We're halfway through winter here in the far north. Ottawa uses thousands of tons of rock salt to melt ice. Well, now comes the calls: "Can you guarantee to get all the salt outa my entrance mats?"
What have you tried that works? Encap gets overwhelmed by it. Truckmount just causes wicking of more of the salt from the backing.
Any suggestions?

are they removeable?

Sometimes they are, other times they are 12 ft wide and the length of a lobby.

Have you tried to encap after the HWE to eliminate the wicking? After extraction the encap should work better.

Then again I wuld have no idea about salt laden carpets as we never have snow here, just like Shorty.

Regards
George

If they are moveable we take them the back room of the store(anywhere with a drain) and spray them out with a hose. That not only removes the salt, but also tha sand. It is amazing how much sand will come out. Then we drape over carts and put fans on top and bottom(rubber back you canputbackonfloor with fans just on top).
If you cannot move them and the build up is more than 1/4 or 1/2 inch thick scrape it down with a putty knife first. We then run a really strong cleaner through the cimex. We have used PowerMAxx(just because that was what we had, I am sure PUNCH would work great also) and scrub it multiple times. After scrubbing 3 or 4 times we extract with good pressure & HOT HOT water. Get a fan on it immediately and we have never had wickbacks. I don't guarrantee perfection, if they have been neglected it may take twice. then i get them set up on schedule. We have never had any complaints. Hope this helps.
Micah

In Toronto we extract with cold water and Chemspec All Fiber Textile Rinse. Most of the mats we clean are olefin (made by Mat Tech http://www.mattech.ca/index-en.php ) and hot water leaves a white residue.

Ken Jacobs

http://www.weteachcarpetcleaning.com/

 

 

Remember Ice Melter is an alkiline, so to clean you need to use a acid based detergent. Textile Rinses are acid side. Prespray and allow a lot of dwell time and extract, speed drying helps. Encap does nothing in this situation, prescrubbing with a textile rinse does help a lot.

Before we even attempt to add water or detergent we vac the heck out of it.

Just yesterday we had to do a bunch of entrances that were full of salt. We vac'd every direction possible, threw a Fiber Max pad on a small OP, ran it every direction possible, then vac'd again.

We then sprayed 12oz/gal Punch and OP'd with cotton bonnets. Worked great!!