I have some really dirty commercial carpets to clean. I ve cleaned some of them already, scrubbed in Punch @ 12z/g with the mex, dwell, flushed it, padded it, and padded it, and padded it....there seems to be no end to the dirt. I went through 6 tuway bonnets for the mex (both sides) and 3 tuways for my challenger (agian, both sides) and the dirt keeps comming up.

I put a fan to facilitate drying...looked crappy when dry again. Just curious...how many times should I pad, and how many pads should I be using, before I need to try somthing different? What would that different be?

One area I tried flushing alot, still not much of a difference. The areas are walk-in areas for condo complexes.

"flushed it"

How much did you flush it?

If the pads are coming up dirty, and the carpet is still wicking - then there's still soil loaded at the base of the carpet.

You have two options for a commercial glue down carpet that's holding a load of soil down at the base of the carpet...

Option 1: Flush it, flush it, flush it, flush it, flush it, and then flush it some more. Follow the flushing with a TON of post-padding. Speed dry the carpet with air movers, ceiling fans, etc. And after the carpet has dried and wicked - follow up with an encap cleaning to remove as much of the inevitable wicking that you can.

Option 2: Encap.

Option number two generally produces better looking results, has the lowest chance of wicking, eliminates headaches, results in happier customers, and generates the highest profit. For my money, option number two seems to be the better way to go in most cases.

The only time I'd possibly consider the first option would be in a case where the carpet is so pig-ugly bogged down with deeply impacted soil that it has become necessary to haul out the big guns. Option one will SLOWLY reduce the amount of soil in the carpet. I say "reduce" because NOTHING will get all the soil out of a loaded commercial glue down carpet. But it's a step in the right direction. And if you kill yourself you may eventually achieve reasonably decent results. Just make sure you charge enough for all the suffering you're going to put yourself through trying to salvage their mess.







Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

I flushed for a little bit, but not too much for fear of leaving it wet for too long...maybe an encaping tomorrow will help make it look a bit better.

Thanks for the response Rick!

When you go back tomorrow to look at the carpet. Take a bucket of hot water and some of Rick's encap., and put your 100% cotton pads in the water, ring it out by hand, take your O.P. and go over all the heavy soiled area's first. Take a cotton pad that is wet, like just out of the washing machine and see if this will take care of the wicking. Then go over the rest of the carpet to blend in. When the cotton pad is wetter then normal, it pick-up more soil.

Humor me and tell me how you "flushed it."

If your answer doesn't include the term HWE, then you're fooling yourself.

....pile lifting the heavily soiled areas first. Slow backward passes against the lay of the carpet. Then using fiber plus max pads (new) scrub the area doing the Rick G method using 6-8 oz./DS per gallon. Then encap the area as normal using 6-8oz/DS. I found that post vacuuming 24hrs. later does some amazing things.(with a good vac of course)

This worked for me on some of the worst kind of commercial carpet i've ever met.

Thanks
Your Servant Alex

Cultivate the "OCCD" you had at first for the industry!

For Marty, aka Admiral, aka Porkbutt...



For yet another insightful post.




Rick Gelinas
rick@excellent-supply.com

A heavily soiled carpet does need to be flushed out, but wicking is likely so it needs to followed with a pad, best done after it drys and wicks. The issue is will they pay for it? Most likely not.

Did your flushing involve HWE? Define HWE. Scrubbing in a good pre-spray with a Cimex like you did and flushing with a Steamin Demon or even a high perfomance portable can do a good job. I've done a lot of them with large TMs and still had the same problems that were corrected by Cimexing or padding.

Don't judge things by looking for a clean pad. Go by the appearance of the carpet.

I agree with David. Olefin CGD commercial carpet, as we all know, is a different breed requiring different approaches to maintain and (restore, on occasion) it. If you are trying to be a professional and find yourself only employing one method in you arsenal, then you're fooling yourself in regards to you professionalism.

Periodic flushing is a requirement for effective maintenance.

If you don't think so, then go flush an account that you've been maintaining for a year, or so, with encasulation only. Then look at all the soil in your waste water.

I had one like this 2 weeks ago so we quoted $30,000 to replace the carpet and booked the job for March 2009

Thank You
Ken Jacobs - Toronto
www.cleaningequipment.ca

Thank you for the responses.

Admiral - when I said i flushed it, i flushed it using HWE.

I also used several of the tools in my arsenal, as stated in the original post.

I did follow up with the wet cotton pads as per the suggestions...does look alot better. Did I get paid for that? NOPE. Now I know I'll have to charge more next time!!

Also, the pile lifting is a good idea. I havent used mine for a while...looks like ill have to try it next situation..

Thank you again for all the responses!! I should have taken pictures too...

I feel your pain Matt. It's often hard to do the right thing on CGD and get enough money to pay for it.

I would suggest that next time you run across this. that you give the customer reasonable expectations. Tell them up front that is going to be a two trip cleaning.

I had a customer tha hadnt had there carpet cleaned in 5 years. they had about 1200 sf of carpet in the office that was connected to a 10000sf warehouse. Right across the street from them was a farm. There carpet was smooth like concrete from all of the Dirt and crap in the carpet not to mention the soda spills grease and whatever. Told them it was going to take a 2 step cleaning process. 1st flush the carpets. Explained that it will look better but there will be wicking and it will look real dirty real quick. Told them when i came back we would dicuss whether it still needed to be flushed again. Went back the next monday. It looked like crap. They were happy though they felt it was definatly an improement andthat it at least looked like it was carpet again. Set apointment for the next month to flush again. Went back. Same thing Better results but stillnot the kind of clean that i would be happy with. Told them next time would encap. Went back the next month cimexed it. and carpet looked awesome. They were completly happy with the whole process. It is all about giving the customer realistic expectations.