Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mike Halliday on October 02, 2015, 02:10:34 pm
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Got some omega off John for a big commercial job tomorrow so thought I would use it today on a domestic living room. Very bad walkways were the customer dragged her feet due to having walking difficulty and lots of food spills.
The different light on the photos is because when I arrived the sun was not out when I had finished it was shining through the window
.(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1443791389_image.jpg)
(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1443791389_image.jpg)
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Which Omega you get Mike?
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Great result. Tried the Omega, it's okay, still think Dyanmall is king.
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Which Omega you get Mike?
Not sure, the one with an added deodoriser.
Got to say it did a good job but was slower than using the truck-mount, I would guess it will dry quicker. I used 3lt of solution ...... I will do some maths and come back.....
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I messed up the dilution.... Used toooo much :-[
I mixed 70mls into a 1:5lt bottle should have used less so this room cost me about £1:40 to clean
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30ml per liter or 60ml for really heavily soiled is what it says.
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1:40 dilution.................. cheap as cheaps..............
if doing a more heavily stained area leave to dwell ten minutes ish. though i never have, its always worked a treat straight off!!
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I encapped three offices (Low profile carpet tiles) today as a 1st time trial. Several oil stains from HGV drivers boots. Used Dynamal but wasn't sure how much to apply. Looked much better after the encapp and I was going to leave it at that, but as it was drying the oil stains came back slightly.
Applied Citrus Gell agitated the spots, then extracted them. The areas that I extracted stood out a mile as cleaner, so ended up extracting everything.
The thing is, if the stains hadn't reappeared I would have accepted the encapping as being a good job, however the extraction result showed that it really wasn't.
Dave.
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Encapped like Dave a school for a builder who only wanted it to look clean. Got a call back two weeks later to say that the school would not sign off or pay the £133,000 bill as the walkways were re soiled and had black track marks that weren't there before. I was called back by the builder to fix the problem and ended up truckmounting all the corridors. The staff could see the difference as I was doing it as the amount of dirt being removed was unreal. I then bonnetted it off and now they want me back to clean the classrooms. I have a Cimex so had originally encapped with that, so it wasn't a cheap rotary job. I thus am still on the fence. When someone says as cheap as chips it just rings a few alarm bells. I know that hot water extraction and encapping have their place but I like Dave know that if you can extract with a truckmount and then bonnet off then you have removed the soil from the carpet and not relied on contract cleaners in a school using a Henry. And then there are those that encap domestics like Mike!!!!!! ;D
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Well that makes the point about encapping perfectly. It has its place, but it also has serious limitations and you have to know when and when not to use it as a first choice. Beyond giving it a whirl, excuse the pun, I wouldn't use it on domestics, too many nasty chems being left in the carpet, or so the boffins say.
Simon
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not a method for domestic in my opinion, but great on most commerfcial jobs, tough has to be coupled with extraction where need be..... some of the commercials ive encapped in a day would take all week to extract. Which i guess would be fine if they would pay the price for a weeks work rather than one days worth!!!
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, too many nasty chems being left in the carpet, or so the boffins say.
Simon
Which boffins are these & what nasty chemicals? Looking at omega it says ok to use in California which has the strictest laws on the use of chemicals in cleaning agents, so I don't think it can be that nasty.
I agree with Tim it's not a chemical to be used in domestics under normal curcustances, to be honest I don't I won't be using it again on domestic or commercial, I found it to be no better or quicker than bonneting.
Yesterday I encamped a huge health centre which I have done twice before, it took exactly the same length of time as when I bonneted it, maybe not having a solution tank on the cimex made a difference as I had to prespraying before cleaning. but as I could prespraying ahead of my self all the carpets had a good 15minute dwell time, which it reccomends on heavily soiled carpets( these were not heavily soiled)
The last time I used pure clean which cost wise was cheaper than the £30 this job cost,
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At one point I thought encap was the answer to all my prayers.
I thought it would give me a great usp and make good money. I was hoping to use it in a domestic situation.
Having used it on my own carpets I was very impressed initially, they are a 60/40 wool tufted.
After 4 months I wasnt so sure, I have also used it on commercial, I found I developed a cough each time I used it.
Having badly damaged my ankle on a job a week or so ago I was told to sit at home for 6 weeks with my foot up so there I was sat with my foot up for hours looking at my carpet. Couldn't bare it anylonger so fired up my TM and cleaned them.
The results (apart from agony) was that my carpets feel and look far better cleaner and softer. The texture was the biggest thing I noticed. I guess having a dog didnt help but from now on I will only fully extract.
Sat with my foot up, afraid I may be posting a lot on here. ;D
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That's because you removed the dirt instead of mixing it up with a load of chemicals and leaving it there.😳
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True ;D
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Are you saying you don't believe it is encapsulated and removed by subsequent vacuuming by the customer?
;D ;D ;D ;D
I use those emoticons as they don't do one for 'peeing myself laughing at the ridiculousness of the suggestion'
Encapping is about improving appearance not removing dirt,
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Hang on a second, if encapping is about improving appearance, not removing dirt, then doesn't that leave you with something of a moral dilemma when someone calls you for a price to 'clean' their carpet? If you're going to encap it then shouldn't you qualify the customer that you won't actually be removing the dirt from their carpet and will merely improve the appearance of it?
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Yep that is the USP have your carpets visually improved without the hassle of having them cleaned.
That said I used it on a commercial carpet which was whicking back, made it look good by time I had finished.
Have to agree with Simon a bit of a dilemma.
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Hang on a second, if encapping is about improving appearance, not removing dirt, then doesn't that leave you with something of a moral dilemma when someone calls you for a price to 'clean' their carpet? If you're going to encap it then shouldn't you qualify the customer that you won't actually be removing the dirt from their carpet and will merely improve the appearance of it?
s
Yes exactly..... I've mentioned this many a time, do regular encapper tell the client you won't actually remove any dirt on the day of cleaning but rely on subsequent vacuuming.
Especially when the leave nasty chems on the carpet (as explained by the boffins)
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But Mike, you've just told us that, 'encapping is about improving appearance, not removing dirt,' so how do you put that to the customer who, unless you qualify them on the standard you have now defined, might otherwise be thinking that you're cleaning their carpet and not just rearranging the dirt and justify that with a tenuous hope that the customer will do a thorough job of vaccing it afterwards, if they vac it at all - a step upon which the whole system relies?
So if encapping is about appearance and not cleaning, then it would not be wrong to give a customer enquiring about having their carpet 'cleaned' a price for 'cleaning,' if you then encap it, which you've now told us isn't 'cleaning?'
Simon
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Simon you are asking the wrong person, I tried this method ( again) and my conclusion is the same as yours, I don't agree with it being used as a cleaning method without full disclosure about what it actually does,
You seam to be trying to make me out as some sort of champion of this cleaning method after I test it on 2 jobs, it was just that a test not a ......'throw away my truckmount I've seen the light!' Moment.
After all unless we try out different methods how can we comment or improve
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Taken me years to get my TM never throwing it away.
To be honest I had never been happy with encap, but always thought after an hour it would be dry enough to post vacuum.
I guess that is not the case. How long should it be left before vaccing?
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I have had a go at encapping and in a commercial tile carpet I can see the following benefits of encapping:
It is quiet and unobtrusive so can be done when people are working
It can be used on the 4th floor of an office block when HWE with say a truckmount becomes challenging
It dries quickly as it's low moisture cleaning
It encapsulates the soil taking it away from the fibres and when dry can be vacuumed out from the carpet
It reduces wicking especially when you the alternative means that if you have used a truckmount at say 200psi you have "bounced" the dirt up from the bottom of the tile and even with extraction some of the dirt is left at the top of the fibre so there is the chance that when it dries the carpet will look blotchy and have dark patches. To prevent this it needs to be dried and thus bonnetted off - another process that adds to the cost of cleaning.
It is quick with speeds of 300 sqm an hour possible.
It is cheap to use and with the brighteners in the carpet it looks much cleaner.
The reality
With a Cimex the flow rate is quite high..........I did a large building of around 2000sqm and there was at least 250 litres of water that was used. Remember it goes down and there is no recovery. OK the air con dried it fast.
It can still wick back as it's still wetting the carpet.
On bad traffic areas you still would need to extract the dirt as if there are black marks round say a toilet doorway it can be because the carpet is full of soil and needs to be taken out.
The speed of a Cimex is great but 300sqm is probably in an ideal world with an open office and someone filling the tank as you go. 200 is nearer the mark but compared with using a wand and a truckmount is much much faster.
It can leave a streaky finish a bit like mowing a lawn.
I will stick my neck out and say that 70% of cleaners use Henry's that are trying to pull the soil from the carpet by sheer suction without beating the fibres to get out the dirt.
Lastly there are those that use it as a cheap way of cleaning. They use encap and a small oreck and use it in domestic houses and EOT's and its a get in and get out and get paid. There are loads doing it and one guy that I met on a course said that the customers loved the quick drying times and the smell and he had had no complaints - right.
I think that the encap solutions have improved since it was first launched and will deal with tea and coffee stains and greasy stains etc. But the arguments are not clear cut to me. Yes a commercial situation on a big area where there is a proper regime of cleaning with proper equipment as a maintenance clean is a fair way of tackling a clean. BUT no prevac, in and out on a domestic and no proper post vacuuming, is at the other end of the scale.
So after all of that I can give them the two options and the accountants mostly win, but the carpet doesn't.
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Tony,
That is an excellent, well balanced post and full of some well put home truths about encap, not least those that are doing it as a cheap way of cleaning - with no complaints - yeah right.
Simon
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250 liters on 2000sq m....that's a bit over the top.
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It was 1771.24 sqm. Remember with the cymex you have to feed it so that there is a "swishing" sound and it foams slightly. If you get it too dry there is not the correct agitation on the three pads....so maybe I was heavy handed so it's 225 litres.............it's still a lot of water on the carpet.
Bonnetting is different as you know but I am talking about encapping commercial carpet tiles. A cymex is the machine for that sort of job.
Just being honest.