[Mike Halliday]

Simon you are asking the wrong person, I tried this method ( again) and my conclusion is the same as yours, I  don't agree with it being used as a cleaning method without full disclosure about what it actually does,

You seam to be trying to make me out as some sort of champion of  this cleaning method after I test it on 2 jobs,  it was just that a test  not a ......'throw away my truckmount I've seen the light!'  Moment. 

After all unless we try out different methods how can we comment or improve

[Jonathan Evans]

Taken me years to get my TM never throwing it away.
To be honest I had never been happy with encap, but always thought after an hour it would be dry enough to post vacuum.
I guess that is not the case. How long should it be left before vaccing?

[Tony Stewart]

I have had a go at encapping and in a commercial tile carpet I can see the following benefits of encapping:

It is quiet and unobtrusive so can be done when people are working
It can be used on the 4th floor of an office block when HWE with say a truckmount becomes challenging
It dries quickly as it's low moisture cleaning
It encapsulates the soil taking it away from the fibres and when dry can be vacuumed out from the carpet
It reduces wicking especially when you the alternative means that if you have used a truckmount at say 200psi you have "bounced" the dirt up from the bottom of the tile and even with extraction some of the dirt is left at the top of the fibre so there is the chance that when it dries the carpet will look blotchy and have dark patches. To prevent this it needs to be dried and thus bonnetted off - another process that adds to the cost of cleaning.
It is quick with speeds of 300 sqm an hour possible.
It is cheap to use and with the brighteners in the carpet it looks much cleaner.

The reality
With a Cimex the flow rate is quite high..........I did a large building of around 2000sqm and there was at least 250 litres of water that was used. Remember it goes down and there is no recovery. OK the air con dried it fast.
It can still wick back as it's still wetting the carpet.
On bad traffic areas you still would need to extract the dirt as if there are black marks round say a toilet doorway it can be because the carpet is full of soil and needs to be taken out.
The speed of a Cimex is great but 300sqm is probably in an ideal world with an open office and someone filling the tank as you go. 200 is nearer the mark but compared with using a wand and a truckmount is much much faster.
It can leave a streaky finish a bit like mowing a lawn.
I will stick my neck out and say that 70% of cleaners use Henry's that are trying to pull the soil from the carpet by sheer suction without beating the fibres to get out the dirt.

Lastly there are those that use it as a cheap way of cleaning. They use encap and a small oreck and use it in domestic houses and EOT's and its a get in and get out and get paid. There are loads doing it and one guy that I met on a course said that the customers loved the quick drying times and the smell and he had had no complaints - right.

I think that the encap solutions have improved since it was first launched and will deal with tea and coffee stains and greasy stains etc. But the arguments are not clear cut to me. Yes a commercial situation on a big area where there is a proper regime of cleaning with proper equipment as a maintenance clean is a fair way of tackling a clean. BUT no prevac, in and out on a domestic and no proper post vacuuming, is at the other end of the scale.

So after all of that I can give them the two options and the accountants mostly win, but the carpet doesn't.

[Simon Gerrard]

Tony,
That is an excellent, well balanced post and full of some  well put  home truths about encap, not least those that are doing it as a cheap way of cleaning - with no complaints - yeah right.

Simon

[JandS]

250 liters on 2000sq  m....that's a bit over the top.

[Tony Stewart]

It was 1771.24 sqm. Remember with the cymex you have to feed it so that there is a "swishing" sound and it foams slightly. If you get it too dry there is not the correct agitation on the three pads....so maybe I was heavy handed so it's 225 litres.............it's still a lot of water on the carpet.
Bonnetting is different as you know but I am talking about encapping commercial carpet tiles. A cymex is the machine for that sort of job.
Just being honest.