Rebirth of Power Preconditioning

As with many discoveries in ours and others industries, the “re-birth” of pre-scrubbing often came as an accident. A cleaner would attempt to clean by applying an encapsulant and scrubbing it in with one of the above mentioned machines. On the occasions that the encapsulation did not clean well enough, the cleaner would often use hot water extraction on the area that had just been “encapped”.

The result?

SPECTACULAR RESULTS!

It hasn’t taken long since those “re-discoverers” began to find the benefits of this method till we now have a growing number of cleaners who prescrub all commercial and “trashed” residential carpets. This method also creates a better cleaning result for those who prefer to precondition and rinse with an acidic rinse or encapsulant rinse only.

To read more, please visit…
http://www.ecleanadvisor.com/public/368.cfm

Detergents – (powdered and liquid) Pro & Con

For nearly four decades I’ve worked with both powdered and liquid detergents, and it occurs to me that there remains a great deal of confusion as to which make the most sense for cleaners to use.

I’ll begin by sharing some general “pros and cons” of each category, then share my experience as to what we are experiencing today in our industry.

POWDERED DETERGENTS:

PROS:
Cost Effective
Work Well in Hard Water
Work Well on Oily/Greasy Soils

CONS:
More Difficult to Mix than Liquids
If Mixed Carelessly Can Cause Equipment malfunctions
May Leave a Harsh Hand on Carpet

Owner operators who are careful with mixing, and any cleaning company who cleans restaurants and rental property, usually prefer the aggressive cleaning power and cost effectiveness of powders.

LIQUID DETERGENTS

PROS:
Easy to Mix (Saves Time)
Minimizes Chance of Clogging or Damage to Equipment
Leaves Carpets Softer

CONS:
May be Less Cost Effective than Powders
Less Effective in Very Hard Water Areas
Potentially Less Aggressive on Oily/Greasy Soils.

Larger companies will often choose liquids where its important to save time and prevent equipment malfunction, increasing efficiency and labor savings.

Detergents – (powdered and liquid) & Advanced Technology

Changes in cleaning technology over the past two decades has changed the playing field a bit more between these products, however.

With the advent of high performance traffic lane cleaners, and the cleaning industry’s greater understanding of the need to leave as little residue as possible, many cleaners are finding liquid detergents more than adequate for all of their cleaning needs. Instead of relying on the “power punch” of a powder, they now choose to use a “multi- purpose” prespray on most work, and then resort to “nuclear presprays” for the occasional filthy restaurant or “trashed” rental property.

This change of attitude has simplified cleaning for cleaning professionals. Of course, many who use high performance presprays use acidic rinse agents or even clear water, but lately many cleaners have moved back to liquid detergents for that little bit of extra punch an alkaline cleaner can give that an acidic agent or clear water rinse cannot.

I’ve been very impressed with a revolutionary new liquid detergent that has recently been introduced known as “VersaClean”. VersaClean has all of the above mentioned advantages of liquid detergents, with the added benefit of leaving carpets as soft as an acidic rinse leaves carpet, but also having anti wicking characteristics that many wish to have when cleaning olefin berber and commercial olefin carpet.

If you’d like to know more about how “VersaClean” can help you to create a VERY effective, simple, and customer pleasing cleaning system…

Preservation Vs Restoration

Over the past 20 years, consumers have begun to see the value in having their carpet cleaned on a regular basis, rather than waiting for the carpet to appear heavily soiled.

Carpet cleaners appreciate such customers, not just for their regular support to their business, but also because carpet cleaned on a regular basis releases soil more readily, and rarely had difficult stains that may be otherwise time consuming to remove.

The customer perception of textile furniture is not yet that advanced. In many cases, furniture is not cleaned in its lifetime, and if redecorating does not force them discard furniture, sometimes only when furniture becomes obviously soiled or stained is cleaning requested.

If you permit your customer to make such decisions, you are doing both you and your customer a grave disservice.

Upholstery fabrics, especially those made from delicate natural fibers, need to be cleaned when soiling is still light. Once natural fiber fine fabrics become obviously stained and soiled, the cleaning products and procedures needed to restore them might be unsafe to use.

Even with relatively safe procedures and products, “restorative cleaning” of such fabrics might involve the use of products that use mild bleaches that may damage both color and the strength of the fibers, and aggressive cleaning may also cause permanent texture damage.

Its unfortunate that the term “restorative cleaning” is likely inappropriate, as such cleaning methods do not “restore” the fabric to its new condition. They might be better called “destructive cleaning”, but such terms likely are not useful from a marketing perspective, however true in nature.

If you want to “preserve” the fabric as closely as possible to keep its original beauty, you should encourage your customer to have the furniture cleaned when soil is only apparent when you shift a cushion or arm cover and reveal an area that has not been soiled.

Such lightly soiled fabrics may be more easily cleaned with the mildest of detergents and gentlest agitation. In an upcoming article I will discuss some “preservation cleaning” techniques that will help keep your customer’s furniture beautiful and decrease both your risks and labor costs as well.

Holiday Spots, Spills and Stains

Starting with Thanksgiving, and through the late December holiday observances, your customers will be engaging in that riskiest of activities when it comes to carpet and upholstery textiles:

They will be serving food and drinks with bright red colors, and having their homes overcrowded with guests consuming those items.

While red stains are common throughout the year, there are two that you are more likely to encounter from now until January 2nd:

Cranberry Sauce and Red Wine.

The reason that both of these might create confusion is the uncertainty as to whether the stain is from “natural red colors” or from artificial dyes. The distinction is important to you, as the types of products you use, the order in which you use them, and the time you should predict in their use may vary widely depending on what is in the item spilled.

You should, of course, attempt to learn exactly what was spilled. If the customer still has the bottle or can, you can look right on the label and often determine if there is an artificial dye involved.

In today’s world, the assumption should be that there is a dye unless you know for sure otherwise. Unless your customer made their cranberry sauce from cranberries themselves (a more involved process), the sauce likely has an artificial dye. Even wine, which throughout history has only had natural colors, lately has become another source of artificial dye staining to carpet.

Once you have this information, first clean the carpet. With the amount of “polys” out there (polyester, polypropylene, and triexta…which is essentially polyester) as well as nylon with some of the latest advanced stain resistant treatments, many of these red stains will simply clean out of the carpet, with no further need of specialty stain removal techniques.

If any stain remains, you will then need to decide if the stain has a natural red color or an artificial one. Natural red colors come out most readily with the application of an oxidizing agent, such as Stain Zone or Stain Magic. Artificial red colors should be treated with specialty red dye removal products than contain reducing agents, such as Red Zone, Red Relief, or Red One.

Use each product by following each manufacturer’s direction carefully.

Worrying about red stains should be the last thing that should concern your valued customers. Be sure to approach the treatment of these stains with confidence and concern for their needs, and make such stains a minor inconvenience during these happy times for them.

Allow me to take this occasion to thank all of you for your support and feedback to us over the years.

Triexta, Part 3

It is only appropriate (for now) to conclude this discussion on “triexta” (better known as “SMARTSTRAND tm”) with some thoughts on how it will and is affecting you as a professional carpet cleaner. We can do this by first looking back to a another new fiber development in the 1980’s – stain resistant nylon carpet………

While many of you reading this message weren’t even in our industry in the 1980’s, stain resistant nylon carpet has had a profound effect on the way our customers and prospects perceive carpet cleaning, as well as the way we actually clean carpet today. The advent of stain resistant carpet has encouraged consumers to choose lighter colored carpets because they mistakenly expected them to stay clean longer because of their stain resistant treatment.

This increased use of lighter colors has placed carpets into a more regular cleaning cycle, which in turn has created more work for our industry, and with more regular cleaning cycles, more customer contact as well as long term loyalty with deserving cleaning firms.

Carpet cleaning chemistry has changed as well, in some ways for the better, in some not so much for the better.

To simplify my point, and for the sake of brevity: stain resistant nylon carpet caused our industry to pay more attention to the pH of presprays and detergents, and created some of the initial interest around using lower pH rinses, or for some, clear water rinses.

Now we have this new “triexta” fiber, along with its very similarity to its “older brother” “polyester”, beginning to
dominate the market. …….keep reading

Regardless of the debates about resiliency and the need for after market carpet protection, it is clear that both “triexta” and “polyester” are more oil loving than nylon, and will require products and procedures that more readily can break the oil bonds that inevitably will occur if this carpet is neglected and/or subjected to abuse.

There appears also to be some concerns about difficulty in removing detergent residues from this fiber as well, but this information has not yet been documented well enough to discuss in detail. As I have more feedback from the field, I will share it with you.

Please feel free to contact me here, or by email, if you have feedback regarding your experience with this fiber, or would like more information on how to care for “triexta” and “polyester” carpet.

Call: 1-800-342-2297
Local: 412-751-3700
e-mail – jimpem2@comcast.net

Triexta Update

I received a call today from a well informed and customer service oriented carpet cleaner I know, and the story he related spoke to both technical and marketing issues we must all be aware of.

This gentleman sends a newsletter to all of his customers, including the carpet retailers who refer him. In it, he made a point of warning his customers that the new Triexta fiber that is being so heavily promoted today may not live up to the expectations the retailers are creating.

It seems that at least one of the retailers he sent this newsletter to became very upset at his sharing this information, and confronted him about it when he met with her. While his initial reaction was irritation at her support for what he (and likely you) consider to be an inferior fiber, his “business head” thought about it a bit longer.

In our discussion, we both had to agree that Triexta does solve two problems that nylon (the cleaner’s favorite fiber) does not:

1. The Triexta fiber is inherently resistant to red dyes. Unlike Stain Resistant Nylon, which loses its stain resistance over time from abrasive soil and most cleaning processes, Triexta does not.
2. Triexta fibers also resist color loss from urine stains. Since most homes in the US today have more than one cat and/or dog, this issue is powerful, and should not be overlooked.

There remains little doubt that Triexta will continue to have the “oil loving” characteristics of its better known cousin, Polyester, but that’s why professional cleaning is needed, isnt’ it?

The cleaner is going to visit his referring stores and discuss his more balanced view of Triexta, which he should. He mentioned how annoyed he gets when retailers make comments about carpet cleaning that don’t really address the “whole story”, and he recognized that perhaps he did the same.

The lesson for you (and for me)? There are several:

1. Triexta is here to stay. Go to most carpet stores, and its “everywhere”. Its surely better than Olefin, and likely better than Polyester. The fact that we don’t like it as much as Nylon is more our issue than it is our customers, after all.
2. We might not like “oil loving fibers”, but our customers aren’t as worried about Oily soils as they are bleach and dye stains.
3. Let’s keep our dialog with those stores that gladly refer us, and make sure that while we need to serve our customer’s needs, we also need to make sure we understand the whole story.Having an open minded attitude that listens to the views and needs of all parties will keep your business not just the one your customers wish to use, but that retailers will gladly recommend!

For more information on Triexta, see my article at
http://tinyurl.com/cleantip6

Is it Wicking or is it Sticking?

What do you do when you get called about a spot that has been discovered by your customer after you have cleaned their carpet?

Before you show up with an arsenal of products, you need (and your customer needs) an answer to these three questions:

1. Did the stain remain after cleaning?
2. Did the spot come back when it dried?
3. Did the spot show up over time?

The reason that these questions are so important is that they speak to three different types of problems.

1. “Did the stain remain after cleaning?” If you’ve done everything you could to clean the carpet and a stain remains, you might need to use reducing or oxidizing agents with some of your advanced skills to remove this stain. And, in some cases, there are stains that cannot be removed regardless of your skills and available stain removal chemistry arsenal.
2. “Did the spot come back when it dried?”
   If spots disappear during cleaning, but reappear after the carpet dries, the problem is probably wicking. This needs to be treated with an absorbent powder or sprayed with an anti wicking agent
3. “Did the spot show up over time?”
   This is more likely a sticky residue than a wicking problem. When adhesive residues (such as from tape) or clear sugary drinks spills, the soil that was attracted to the sticky residue comes up easily, leading the cleaner to believe the spot is gone. If it comes back, you need to follow more extensive spotting procedures to remove the sticky residue that in the case of a spill is likely deep within the carpet yarns, and will require extensive flushing to remove.

Each of these three different circumstances requires cleaning, spotting, and stain removal skills to correct. But those products and skills are not of much use, and can sometimes even work against you, if you don’t know the difference between the three.

RESIDUES: Good or Bad?

The word “residue”, when used in the cleaning industry, is almost always seen in a negative light. Residues can result in resoiling, wicking, yellowing, odors, harsh textures, skin irritations, and many more headaches for both the cleaner and the consumer.

Looked at objectively, residues are really only “bad” when they create a problem. Bad residues come primarily from the following:

• Inferior cleaning detergents that promote resoiling
• Over use of properly formulated detergents
• Odor control treatments that are not designed to be left in the carpet fibers after cleaning
• Odor control treatments that are incompatible with cleaning agents or stain resistant finishes
• Other post treatment products such as silicone carpet protectors, laundry fabric softeners, etc.

All of the above mentioned materials can create considerable aggravation for the cleaner and the consumer.

HOWEVER: There Are Good Residues As Well!

The most obvious example of a good residue would be the fluorochemical protective treatments, such as Scotchgard™ and Teflon™. The residue that these products leave on carpet and upholstery help to repel oil, water, as well as dry soils. This residue actually lengthens the useful life and appearance of the consumers’ furnishings.

Another example of a good residue would be the revolutionary encapsulation products that have recently exploded onto the marketplace. Encapsulant products have superior cleaning qualities that keep on working after application to
enhance better soil removal during subsequent vacuuming, and this type of residue also works to prevent wicking.

Interestingly, encapsulants are also able to remove finer particles of soils that otherwise remain and leave dull traffic areas after conventional hot water extraction. Encapsulants are not only used in shampoo type operations, but are now present in some hot water extraction detergents, acid rinses, and even as stand alone post treatments to prevent wicking.

In the past, in many cases, abused commercial carpet was rinsed thoroughly to minimize residues that might contribute to wicking or resoiling. [A time consuming and laborious task] Today, commercial carpet cleaning experts are finding that using the help of an encapsulating “residue” will better control wicking and resoiling than low residue rinsing [with unbelievable time savings].

Finally, there are cleaning detergents that leave residual antimicrobial treatments on the carpet to keep the carpet fresh smelling by inhibiting the growth of bacteria and fungi. These residues are also very desirable for the long term health benefits that they provide.

Switch your paradigm, and realize that in some cases, the BEST thing that you can do for your customer, is to leave a (appropriate) residue on their carpet!

Acid Rinses

Over the past two decades many cleaners have shifted from the use of alkaline carpet cleaning detergents to the use of acidic rinse agents.  Cleaners began to become concerned about potential cleaning residues, and while some attempted to solve the problem by rinsing with clear water alone, others chose to use existing chemistry to attempt to neutralize pH as well as rinse cleaning agent residues from carpet.

The products they first tried were already available, and had been on the market for several years already:  Acidic Rinse Agents.

These products were primarily used for rinsing upholstery after preconditioning, and their primary purpose was (and still is) to be used for stabilizing dyes, preventing cellulose browning, and softening velvet and chenille fabrics.

These products still work for carpet, but have mostly been replaced by products that act as cleaning agents as well as neutralizing agents.  These products are acidic in pH, and do help to neutralize preconditioning agents, but have the added benefit of providing cleaning as well as neutralization.   With these acidic cleaning (rather than rinsing) agents, you need not precondition the entire carpet, but instead only the parts that have heavy accumulations of petroleum, proteins, or fats.

Carpet Cleaning Detergents