[ollie]

Hi all, Ive been trading for a few months now with many happy customers and several refferals. My problem concerns white carpets,I cleaned a white polypropelene carpet for a customer a few weeks ago and the results were not what i or the customer expected. The high traffic areas were very black especially from the kitchen. The family are chinese and use alot of oil in their cooking and i suspect this is being trodden into the carpet. Anyway, i prevacced and presprayed with prochem multi pro at its strongest concentration agitated with a brush left for 15 mins and hwe (with a ninja) although a lot of soiling was removed the result was far from fantastic, on one area i even presprayed again and hwe but with no furher result.
Yesterday i had a white 80/20 carpet again with high soiling in traffic areas i used prespray gold and hwe with fabric and fibre rinse and again the carpet looked better but no where near what i had expected and told the customer the result would be. In the end i didnt charge the customer a penny for fear of a bad reputation (the carpet was cleaned ayear ago and the customer stated it resoiled very badly whithin 2 weeks - i suspect a chemical was left in it)
All my other carpets have been fantastic with very happy customers but im beginning to worry about white ones! any advice very much appreciated
Thanks Ollie
 

[neil 47]

Ollie
you probably have just come across poor carpets that are badly soiled.
 A good quality carpet should be cleaning up very well.
I use hydramaster blitz and a acid rinse and they have all come up really well .
Always play down how well a carpet will come up then if it improves a little, its a bonus to them hope this helps.

Neil

[Doug Holloway]

Ollie,

Try using a stronger detergent in your tank , like Double Cean or Ultimate Master , the latter which will dry neutral.

It's O.K using a nice safe approach but sometimes youv'e just got to give it a good clean.

Chinese  people and Africans seem to use a lot of oil and their carpets are often very soiled.

You could also try microsplitters which are good at shearing oil/grease.I would use as a presray and then use Ultimate Master.

It's also part of the learning experience that some jobs are what I call hero jobs , where a great result is achieved with little effort and others are zero jobs where all the effort in the world just does not produce as good a result as you want.

Cheers,

Doug

[ollie]

Hi Neil,  

Thanks for your reply.  It's just frustrating not to be able to achieve the results myself and the customer want.   I was thinking of trying some prochem oxibrite ?? Do you have any experience with this chemical ?

Regards

Ollie

[ollie]

Hi Doug,

The only chemical I use in my tank is an acid rinse, as I'm relatively new to the job I went on the NCCA course in may.  What do you mean by a stronger detegent in my tank.  I was under the impression from the instructions on the chemicals to prespray and rinse with the acid rinse.

Thanks for your reply.

Ollie

P.s  I use an Ashbys Ninja

[Chris Bailey]

Hi Ollie

bad traffic lanes are difficult and I would agree with Neal, play down the expected results when selling and qualify with the customer the difficulties with the traffic lanes, then you won't be working for nothing, also if the traffic lanes clean up better than the customer expects they will be over the moon.

I have done a few cream/white carpets over the last couple of months and all have cleaned up nicely including traffic lanes, yes sometimes I have had to do some areas twice but turned out nice in the end.  Only thing that I couldn't get out was some lucozade from a white 80/20 bedroom carpet.

I use microsplitters instead of detergents.

Chris

[Doug Holloway]

Ollie,

I mean use Prochems Dry Blend , Doulbe Clean or Alltecs Ultinmate master in the tank.

These are higher pH chemicals which will cope with the dirtier jobs.

You can always spray or rinse with acid rinse at the end but this is not necessary on PP.

I don't know what approach the NCCA advocate but in my opinon it' better to get the carpet clean in the first place than getting too bogged down in pH, alkalinity , acidity etc.

Research has indicated that alkalinity is more important in damaging wool than the pH.

Try different chemicals and you will see what works best.

Cheers,

doug

[Chris Bailey]

Ollie

A stronger detergent in the tank will boost your cleaning power.  Prespray with your choosen product and rinse with prochems crystal green or something like that because an acid rinse won't have enough bite.

We were all taught to leave the carpets slightly acidic, hence the acid rinse but like Doug says some jobs need a bit of a boost.  You can alway mist an acid solution when you have finished.

Chris

[mark_lane]

HI ollie
sounds like you are not doing to much wrong,excellent advice already been given ,do  you  mechanical agitate or do you use a brush?if not this could make a great deal of differance and always undersell and over achieve.
                                    cheers mark

[Jason Hedges]

Hi Ollie,

I've been cleaning for nearly 2 years now and have found light coloured carpets a bit of a nightmare especially with badly soiled traffic lanes.

Make sure you thoroughly vacuum the carpet and go over the traffic lanes a few times in all directions with a decent vacuum (I use a sebo BS36).

I would then prespray with trafficlean on the polypropolene (prespray gold on the 80/20), let it settle for 10 minutes and agitate with a sebo duo. I would then rinse with crystal green on the poly or fibre and fabric rinse on the 80/20. If I wasn't happy with the results I'd go over the traffic lane again pre-spraying, giving 10 minutes and scrubbing the area with a hand brush then rinsing again.

I use microsplitters most of the time but find they just don't have the cutting power on really dirty/greasy/oily traffic lanes (in my honest opinion).

Whenever I quote a job I'm always honest with the customer and if I think there could be a problem with badly soiled areas I tell them straight! Just let them know that with the ammount of soiling inevitable wear will have occured and the traffic lane area probably won't come up as clean or look the same as the rest of the carpet. Be truthful and they will respect you for it.

You're better to be honest and do the best that you can without 100% success and walk away paid than do the job for nothing.

I hope my opinion helps,

Take care and keep learning,

Jason.

[Karl Wildey]

I cleaned a flat for chinese couple the other day. I use enzyme perspray and rinsed with ultimate master. No light colour carpets but good results.
Don't use oxibrite, its for lighting carpets that have browned, it sounds like yours are just 'plane filthy', and need and good clean. If you can go for high heat that will also help. ENsyme perspray neds 15 mins to work, so do not rush it

[ollie]

Thank you all for your replies.
I will take all the advice on board.  Im off to buy an offcut of cream carpet , im going to get it really filthy and try out all your suggestions!
thanks again

[david_green]

Hi all,

I notice several recommending Ultimate Master as a rinse, what happens if you use temperatures higher than the 55degrees recommended?

[rodcope]

Polypropylene is a melt spun continuous fileamant fibre.It is not easy to clean as most fibres are trilobal in cross section. Holding onto dirt in the intersitial spaces between the fibres. Mechanical agitation is always required to get anything like a clean looking carpet. So always pre- spray and use agitation a rotary brush of some kind. A high pH or highly alkaline traffiic lane cleaner is ideal on this type of fibre.
In the case of white carpets oxidising bleaches can be used but they are only really effective on wool carpets, and should be rinsed out. Care needs to be taken when using them adjacent to coloured carpets as sometimes the bleaching can remove colour.