[kilo]

I've recently started my own carpet cleaning business and I'm finding it difficult to get good results on carpets. I'm mainly cleaning buy to let properties with heavily stained areas. I have a prochem powerplus 500 portable machine, use pre spray gold and fibre fabric and rinse in the extraction machine. I'm also treating stains with prochem products. Any advise on what to change or check?

[JandS]

Change your pre spray to Powerburst by Prochem and you'll find
you don't always need anything in the tank but hot water.
I discovered this the other day when I forgot to put anything in
the tank for the first half hour of a job on Monday.
Was only alerted when customer made coffee and asked what I
used in the tank, and was it that stuff on the doorstep she'd been
reading the label of.
Get it down early, let it dwell for 5 mins while unloading, agitate and
dwell again and bingo.

John

[wayne zabel]

Im only a novice myself but have taken advivise from many on here and use Ultrapac Renovate on Polyprop carpets,works a treat.

[Claire Kent]

Hi

You may want to try Prochems Trafficlean as a pre-spray its great for heavy soils and grease removal.  I would consider your contact time (this may be increased) and if you arent already using one get a Prochem "Carpet Pile Brush"  they are great for working the chemical into the pile and dirt and will allow the chemical to contact well.  They also last for years!

Fibre and Fabric is a really good product but maybe try Extraction Pro...its better on heavy soils and proteins.   Hopefully you will  find that if you get your pre-spray working well you only need to use hot water (maybe a little deodoriser) to extract.

Hope this helps!!

Claire

[markpowell]

Get some Craftex Champion from Restoremate for nylon and synthetics in the eot jobs.
Its the bees nees on trashed synthetic carpets, rinse with Plain hot water
Mark

[JandS]

Got some of that Mark but not tried it yet.
Can't be ars*d cleaning out a sprayer for it,will
just wait till PB runs out.
Carpet pile brushes are great, haven't used a
mechanical agitator for ages.
Your right about lasting for ages too best £20
I've spent.

John

[Ken Wainwright]

Kilo

All of the recommendations above are sound.

On the law of averages, rentals tend to be more synthetic than natural fibres and if so in your cases, your safe on wool approach wont always "cut the mustard".

Do you vac the carpets first? A thorough pre-vaccing will remove a lot of the dry particulate. If you don't do this first, once you apply water it will turn into mud and be more difficult to remove with your porty.

Apply your pre-spray then agitate immediately, then dwell. The better the agitation, the better and easier the rinse. Even the light weight Sebo Duo is a significant step up from brushing by hand. More substantial machinery is another step up again.

As you are a Prochem user, a couple of boosters for your pre-spray that you may find useful are Oxybrite and Citra Boost. The later is only really used on very greasy soiling. The former is an oxydising bleach which will almost certainly be safe on polypropylene and with caution on topically dyed fibres. Always test first.

Safe and happy cleaning
The Ken

[james roffey]

I use Powerburst or Ultrapac renovate on Polyprop and woolsafe products on wool never had a problem i always vacuum well, and always agitate using envirodri gen 4 machine this i think is the key and makes extraction easier using my Ninja, i spoke to a customer recently and likened it to washing your hair without massaging the shampoo into your scalp you would not just pour the shampoo on then rinse off. although using shampoo is a distant memory for me now
I am relatively new to carpet cleaning, the results often surprise me, just be careful using something like the envirodri on loop pile carpets as it can damage them if you are not careful, but i believe agitation is the key to getting the best results, but i have seen guys with truckmount who do not agitate, and they have far more experience than i, but without a truckmount definately agitation all the way.

[Joe H]

Jim
I got a truckmount and I aggitate. Used to be with the Gen4 but now with the Carpetgard (Flexi5). Certainly adds to the result.

[Dave_Lee]

kilo,
confusing isn't it! Basically, rental properties are generally grubby as the tenants don't usually respect the carpets or anything else. They are badly stained etc, you need to hit them hard with a good alkaline prespray and rinse. The chems you are using are too gentle, they are fine for clean well looked after carpets but not the usual rental types. The carpets are going to trashed again anyway, so go in strong to get the best results.
Dave.

[derek west]

newbie or not, your not on your own.

absolute minger today, polyprop, rubbing my hands i was, as i know how well these come up and its a customer for life when they see the results.

powerburst down hot, good agitation with my enviro, erm erm i mean sebo duo , extracted with the trucky. fantastic result all over apart from the kitchen to conservatory walk through, in fact it was a huge dissapointment, tried some neat citra boost in a small area and got some transfer onto a TT. so topped up the powewr burst with a good old generous glug of citra boost, sprayed all over the bad bits then changed to hard brushes on my enviro, erm erm i mean sebo. and give it a damn good agitation. extracted again and got another 50% out of it but still not totally happy, out comes the RX with bonnet attachment and some split-x. give it a good old bonnetting and yes! we got some transfer onto bonnet. kept going till no more transfer. and result. still wouldn't say it was perfect but i left knowing no one else would get a better result. customer over the moon.

to be honest i could of walked after the powerburst and the custy would of still been happy, but the fact is, i wouldn't of.


so my advise is, you need more ammo, more WMD's. the more youve got at your disposal the more chance youve got of getting the lot out. oh and just in case, no you don't need a truckmount. just lots of varying weapons.

[derek west]

ps....
i quoted for 90 minutes and it took us 3 hours

say lavvy

"LAVVY"

[james roffey]

Jim
I got a truckmount and I aggitate. Used to be with the Gen4 but now with the Carpetgard (Flexi5). Certainly adds to the result.

I know Joe you are a true perfectionist no cutting corners with you 

[Carpet Dawg]

Hi

You may want to try Prochems Trafficlean as a pre-spray its great for heavy soils and grease removal.  I would consider your contact time (this may be increased) and if you arent already using one get a Prochem "Carpet Pile Brush"  they are great for working the chemical into the pile and dirt and will allow the chemical to contact well.  They also last for years!

Fibre and Fabric is a really good product but maybe try Extraction Pro...its better on heavy soils and proteins.   Hopefully you will  find that if you get your pre-spray working well you only need to use hot water (maybe a little deodoriser) to extract.

Hope this helps!!

Claire

Do you work for Prochem? oh you sell thier products.....

[yorky]

This thread is a perfect example of how it can be confusing for someone new given the huge amount of products on the Market.
Go on another forum and the products would be M Power and the likes which has not even been mentioned.

[derek west]

This thread is a perfect example of how it can be confusing for someone new given the huge amount of products on the Market.
Go on another forum and the products would be M Power and the likes which has not even been mentioned.

write down every chem mentioned in the thread, then a tick for every time its mentioned again and there ya go. simples

[JandS]

She sells Trafficlean but not Powerburst!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hot PB makes Trafficlean look crap and never rated PSG.
How does the Craftex face up??
Must mix some up sometime.

John

[markpowell]

John on trashed synthetics nothing comes close.
Mark

[Joe H]

Yorky
I frequent the forum (I think) you are talking about and yes M-Power and Nemesis are very good in their place.
but
for the type of carpet referred to in this thread I would be reaching for the Powerburst at the outset.

Prespray, good agitation, take a breather, then a good wash with Hydramaster Clear Water Rinse added.

[Paul W Jones]

When you've tried a few different products you'll come up with your own favourites.  It's always best to have a good choice in the back of the van though!