Simple Chemical Question
Printed From: Carpet Cleaning Forum
Category: Carpet Cleaners Discussion
Forum Name: Portable Carpet Steam Cleaning Machines
Forum Description: Discuss anything relating to portable carpet cleaning machines
URL: https://www.kleenkuip.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5392
Printed Date: 16/May/2024 at 12:45am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.06 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Simple Chemical Question
Posted By: luvsnow
Subject: Simple Chemical Question
Date Posted: 16/October/2008 at 9:16pm
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So I've been practicing with the Rotovac and regular wands the past two days here at my house. Obviously when I run the Rotovac I burn through water quickly and have to refill the solution tank. My question is every time I fill up the solution tank with new water, do I have to add chemicals to the new water I'm putting in the tank? Or does the water that's left in the tank still have enough chemicals to add the chemicals to the new water? I do prespray the carpet so I'm not really sure if I have to keep adding chemicals to the new water. I have been adding chemicals to the refilling water because our capret is BEYOND trashed. It's 22 years old, and dare I say it, hasn't been cleaned in nearly 10 years... |
Replies:
Posted By: duckcountry
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 4:49am
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The chemical you should be putting into the fresh water is carpet rinse. Prespray the cleaning chemical, rake it in, let set for 15 minutes, begin extracting with Rotovac. You need to restore the ph of the carpet fibers or the carpet will re-soil quicker. To attack the dirt the chemicals alter ph, a rinse chemical restores it. The Rotovac can do wonders for restoring ignored and mistreated carpet to a clean state but unfortunately nothing you do will make the fibers new. That dark path may not be dirt at all but it may be badly scratched fibers that can no longer reflect light correctly, making them appear dirty. Rotovacs are also water hogs and that means higher chemical expenses. Sold as a labor saver it takes longer to clean with one and so unless it is a really bad area of the house I would keep it in the van truthfully. Use where needed, a wand does fine on most carpet under most conditions. Avoid Rotovacs on white carpet as you may put too much water into the carpet and end up with a serious wicking problem (which I found VLM methods can erase rather nicely). I prefer a VLM method but everybody has their own opinion as to which is best. ------------- Are you in a high paying business or are you just a self employed low paid grunt who thinks this business provides dignity? |
Posted By: Ed Valentine
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 8:45am
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I highly suggest: KWIK-MIX Formulations. That's your answer...and fast!
The very best;
Ed Valentine
www.cross-american.com
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Posted By: Ken_Is_OK
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 9:12am
| you never had your own carpet cleaned so that means you dont really value carpet cleaning. why did you get into the business in the first place? |
Posted By: luvsnow
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 9:23am
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Ed, thanks for the suggestion. I will definitely look into KWIK-Mix formulations. Do you happen to have a link to any of these chemicals? Duckcountry, your advice was really helpful. I did buy rinse, but then got confused as to where to use it. From now on I guess I just prespray the carpet with the actual chemical (and don't put it in the solution tank), rake it in and let it set, put rinse in the solution tank, and then extract the carpet. So I guess everytime I have to refill the tank with new water I should add more rinse, correct? We have a gray carpet at my house and like I said, it's trashed. So it was the perfect candidate for the Rotovac. Even though I didn't do the whole chemical thing right with rinse, the Rotovac did restore the carpet a lot. Like you said, it sucks so much water that it eats up your chemicals. That's why I was thinking about only using it on trashed carpets and then using the regular wand on carpets that aren't as bad. |
Posted By: Ed Valentine
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 12:54pm
| http://cross-american.com/index.php?cPath=12 - http://cross-american.com/index.php?cPath=12 |
Posted By: John L
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 3:36pm
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lovsnow your prespray is the most important.. It has a higher pH and loosens up the grime and slime.. 7 pH is neutral .. Any pH above 7 is Alkaline (presprays/emulsifiers) and anything below are acid rinses.. Some use emulsifiers in the solution tank which are on the alkaline pH side and can leave somewhat of a sticky feeling.. Some do some dont.. it drys to a flake and can be vaced out.. |
Posted By: luvsnow
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 3:46pm
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Thanks for the link, Ed. I will check them out because I'm still looking to try out a bunch of different chemicals to see what I like best. After reading what John L posted things are starting to make some sense. I just finished up doing all the carpets over again and you can notice a big difference. This time I didn't even bother to use the Rotovac since I got our trashed carpet the best your probably going to get it. The carpet doesn't look brand new (for 22 years old and not being cleaned in 10 years, I wouldn't expect it to anyway) but it looks MUCH better than it did. |
Posted By: luvsnow
Date Posted: 17/October/2008 at 9:31pm
I came back to read something and realized I missed this post. I don't know if you saw my thread in the Introduce yourself forum, but I'm 19. So the choice was never really mine as to when the carpets got cleaned. When I was younger the carpets were cleaned regularly by Stanley Steemer, but my mom swore they didn't use chemicals so she went with someone who did Bonnet Cleaning instead. She liked how the carpet came out and called the guy in twice a year. Then the guy who did it, had a stroke and sold off his business. She called the guy who bought the business and didn't like how he cleaned and for whatever reason, just stopped cleaning the carpet professionally. Don't ask me, if it was my carpet that I paid for, I'd get it cleaned regularly. No sense in spending all that money on a carpet and not take care of it! |
Ken_Is_OK wrote:Posted By: John L
Date Posted: 18/October/2008 at 12:10am
I was 19 a gazillion yrs ago......... 
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Posted By: duckcountry
Date Posted: 18/October/2008 at 4:25am
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Always happy to help when I can, luvsnow. Another suggestion is to consider charging more if the carpet needs the extra scrubbing power of the rotovac. Because of the points we agree on of time and chemical expenses involved in the use of the powerwand and the end results produced - the customer should be willing to pay for what he or she gets. You are the pro. That means you prescribe the correct treatment and if the patient will not follow the doctors orders the good doctor informs the patient he will not be able to continue treating the patient. When writing an estimate, you must be willing to walk away and not look back. You will find out if they value your judgment or if they are looking for the neighborhood boy who can follow instructions and do their dirty work. ------------- Are you in a high paying business or are you just a self employed low paid grunt who thinks this business provides dignity? |
Posted By: RedStar204
Date Posted: 02/January/2009 at 5:54pm
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Just wanted to say: Good Luck luvsnow! Listen to suggestions of these fine gentleman and you'll be fine. It helped me a lot to sort through bunch of stuff.
http://www.redstarclean.com -
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Posted By: luvsnow
Date Posted: 06/January/2009 at 11:02pm
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Thanks, RedStar. It's been a tough start for me since I'm a new business and am not yet really known in the area. With the economy the way it is and snow on the ground now it certainly isn't helping matters. I bet once spring comes things will start looking up. I seem to have an advantage over my competitors since I'm using a portable. My competitors keep trying to get commercial clients but can't because they only have a truck mount. The commercial places I spoke with had to turn my competitors away because their insurance polices prohibited the doors/windows being open after hours to get the hoses inside from the truck mount. There really isn't anybody except for Chem Dry and one other person who does VLM in my area. Everyone else just does hot water extraction with truck mounts. I anticipated being slow since I was a new company and since winter was near. That's why I made sure I had enough money to pay for all the equipment in full and cover the expenses for insurance etc in case I didn't get customers right away. I'm glad I did, and I'm glad I still have my other business to fall back on. But my other business is only seasonal (during late fall/early winter) so that's why I was looking to get into carpet cleaning. Being slow has been useful though. When I'm not filling orders for my other business I spend a lot of time reading up on various carpet cleaning forums and practicing at my house on various remnant carpets I bought. Just last night I was bored and wanted to fire up the machine so I practiced getting stains out of the one carpet. I learn a lot from people on here and the various boards. The guy I bought my Rotovac from lives 20 miles away and told me I could contact him if I ever had any questions so that's always helpful as well. Edit: Can't forget all the investing advice I learn from here too. Although I can't say I always agree with it  |
Posted By: odd8all
Date Posted: 11/March/2009 at 11:16pm
| So buying a portable unit has its advantages. Im researching this business and have no idea what to do. |
Posted By: rick007
Date Posted: 12/March/2009 at 12:15am
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nothing wrong with a porty. don't have the cost of TM start up or maintenence and a way cheaper to begin. go TM after you get established. better yet maybe look at OP cleaning. seems to be the in thing these days. ------------- happy cleaning |
Posted By: tokmik
Date Posted: 15/March/2009 at 5:10am
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lovsnow your prespray is the most important. It has a higher pH and loosens up the grime and slime. 7 pH is neutral. Any pH above 7 is Alkaline (presprays/emulsifiers)and anything below are acid rinses.
- Carpet Cleaning Service |
Posted By: leuj20
Date Posted: 06/May/2009 at 4:53am
| one of my competitors uses pre-spray and rinses with just water, he says saves money on chemicals, is this ok to do? |
Posted By: Mr. Slide
Date Posted: 06/May/2009 at 5:07am
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Yep, lots of cleaners do! ------------- http://qcsliders.com - http://qcsliders.com !!!Check this out!!! Put a Slide Not a Glide on your Wand, and do a better job! |
Posted By: leuj20
Date Posted: 06/May/2009 at 6:10pm
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mr slide;
so, when to use carpet rinse and when to use water? does using just water affect the cleaning process?
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Posted By: doug
Date Posted: 06/May/2009 at 6:20pm
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there is no such thing as a simple chemical question? ------------- Just My opinion |
Posted By: Mr. Slide
Date Posted: 07/May/2009 at 8:58pm
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Got this off another board:
An extraction rinse product has two or three situations where they have an advantage.
1. Heavily soiled traffic area. This may need several passes with the wand to scrub the soil out. With an rinse only product, after the first pass of the wand you have rinsed away the prespray. Now you are trying to clean this heavily soiled area with no cleaning agnet. But if you are using an extraction formula, you still have some cleaning juice coming throuhg the wand. 2. There is funriture that you need to clean under but you did not prespray under it. You did not want to move it twice. But most of the dirt under the funriture is not heavy soil because no one walks there. The extraction rinse cleaner is enough to clean this area with just fine. As to cleaning out soapy water with more soap, the key to understanding this is surfactancy or the ability to make water wetter. Plain water has surface tension because the water molecules have an attraction for each other. They form relatively large drops. Add even a little detergent and the water no longer sticks together. It will form very small drops that can penetrate to rinse soils and prespray from between individual filaments of fibers and into tiny abrasions and irregularities on the surface of the fiber. Regualr water won't reach those areas. Extraction products generally get diluted around 400:1. It takes very little to be effective at rinsing. You will actually leave less detergent behind than if you used tap water. |
Posted By: leuj20
Date Posted: 10/May/2009 at 12:57am
| thanks, Mr slide!! |