It has been some time since I have posted here.

The details are long so allow me a little history:

Roughly 2-3 years ago I bought a 'kit' from Rick: Vento and some juice/pads. I did 'OK' on the carpets I had to clean back then. I joined a BNI and got busy networking. I hooked up with a property manager and started doing empty rental houses, condos etc. Now and again I'd get a real rat-nasty. encapping, to me, was not working out well. (hang on)

so I busted out my old porty, then bought a TM, Boxxer 421 with all the bells and whistles. Rat nasties were a breeze. I went from encap juice to full blown HWE chemicals with awesome results. Hence, I was convinced encap was useless for and real dirty carpets.

As time passed and the TM cost me money for repairs...and hose runs were a PITA, 5 floor condos, parking lots full of cars to prevent me from getting to the front door without a million feet of hose. I sold the TM (Thank GOD!) and started toating my porty.

I had sold the Vento, had no buffer and was relying heavy on chemical choice and a carpet rake. sigh

Then I bought a 175 and this thing called 'A carpet Brush'

I still had a ton of encap juice from 'back then' including some of Ricks juice. DS and Punch.These jugs were 2 years old but kept inside in the AC.

I had HWE a local girls gym with CGD and it did what CGD does...it wicked horrible. The owner was not happy, I was not happy...so I decided to go back and hit it with the 175 and some DS. OMG what a freaking difference!

My property manager called and hit me with a few empties...nasty stuff too. Up until this week, I would have HWE it...but I decided to use some Punch and some DS..the 175/ and the brush. Oh..and some extra Tea Tree for the smell...I also used 2 cotton bonnets.

Sit down folks.... brace yourselves...

I had done these two homes before...last year, HWE (boxxer 421) and the carpets were worse this time than then. No...really.

I hit the traffic areas with Punch....and everything else with DS. I used the brush and then a cotton bonnet.

I almost fainted. The results were better, the work was easier, the carpet was dry and the pile looked almost new.

I know I am singing to the choir and preaching to the converted but no one else would believe me.

Rick, I owe you an apology man. The issue I had last year was not the method nor the chemical....it was my experience.

I am now a converted encap man. Slightly embarrassed but converted all the same.

Oh... and adding some extra Tea tree made a huge difference in the smelly one.

Great post!! Thanks for your story. I have a friend that Uses the orbot on residential and gets great results. He added a Crb prescrub and post scrub and it really added that extra POW!!!! to how clean they look and with ending with the CRB they are groomed incredibly well also.

Hence I am working on getting a CRB.

Awesome! Thanks for the experience. I use a 175 also and use both pads and the brush. I've had nothing short of amazing results every time.

Just my two cents and you may not be interested, but I'll say that as you pay attention and watch how the 175 moves the fibers, you'll get even better results as you learn the machine. This is true for both the brush and pad.

David Edwards
Carpets To Go
New Bern, NC

Phil,

Thanks for sharing your experience. And welcome back to the dark side of the industry

Your experience is not unlike my own. It played out slightly differently, but the results were the same in the end.

In the early 80's I began commercial carpet cleaning. Back in 1983 I was doing scrub & extraction with a 175 and a porty, because that's what a good friend had taught me to do. The results were pretty good, but wicking was a problem. So I went to my supplier to ask for suggestions (there were no message boards back then). That started a chain of "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this", "try this".

After trying every conceivable chemical and method, I owned a garage full of junk equipment and chemicals and I eventually resigned myself to the fact that CGD carpet would sometimes get the better of me. Sometimes there would be a wicking problem. Sometimes the customer was going to call and complain. Sometimes I would have to acknowledge that the carpet looked worse after the cleaning than it did prior to cleaning. Sometimes I was going to have to go back and do everything in my power to fix the messed up carpet.

That last paragraph is NO WAY to run a business. I had read the E-Myth by then, and I had learned that successful businesses need good duplicatable systems (like McDonald's). Well I knew our existing cleaning systems were NOT consistent, so I continued to look for a better way to clean commercial carpet.

By the late 90's the internet was around. I researched a lot of chemistry, and ran across a new program that Dupont was quietly working on called Resistech. They had a system of cleaning carpet that was similar to the system we are using now, however we've made some improvements to those earlier chemistry ideas.

I also knew for many years that the Cimex was the most powerful scrubber on the market. So I took the Cimex and put it together with a polymerized detergent and tried out this new cleaning system. Wow! I had stumbled upon something special. It realistically fixed the problems I had been struggling with for 15 years at that time.

I talked with a good friend of mine about what we were doing in our business. In trying to describe the process, which at that time didn't have a name, we ended up calling it ENCAPSULATION, since that seemed to be the best way to describe the process. Thus the name "encapsulation" was born. Up till that time, this word had not been used to describe carpet cleaning.

I began telling my experience to the world via early carpet cleaner message boards, such as the ICS message board. In the beginning, carpet cleaners ripped me apart. Died in the wool hot water extraction guys were quick to point out how dangerously stupid my idea was. I would spar with them a bit, and laugh to myself, because I knew what kind of results I was getting in my commercial carpet cleaning business. We finally had discovered a system that could make McDonald's burgers. We had success!

I still recall after my first ICS message board post about encapsulation, my good friend and IICRC instructor/mentor, the late Bob Wittkamp called me the very next morning to ask about the process. He about wet his pants when he learned how the process worked. Bob was a technical guy with a sharp mind and he liked to look at things from every angle. He asked me tons of questions and he could quickly see the benefits of encapsulation. As an ICS journalist, he went right to work and wrote an article for the ICS magazine that came to be known as the FIRST article about the "new encapsulation method" ever printed.

From that early start, more and more cleaners began to try the encapsulation method. And gradually more and more cleaners began to recognize that encapsulation is an excellent way to maintain commercial carpet. And that's how this new method of cleaning came to life. I didn't really invent anything new - I simply took ideas that were already out there and polished 'em up and made them known to the industry. And of course giving the new method a descriptive name helped too.

So like you Phil, I banged my head against the wall for a long time too before I discovered that encapsulation carpet cleaning fixed our problems and made commercial carpet cleaning profitable. But most importantly it enabled us to see CONSISTENT results. We could build E-Myth style systems into our cleaning business. We now had a method that worked for every single commercial carpet, all of the the time, without having to scratch our heads and try to explain what went wrong. We stopped getting the morning after calls to come back and correct a wicking mess. And we could easily train technicians to produce the same consistent results.

The encapsulation method worked for us, and little by little it has crept into the industry at large. Encapsulation is now taught by IICRC instructors in their classes. It's being used all over the world to maintain CGD carpets. The interconnected world of the internet enabled this new idea to spread like wild fire. Sure there are still some nay sayers out there who argue against it. As for the rest of the openminded world - a growing number of cleaners have opened their eyes and are enjoying the benefits of this practical cleaning system. It's been fun to play a part in this development. To quote Jerry Garcia -"What a long strange trip it's been".





Rick Gelinas

Hi Phil,
I'm Glad your getting good results is very satisfying to find a system that works and that you can harmonized with.
I wanted to ask you what kind of carpet brush are you using? if you dont mind telling. I have been looking for a good carpet brush,i thought of trying out the Dirt napper but wanted to know of different ones out there. (for a 20"Rotary) Thanks.

Gabe

Gabe, if this helps, it is a soft, white brush. I am 'told' it is specific for carpet.

cost about $150.00 tax tittle and tag.

Phil,

Thanks for the respond, I actually have a white one I believed it came from a Taski but it seems kind of agressive for cut pile resi.(.028 brittles) I may get the one that has a stainless steel center is suppose to glide a bit better. Well in any case thanks for the reply.

Gabe

If I may suggest using pads instead of brushes, you will get better results faster.

From experience, a 20 inch buffer is what we have used for a long time before adding and Orbot, even now when the real nasty carpet come along the buffer with a pad is what I prefer.

We do have a 320 speed machine but the principles are the same.

Hi,

I agree that the pads for commercial carpet is superior, but i was thinking for residential cut pile Carpet.
my thinking was scrubbbing D/S and follow up with an absorbant pad like a cotton or microfiber.

I think the fiber plus may be too agressive for that application another way would be a Tuway followed by a Microfiber. Ideally i would scrub in Punch with a GLS and follow with a pad on a Rotary or OP. Anyway just brain storming, thanks for the input.

Gabe

I have a carpet brush on one 13" 175 I use in tight spaces. I use a pad on my 19" for everything else commercial if I'm using a rotary. For residential, if I were to straight encap I'd use a microfiber bonnet. Usually, I OP everything and use pads for commercial and residential. I can go at least as fast on a straight encap with my 15" OP as I can with a 19" rotary using pads and leave the rotary in the dust if it's using a brush.

I am still learning my way through a lot of this but...

the brush was key, in my case, to clean....not speed...on a rat nasty residential carpet.

It (brush) was also crucial for a CGD I needed to redo.

I will try all combos suggested.

Facts be told I will go to a Mex or CRB soon enough to overcome any speed issue a 175 may cause.

I am happy simply to learn the low moisture method can and does compete with HWE with regard to the trashed out units I do daily.

Phil,

I guess we are in similar stages in regards to learning and trying new things. I currently used the dry foam method by Von Schader, is a very good concept but it has is draw backs like anything else. I guess the way I see it you want an effective and fast cleaning system thats profitable and gives the client value.

I'm just personally a fan of cylindrical bruses I like the way they pile lift and clean the fibers. So I think that spraying Punch running a CRB to scrub that into the fibers and following that with a rotary and a Microfiber pad would be ideal. Well, keep on trying new things is great way to stay current.

Gabe

My OP does use a brush to drive the pad and scrub the carpet. I just found a brush on a 175 to be a PIA to keep even where I can move with a white/beige pad and get good results. I do like the OP brush/cloth pad combination better. Padcapping is the best of all worlds IMO. VLM is the way to go for most things. Combine HWE and VLM for scary good results for much money.