[John_McGavin]

Hi

Ive been called back to re-clean some areas of a large commercial job I done last week. All low profile tiles - cleaned with HWE.

The areas in question (sorry not got any photos) were heavily soiled traffic lanes and areas around where all the desks were - some really matted areas where the chair rollers had ingrained all the dirt.

I cleaned using my usual methos i,e vacuum, multi-pro prespray followed by HWE. Most of the areas came up really well apart from the above.

Anyway got a call last night from the boss to say they were not happy with these areas.

Does anyone know of a better way to clean these types of area. I do have a sample of micro splitters (thanks Nick by the way!) but ive not had time to experiment with them and I dont know if these will produce better results than ive already attempted.

Any suggestions welcome as going back to examine and re-clean tomorrow morning.

Cheers

[Robert_O]

Hi John

When dealing with heavily soiled ingrained carpet tiles you may sometimes experience wick back of soiling upon drying when HWE has been employed. If the tiles are the bitumen back type then the theory is that when the tiles have been subject to age and heavy wear that the bitumen may breakdown to a certain extent and that the cleaning products used may further agravate this and cause a wicking of bitument to the surface. This will appear as a brown soil type discolouration upon drying

In these cases it may be advisable to use low moisture bonnett buffing techniques to remove the surface soil  and limit the wetting deep down at the base of the fibes and aggravate the potential of bitumen wicking. An alternative could be to HWE and speed dry the areas with turbo dryers.

I personally have taken to using milder neutral based cleaning products on these types of bituamen tiles without any solvent formulations or high alkalinity i.e traffic lane cleaners, which could release the bituamen more readily. Of course though the tendancy is to reach for the more powerful cleaning agents when faced with heavily soiled areas but this hopefully gives you a reason to think twice about this.

Often tiles look so different wet to when they are dry so in effect you are left cleaning blind and not knowing the final results unless you return to assess when dry or you get a call back.

I also usually qualify with the client the possible limitations when cleaning these areas.

I hope that this helps you.

Best of luck tomorrow

Regards

Robert Olifent

[paul@ctcs]

Hi John,

I have a few jobs which sound very similar to what you described, I have had the chance to experiment with different methods and this is what I have found to be the most successful.

1-thoroughly pre vac

2-pre spray using a 12-1 ratio of solutions number 2 heavy duty

3-aggitate using slow speed rotary and over wet charlie pads

4-extract preferably with a machine capable of producing high solution pressure

5-using near dry queen bonnet pads cover extracted areas, this will aid the drying process and limit any wicking, also gives a good indication of the levels of soil remaining in the carpet.If the above went to plan it will be very little.

This has given me the best results to date, some of the improvments are inevitably down the new extraction machine which has far more power, but no doubt this method would have given good results with the old machine but would have taken longer.

Paul

[Mike Halliday]

I can't say i've ever had a call back because of this problem, if this happens as the carpet dries then I would have thought the answer is to do the worst areas first and put some dryers on it then continue with the rest of the carpet, on a big job the first bit should be dry before you leave so any wick-back will have shown its self.

I once thought it would be a good idea to run the rotory across a really dirty, matted before vaccuuming to loosen the dirt and open the matted pile.

Mike

[John_McGavin]

Thanks everyone

Will let you know how I get on. My first ever callback 

John

[*paul_moss]

John looks like its in the air. My first one today.
I have just had a call off a customer I did yesterday morning.
White polyprop bedroom carpet with just the usual dirty walk areas.
They cleaned fine using m/s with hot water rinse.
Looked ok when finished.
He has phoned me today at 5pm saying that the carpet has got what looks like the dirt has  been pushed to the sides.
He says it has just happened as last night and this morning it still looked clean

I asked if I could come straight around but he says there has been a death in the family and will call me back over the next couple of weeks.

Smell a rat any body or is it just me being sinical.

Paul

[woodman]

Hi John

Does sound like wick back,this can be a problem with HWE on low profile carpet tiles,sometimes you are not able to get sufficent airflow with the wand resulting in over wetting.As the carpet dries it wicks soil to the surface and in the heavily soiled areas this results in browning to the tiles.

This is a particular problem if the carpet has not been vacuumed properly.

It can happen on Bitumin backed and rubber backed of course on bitumin backed you would never apply any solvents cleaners directly to the tile as it would melt the backing.

If I knew how to place pictures on here I could give you some good examples of this very problem.

A low moisture system will solve this problem for you quickly and easily.


Paul;

Is he refering to filtration marks ?

[Derek_Walker]

Hi John

I think most of it has already been said, i would normally use a low moisture system on these tiles. If using an extraction machine always follow up with a bonnet mop, you will get better results. You may find that in these high traffic area's, especially around the chairs that the soil has changed the colour of the fibres and may not improve much with cleaning. Also with the speckled effect tiles the colours appear to merge together with wear & tear giving the appearance of soiling.

Hope this helps.

[Len Gribble]

John

Have never had a call back on commercial be it LM or HWE, It sound like you were unlucky but did you pre quantify first?

Woodman

e-mail me the pictures and I will post them for you.

Paul

A rat

Len

[*paul_moss]

Trevor
I  have not seen the carpet yet but there was no filtration marks prior or after clean.

LEN
I dont know why but have you ever had that 2nd sight when you think something is not quite right here and bells ring.

Think Ive got a rat.

We shall see soon.

Paul

[John_McGavin]

Len I did pre-qualify customer but upon return today the areas were worse than I had expected, so the call back was justified. I always say to the customer any problems just give me a call so he did. Prefer that than getting a bad reputation.

Anyway, set to work at 6.00 this morning. 5 hours later job complete and a happy customer. 

Never had a rotary so pre-sprayed solutions No2 agitated using pile brush (need to get mself a SebDuo) then HWE and immediately on with the air movers. Came up a treat.

Thanks for all the advice lads .... but really will need to get myself a rotary or seb if Im gonna use these micro splitters.

John

PS Is it just me or is this month really slow? Im actually having a day off tomorrow - first all year 

[Len Gribble]

Paul

Some times have 2nd sight, think down to their body language, tone and expectations.


John

It’s nice to see some one put there hand up Guilty my lord and correcting the problem.

Don’t use the Duo on tiles never seamed that effective rotary yes.

Len