcs. should be dry enough where no transfer of soil will occur.
Any way that's how I do it and no problems so far.

This has happened more than I would like in the commercial setting, days or even weeks after encapping.

In one case I got a call from a funeral home that a little boy was running around in socks and they had turned black. Another one was a library, lots of kids run around in a library.

The carpets were completely dry, had been vacuumed several times since, and were not loaded with your greasy, restaurant soil.

I must agree now that encapping should only been done after initially being flushed with HWE the first time and at intervals thereafter. In this area however, it is fairly hard to get management to spend on maintenance programs for their facilities.