[richy27]

Went to go and pick some bit a pieces up today from a local supplies company and got taliking about defoamer. he told me to stick a bar of soap in the waste tank anyone else do this to stop too much foam building up

regards

Richard

[Jim_77]

That's a new one on me!

Soap foams up when you agitate it so I don't know how somebody came up with that bright idea :

[richy27]

that what i thought it was an engineer told me that one

[clinton]

Its true years ago when we had lots of foaming cleaning supplies we used to stick a bar of soap in

There again if its the cheap and nasty solution nothing will stop it  :

[CFS Cleaning]

If you've ever had a really bubbly bubble bath, soon as you take in a bar of soap away goes the bubbles!!

[Mike Osbourne]

Can't believe you not heard abut that Jim. Someone brings it up every now and then on here. I tried t for a while and it does work, to a degree. Problem is it tend to disintegrate and clog up the waste gate. Tried it in a net bag but just gets manky.

OK for emergencies.

[daysdeepclean]

You've just reminded me about a customer last year. Having cleaned his pool room I opened up the sluice to empty the waste tank. This chocolate coloured water poured into the bucket and he said "That's never come out of my carpet, I bet you've put a lump of coal in there!" I pi**ed myself laughing, bless him!

[murky]

Or a big glug of fabric conditioner, that does it as well.

Murky

[markpowell]

I use soap all the time in the waste tank, works ok for me.
Mark

[robert meldrum]

True, but you don't need a full bar of soap and why are you creating so much foam?

[M.Acorn]

Tried it,not very effective,kept getting stuck in the outlet,had to keep fishing about for it in buckets of mucky water,gave up,i have found that since i am measuring out my pre spray exactly right,i am not getting foam probs  ,gone from 1 ltr of spray to a bigger 5 ltr so easy to get spot on.also use liquid de foamer,which i find much better

[Mike Osbourne]

I would say 1in 5 jobs you hit a patch on the carpet and you know they've really gone to town on the 1001.  

Did one the other day and they had spilt a whole bottle of shampoo on the stairs. Defoamer used but my machine still became a suds factory.

Got a good squirt of WD40 when I got back just in case.

[derek west]

don't have this problem.
chalk one up for the truckmounters.
derek

[Ryan Smyth]

A wee dash of citra boost

Ryan

[Mike Osbourne]

Derek

I'm gonna get one just so I can do Mrs Soapy Suds without foaming her carpet up too much.

[clinton]

 

[Doctor Carpet (Ret'd)]

I have a client whose husband was getting fed up cleaning their carpets every 6 weeks and had been doing so for a couple of years.

It turned out he would spray the entire carpet with 1001 or similar and then use a steam gun to "clean" the carpet.

Even with liquid de-foamer I had to stop every 2-3 minutes to empty foam out of the tank.

I explained what the problem was and that it would take several cleans over a period of time to remove all the foam. Over the next year I cleaned the carpet 4 more times at decreasing frequency. There's no foam left in it now and I just clean the carpets every 6 months.

I also doubled my price from that quoted when I arrived the first time as obviously the extent of the problems was not visible in the inspection.

She didn't have a problem with that and he's eternally grateful that he doesn't have to clean the carpets every 6 weeks now.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Soap is a reasonably effective defoamer but the silicone products are better.

I have found the powdered defoamer by far the most effective, with the added advantage that you can sprinkle it on a shampoo 'patch' where something has been spilt, and this helps prevent stopping every 2 mins to empty the tank.

Cheers

Doug

[Mike Osbourne]

Roger

That story would make an excellent testimonial to pull out when you get the smug, I've got a VAX types are wavering.

[clinton]

Mike

Roger could write a book on those tips for us  with his silver tounge