Okay, I admit to being new to encap cleaning. I am using a 175 rotary with a solution tank and Fiber Max Plus pads and DS2. I thoroughly vacuumed the carpet.

My method is to lay down solution in one direction and retrace my path working the solution in and then overlapping and feathering it trying to completely cover the area ensuring that there are no "holidays". The problem is that I am getting uneven cleaning. One hall in particular looked as though I had skipped passes and cut stripes into the carpet. With the amount of white I am fairly sure I am using enough solution without over-wetting the carpet.

The client didn't seem to be bothered but I was mortified. It does not look professional in the least.

Take a look at the carpet after it has dried. It may be fine.

Kenny, this is when I saw it. The carpet was already dry and I tried vacuuming to see if that would improve it but it did not.

Steve,,

I use a white 17 inch regular floor pad. I lay solution down with my 175 and then overlap also. Look back to October photo contest and see my pic of a floor I cleaned at Pizza Hut. I cleaned the left side then took the pic. You can see the difference. I always blend in after putting solution down. Never have had stripes.

If I where you I would try prespraying the next job you do and see if you don't get the results you would expect. Show feeding with a rotary can sometimes give uneven cleaning patterns.

sounds like the encap wasnt sprayed evenly. the cleaner areas prolly had "enough" encap, and i am assuming the lesser clean areas didnt have enough encap sprayed on them. hard to tell without pix or better yet a video :-\

I'd guess you aren't even with the solution flow. Either learn to keep the lever 1/3 to 1/2 open or use a lot of short bursts of juice. Use a pump up sprayer on your next job and see how that looks.

One other thing to check is your driver head. Make sure the shower feed holes are all open. Oh, be sure you have a shower feed head. I have had rotaries without shower feed heads and that makes for an all screwed up solution flow.

I have an account that the carpet would look streaky, lighter area and darker area. It turned out to be the nap of the carpet when using any pads. I switched to the soft carpet brushes and problem resolved. This carpet will never win me pic of the month as it is never very dirty. The only heavy traffic lane areas are leading into the break room and to the copier room. We hit those with the Fiber Plus pads.
This is high end commercial carpet,never really had one with the fibers looped this way and if they lifted up a little or laid down would change the light reflection resulting in lighter and darker areas. Vacuuming did not help either.