Clean It Up

UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Steven Butler on November 22, 2015, 07:30:59 pm

Title: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Steven Butler on November 22, 2015, 07:30:59 pm
Dont know if anyone else has done the same but lately and with amazing results ive been encapping upholstery and then extracting with my machine but dry extracting rather than HWE...can you see any problems with this?
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Steve Chapman on November 22, 2015, 07:42:38 pm
If completely dry you would need an inline filter to stop the dust damaging your vac motors...
probably better to use vacuum cleaner.......
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Steven Butler on November 22, 2015, 07:55:48 pm
No mate its not completely dry at all.  Ive literally been spraying the encap, brushing in then extracting whilst still wet.
The results have honestly been outstanding
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Simon Gerrard on November 22, 2015, 08:43:33 pm
Aren't there powerful oxidising agents in most encap products which could cause huge problems on some fabrics, so I'd say your risking it - big time😳

Simon


Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: davetherave on November 22, 2015, 09:37:35 pm
I thought encap products like dynamall are more for commercial carpets,  rather than the delicate fabrics found in upholstery?

I'm very inexperienced with carpet and upholstery cleaning though.
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 23, 2015, 07:37:50 am
Encap solutions are my main method of attack on upholstery now.

and great on micro fibre materials which are getting more common now.

Geoff

Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Steven Butler on November 23, 2015, 08:31:41 am
Geoff,

Do you leave them to dry, towel off or use the machine to dry extract like i have been?

Steve
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: tim handley on November 23, 2015, 08:41:38 am
im using pro chem fab restorer applying as a foam, brushing or sponging depending on soiling, then towel dry  or extract depending on material or soiling levels.... great results....
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: scott johns on November 23, 2015, 09:07:04 am
everything has a place in our game but I would say fine to encap your dfs, scs furnishings due to there poor quality and cheap
put together furnishings but I wouldn't  not on a quality high end quality furnishings. I look forward to some more comments on this post
as I think there are going to be quite a mixed opinions this is why I think these forums are good to help one and others happy cleaning and have a good week
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Steven Butler on November 23, 2015, 09:23:16 am
Tim if extracting and not towelling do you dry extract like i have been or rinse extract mate?
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: tim handley on November 23, 2015, 03:01:24 pm
rinse, generally......... unless doing a really clean one, such as one i did on saturday, really didnt need any more than towel dry.....
didnt really need cleaning tbh, but there ya go......  everyones happy!!!!
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 23, 2015, 04:06:33 pm

Stephen,

depending on amount of soiling , material etc. I normally extract  ,often I will just towel, usually the side and backs.

geoff
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Mike Halliday on November 23, 2015, 04:17:03 pm
Funny this came up I spent Saturday afternoon cleaning my suite with various dry foam methods  in preparation for a suite I had to clean today.

Discussed it with JK on Thursday while ordering some shampoos  (chemspecs & craftex) was going to buy an encap solution to use but decided to use an actual shampoo

This is the combo I ended up using which as a Von shrider scrubbing in the foam then a wet vac to remove it

(http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1448295246_image.jpeg)


Then finished with a towel which was very soiled at the end so the foam cleaning did leave quite a lot of dirt behind.

It did a good job but wouldn't like to use it as my stand alone cleaning method.
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: sean oregan on November 23, 2015, 04:27:23 pm
Mr Butler
Your such a bad boy!!!!!
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: tim handley on November 23, 2015, 04:43:53 pm
in the naughty corner Steven....... ;D
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Tony Stewart on November 24, 2015, 05:51:25 pm
Maybe I'm old school. I thought that encap was used on commercial carpet tiles where they loosened the soil and put a polymer coating round the dirt. When that dried then it was removed with a vacuum cleaner with a beating brush. I use encap where needed with a Cimex so it's not as though I am totally against encapping.
Then  hey ho some bright spark says get an oreck orbiter as a little rotary and lets do a bit of this in customers homes. Be in there quick and out and with the brighteners on the carpet it looks fantastic. Add a bit of lemon smell and the customers will go wild on the speed at which I can "clean" and get a result. Hey my hourly rate goes up and I can always say that the customers like the quick drying times and the carpets look great.
Then try it on minging carpets and it struggles because even on a commercial carpet that has really heavy footfall the soiling is so great that it cannot be cleaned this way as the carpet is full of dirt and it just cannot be lifted out. So you need to extract that out with a hot water extraction machine. So now on a bad EOT it wont cut the mustard.
So then more bright sparks try it on upholstery and get great results, and some now do a combination of HWE on the front and then shortcut the job by putting encap on the rear of the settee.
It's all about what you want to do in the carpet and upholstery cleaning business but to me there is a right and a wrong way. The suppliers supply the products for the correct use and as Simon says you are risking it. Paul Pearce et al would never advocate encapping upholstery in their training sessions.
Just to finish my rant.............went to price up an EOT. Big house and she has to have a receipt for the landlord to show that she has had the carpets cleaned. I discounted the price as it would be empty from £369 to £300 as with a truckmount I could still make it pay. She looked at me and said that all she wanted was the receipt and wasn't bothered about the clean. So maybe that's the next step for some guys - just a receipt and no clean!!!!
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: sean oregan on November 24, 2015, 06:23:37 pm
I am no chemist but isn't prochem fibre shampoo an encap product?
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 24, 2015, 06:38:55 pm
Maybe I'm old school. I thought that encap was used on commercial carpet tiles where they loosened the soil and put a polymer coating round the dirt. When that dried then it was removed with a vacuum cleaner with a beating brush. I use encap where needed with a Cimex so it's not as though I am totally against encapping.
Then  hey ho some bright spark says get an oreck orbiter as a little rotary and lets do a bit of this in customers homes. Be in there quick and out and with the brighteners on the carpet it looks fantastic. Add a bit of lemon smell and the customers will go wild on the speed at which I can "clean" and get a result. Hey my hourly rate goes up and I can always say that the customers like the quick drying times and the carpets look great.

I agree to a point Tony, I have ever encapped commercial carpets and the very rare residential , residential for the reason low  profile in kitchen achieving good results. simples really horses for courses. 

As Sean says fibre shampoo is very similar  along with a  a number of other products  .

Perhaps your correct in your statement regarding Paul,  What you need to ask is Has he tried it ? has he investigated it ?

Geoff
Then try it on minging carpets and it struggles because even on a commercial carpet that has really heavy footfall the soiling is so great that it cannot be cleaned this way as the carpet is full of dirt and it just cannot be lifted out. So you need to extract that out with a hot water extraction machine. So now on a bad EOT it wont cut the mustard.
So then more bright sparks try it on upholstery and get great results, and some now do a combination of HWE on the front and then shortcut the job by putting encap on the rear of the settee.
It's all about what you want to do in the carpet and upholstery cleaning business but to me there is a right and a wrong way. The suppliers supply the products for the correct use and as Simon says you are risking it. Paul Pearce et al would never advocate encapping upholstery in their training sessions.
Just to finish my rant.............went to price up an EOT. Big house and she has to have a receipt for the landlord to show that she has had the carpets cleaned. I discounted the price as it would be empty from £369 to £300 as with a truckmount I could still make it pay. She looked at me and said that all she wanted was the receipt and wasn't bothered about the clean. So maybe that's the next step for some guys - just a receipt and no clean!!!!
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Jonathan Evans on November 25, 2015, 06:49:47 am
Maybe I'm old school. I thought that encap was used on commercial carpet tiles where they loosened the soil and put a polymer coating round the dirt. When that dried then it was removed with a vacuum cleaner with a beating brush. I use encap where needed with a Cimex so it's not as though I am totally against encapping.
Then  hey ho some bright spark says get an oreck orbiter as a little rotary and lets do a bit of this in customers homes. Be in there quick and out and with the brighteners on the carpet it looks fantastic. Add a bit of lemon smell and the customers will go wild on the speed at which I can "clean" and get a result. Hey my hourly rate goes up and I can always say that the customers like the quick drying times and the carpets look great.
Then try it on minging carpets and it struggles because even on a commercial carpet that has really heavy footfall the soiling is so great that it cannot be cleaned this way as the carpet is full of dirt and it just cannot be lifted out. So you need to extract that out with a hot water extraction machine. So now on a bad EOT it wont cut the mustard.
So then more bright sparks try it on upholstery and get great results, and some now do a combination of HWE on the front and then shortcut the job by putting encap on the rear of the settee.
It's all about what you want to do in the carpet and upholstery cleaning business but to me there is a right and a wrong way. The suppliers supply the products for the correct use and as Simon says you are risking it. Paul Pearce et al would never advocate encapping upholstery in their training sessions.
Just to finish my rant.............went to price up an EOT. Big house and she has to have a receipt for the landlord to show that she has had the carpets cleaned. I discounted the price as it would be empty from £369 to £300 as with a truckmount I could still make it pay. She looked at me and said that all she wanted was the receipt and wasn't bothered about the clean. So maybe that's the next step for some guys - just a receipt and no clean!!!!

I have been asked that very question.............. Er no sorry madam.
Why I hate EOT's


Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: first impressions on November 25, 2015, 04:52:11 pm
What are bright sparks, are they any  good.
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Simon Gerrard on November 25, 2015, 07:58:21 pm
Maybe I'm old school. I thought that encap was used on commercial carpet tiles where they loosened the soil and put a polymer coating round the dirt. When that dried then it was removed with a vacuum cleaner with a beating brush. I use encap where needed with a Cimex so it's not as though I am totally against encapping.
Then  hey ho some bright spark says get an oreck orbiter as a little rotary and lets do a bit of this in customers homes. Be in there quick and out and with the brighteners on the carpet it looks fantastic. Add a bit of lemon smell and the customers will go wild on the speed at which I can "clean" and get a result. Hey my hourly rate goes up and I can always say that the customers like the quick drying times and the carpets look great.
Then try it on minging carpets and it struggles because even on a commercial carpet that has really heavy footfall the soiling is so great that it cannot be cleaned this way as the carpet is full of dirt and it just cannot be lifted out. So you need to extract that out with a hot water extraction machine. So now on a bad EOT it wont cut the mustard.
So then more bright sparks try it on upholstery and get great results, and some now do a combination of HWE on the front and then shortcut the job by putting encap on the rear of the settee.
It's all about what you want to do in the carpet and upholstery cleaning business but to me there is a right and a wrong way. The suppliers supply the products for the correct use and as Simon says you are risking it. Paul Pearce et al would never advocate encapping upholstery in their training sessions.
Just to finish my rant.............went to price up an EOT. Big house and she has to have a receipt for the landlord to show that she has had the carpets cleaned. I discounted the price as it would be empty from £369 to £300 as with a truckmount I could still make it pay. She looked at me and said that all she wanted was the receipt and wasn't bothered about the clean. So maybe that's the next step for some guys - just a receipt and no clean!!!!

Tony,
I agree with every single word of that. And, it is not now, nor will it ever be 'old school'  to be a 'professional.'

It was only ever a matter of time before before encap would  be used beyond the circumstances it was designed for and low and behold, Oreck Orbiter and encap everything, even domestic carpets  and to defend it claim that it is brilliant, my customers love it, never had any complaints blah blah blah!
And now, just as inevitably,  encap is creeping onto upholstered fabrics, for which it most definitely was not designed and, because it does such a great job,  just dry extract it and leave all of those polymers on it for children to ingest at their leisure. Even if you wet extract it, there is no escaping the fact that it wasn't designed for fabrics and therefore shouldn't be used on fabrics....full stop.
But you've got to wonder why? There are loads of fantastic fabric cleaning products out there that were designed for the job, so why use anything else? And if you can't get fabrics clean by any other means then  should you really be cleaning fabrics at all?
Just expressing my opinion btw.

Simon




Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 25, 2015, 08:18:09 pm
Maybe I'm old school. I thought that encap was used on commercial carpet tiles where they loosened the soil and put a polymer coating round the dirt. When that dried then it was removed with a vacuum cleaner with a beating brush. I use encap where needed with a Cimex so it's not as though I am totally against encapping.
Then  hey ho some bright spark says get an oreck orbiter as a little rotary and lets do a bit of this in customers homes. Be in there quick and out and with the brighteners on the carpet it looks fantastic. Add a bit of lemon smell and the customers will go wild on the speed at which I can "clean" and get a result. Hey my hourly rate goes up and I can always say that the customers like the quick drying times and the carpets look great.
Then try it on minging carpets and it struggles because even on a commercial carpet that has really heavy footfall the soiling is so great that it cannot be cleaned this way as the carpet is full of dirt and it just cannot be lifted out. So you need to extract that out with a hot water extraction machine. So now on a bad EOT it wont cut the mustard.
So then more bright sparks try it on upholstery and get great results, and some now do a combination of HWE on the front and then shortcut the job by putting encap on the rear of the settee.
It's all about what you want to do in the carpet and upholstery cleaning business but to me there is a right and a wrong way. The suppliers supply the products for the correct use and as Simon says you are risking it. Paul Pearce et al would never advocate encapping upholstery in their training sessions.
Just to finish my rant.............went to price up an EOT. Big house and she has to have a receipt for the landlord to show that she has had the carpets cleaned. I discounted the price as it would be empty from £369 to £300 as with a truckmount I could still make it pay. She looked at me and said that all she wanted was the receipt and wasn't bothered about the clean. So maybe that's the next step for some guys - just a receipt and no clean!!!!

Tony,
I agree with every single word of that. And, it is not now, nor will it ever be 'old school'  to be a 'professional.'

It was only ever a matter of time before before encap would  be used beyond the circumstances it was designed for and low and behold, Oreck Orbiter and encap everything, even domestic carpets  and to defend it claim that it is brilliant, my customers love it, never had any complaints blah blah blah!
And now, just as inevitably,  encap is creeping onto upholstered fabrics, for which it most definitely was not designed and, because it does such a great job,  just dry extract it and leave all of those polymers on it for children to ingest at their leisure. Even if you wet extract it, there is no escaping the fact that it wasn't designed for fabrics and therefore shouldn't be used on fabrics....full stop.
But you've got to wonder why? There are loads of fantastic fabric cleaning products out there that were designed for the job, so why use anything else? And if you can't get fabrics clean by any other means then  should you really be cleaning fabrics at all?

Simon

What ever you say Simon, 
Do me a favour , don't tell me I shouldn't be cleaning upholstery with encap, leaving residuals in  the material , what a load of b******s.

note to one self ........ don't buy your book (http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1448482668_wink[1].gif)

Geoff
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Simon Gerrard on November 25, 2015, 08:31:18 pm
Geoff,
Like I said, just expressing an opinion.
But tell me something. Given the vast range of fabric cleaning products out there, why choose one that wasn't designed for fabric? 

Simon
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 25, 2015, 08:42:08 pm

Simon
Quite simple really, I found encap was superb on a number of fabrics ,especially some of the cheap micro fibre materials, flocks ,buffalos .
It gives me a couple of options, extraction and towelling   , normally towelling sides and back as generally speaking these are not so soiled. better I think than some cleaners who simply spray these areas with the tool   (http://www.cleanitup.co.uk/smf/1448483980_smiley[1].gif)    .

I do use other products  when necessary .

Geoff
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Simon Gerrard on November 25, 2015, 08:48:16 pm
Well then you have redeemed yourself., but then you did make it appear that you had succumbed to the encap revolution and had sold your professional soul to the encap revolution😃
Simon
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Robin Ray on November 25, 2015, 09:01:37 pm
Isn't encapping upholstery actually just a new way of doing the old school shampooing of upholstery but with a polymer encapsulant rather than a crystal encapsulator. Which is the method almost everything was cleaned with before HWE was invented.

Isnt this method really ment to be used either for maintenance or problem solving.
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Simon Gerrard on November 25, 2015, 09:17:55 pm
Robin,
I suppose.
The trouble is in the  period since, extraction cleaning came along and with it the means to physically remove the soil rather than just crystallising it with a shampoo, which led to the present generation of chemicals that obtain a high level of soil release to make the extraction process more effective.
You can do the same thing today with shampoos, if you mix something like SPM with Oxibrite and  fibre shampoo you will get a  similar effect as Encap on low profile carpets.

Simon
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Tony Stewart on November 25, 2015, 09:57:21 pm
So we encap the front or we then encap just the sides because they are not that dirty but it sort of saves time. Or we encap the arms and try and pull out the oil and grease that has been deposited by sweat, perspiration and body oils and we then take a bit more off with a towel.
So all that I understand. Then the remaining dirt is left to dry and the soiling because it is coated with the encap product is then ready to be extracted from the suite by vacuuming.
So we have cleaned the suite with something primarily designed to be finished off by dry vacuuming the debris out afterwards. So how many have vacuumed the suite before encapping and then telling the customer that they need to remove the debris by vacuuming the suite afterwards to finish the cleaning process. I suspect that not only is the customer not told this but never actually vacuums the suite anyway. I also suspect that very few are vacuumed before the clean which is what should be done before encapping  begins as per the instructions.
Even if I told my customers this they would question the clean (after all it is technically a maintenance clean) and don't vacuum the suite anyway.

Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 25, 2015, 10:26:17 pm

I always ask my customers if they vac their suite, I also recommend that they do so regularly if not, infact I tell them to physically brush the suite , have you tried brushing the arms of a suite before cleaning, its amazing the amount of dust that flies off even after vacuuming. so yes I do tell the customers.

As for encapping itself in regards to carpets I believe I was one of the first to take it on board many years ago after been introduced to it by H Halliday, I was amazed by the results, ( in the right situation) and  after been so impressed the first thing I did was buy a cimex  . No regrets and has earned me  some good £££££££,s in the process .

Geoff.
ps. as already stated previously, Very rare I use it on domestics.
Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: Shaun_Ashmore on November 25, 2015, 10:32:01 pm
When I used to work for Franklins all we used was crystallising shampoo an early encap on carpets and upholstery the results were great as I remember, on upholstery where in the day we were cleaning very lacquered on hair spray the shampoo just bounced over the top so applying solvent would break up the sticky contaminant but you try applying a foaming shampoo after, it just turned it to a watery messed, we used Holloway swifts to scrub in the shampoo and extracted off the foam and on the body contact areas we would rinse extract eventually one step was brought in which was applied by spray then scrubbed in then rinsed.

I do believe that you do need a rinse on body contact areas minimum.

Shaun

Title: Re: Dry extracting upholstery
Post by: gwrightson on November 25, 2015, 10:41:31 pm

"I do believe that you do need a rinse on body contact areas minimum"

Completely agree Shaun

Geoff