[francis]

Are we therefore saying that wicking occurs due to the slow drying of the fibres, from the bottom of the pile up, bringing the residue dirt up with it?
Accelerated drying overcomes this by leaving the residual soil at the bottom of the pile?
LM also leaves residual crap at the bottom,but due to virtually no drying, no soil will rise to the top?

Would have thus thought that the only real way of cleaning these carpets is with HWE using a good prespray & aggitation to loosen all soil & then extract with a high flush & the kind of vacuum presumably only available on a larger truckmount unit. Can see this as the only way to suck out this soil which either causes wicking or is left at the bottom of the pile with LM

[Simon Gerrard]

Francis,
Good point.
I think far too much has been made of this wicking problem because I have never seen it happen  in over thirty years but then I use RX20  or at the very least a wand and a Truck Mount. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen because clearly it does, but I think people sometimes use it as an excuse to go to an LM system because it's quicker and less involved.
Why not HWSE and then run a dry bonnet mop over the area to remove any residual moisture?
Simon

[Derek_Walker]

I think may be we are fooling ourselves if we think we are removing all the dirt in a carpet, regardless of which cleaning system is used. In theory most of the soil in a carpet consists of dry soil, which is removed by thorough vacuuming, the rest is made up of sticky soils which is removed by cleaning.

If you look at how rugs are cleaned, vacuuming only one side is not enough to remove all the dry soil which is why a rug badger or vacuuming both sides is needed. This cannot be achieved with a fitted carpet.

The problem with commercial carpets is if they have not been maintained properly then they need to be emptied and flushed out properly before you can start to use a low moisture system for maintaining them.

[Simon Gerrard]

Derek,
That's spot on.
I've just done a quote in an office block 555 sq yds. The company who used to do that job used LM and the guy said that this time he wanted it done properly. I asked him what he meant by that and he said that it always looked ok when the job was done but after a few days the appearance slid back towards looking dirty and the stains started coming back.
Looking at the job none of the above is surprising because the carpet is filthy and needs a thorough clean with an RX and Truck Mount before you could even consider a LM maintenance system to keep it looking good until the next major clean.
That is where an LM system fits into a maintenance programme because IMO that is what it is, a maintenance system.
Simon

[prodry]

You are spot on there Simon. LM should be part of a maintenace programe. Unfortunatley many businesses do not under stand this and often go with companies offering LM as it usually cheaper (usually their existing cleaning contractors). It is part of our job to educate them and try and get them to agree to the benifits of a maintenace programme. It is just a very hard/time consuming task to try and chase this type of work.

Not sure what support/education/advertising is given by the NCCA and the various facilities management associations there are to potential customers. Unfortunately we are a soap dodging nation compared to the likes of americans.

[Simon Gerrard]

As luck would have it i've got a large kitchen carpet to clean which is Flotex. Last time I did the job I experimented a bit and found HWSE works well, but not great, but then neither did just padding it. In the end I used HWSE to flush the dirt out of the carpet and then a dry pad to remove the excess moisture, result? Superb and hence my return visit in the morning.

Simon