[wayne zabel]

Been to clean a couple of bedroom carpets at a house were they look after people with learning difficulties,in one room there was a patch were a guy stands and has to have Talc put on his bodyThe patch was discoloured/lighter from the rest of the carpet due to continued dropping of the powder and treading in.
I could not get this area to come back to the same as the rest of the carpet despite continued extraction.I used SPM and agitated then extracted with long slow passes.

Is there anything else I could have done/used and is there something in Talcum Powder that would cause permanent discolour to a carpet.

Thanks

Wayne

[Carpet Dawg]

try some solvent I.e. citrus gel, POG etc.

By discolour do you mean its become lighter? has the customer maybe used zanish or the like?

I had a job yesterday where the customer used tons of zanish all over the carpets in her flat. The carpets came up a lot better but where patchy as fck because of the bleaching. Customer seemed to be happy though.

[wayne zabel]

Yes the area where the talc has fallen is a much lighter shade of green - going towards yellow in parts.I thought it might have just extracted out but it didn't.She said it was just talc and they hadn't put anything else on it.

[Len Gribble]

Wayne

Never come across that problem, have used talcum powder on soot with a good success rate! So it must have some properties?

[John Kelly]

Did you pre vac the hell out of it? Talc is insoluble in water so best to try and remove as much as possible with a dry vac nozzle. Something like ultrapac to break the bond to the fibres may have worked better.

[wayne zabel]

No John I didn't Vac the hell out of it.I was told that they had vacced the carpets daily and always vac the area after using the talc.Your input makes complete sense now though.

Point taken.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Talc is inert and is the basis of products like 'Shake and Vac'.

It is not soluble in water but is easily dispersible using a quality detergent.

If the carpet has been yellowed then there is something else going on, probably some sort of cream.

Cheers

Doug

[John Kelly]

Wayne as you and I know most members of the public don't know how to use a vacuum cleaner properly and the vast majority in general use couldn't suck the yolk off an egg as they are never maintained (filters changed) properly.

[Kinver_Clean]

And they whip the cleaner over the carpet so fast it does not have time to do anything.