Recently got an opportunity to clean some hotel rooms, and did one as a sample. The carpet is faded in some rooms, and so the plan is to restore colour in faded areas. The problem in each room is that the cleaning staff have hit ever spot and spill with copious amounts of supermarket grade detergent sprays (without extraction), and a standard HWE is not capable of dealing with the levels of residual detergent. We have found that the only successful method of getting the detergent out is multiple buckets of water and water claw extraction. This is however is very time consuming and cost prohibitive. Is there a product that is capable of assisting with the removal of deep residual detergents? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Get some defoamer and put some on any oversoaped areas and it should rinse well just using a carpet wand. I perfer the powdered defoamer, but there are liquid ones too. I have had some jobs that have been bad enough that I have a large "salt shaker" like you would see in a pizza restraunt for the peppers that I fill with defoamer and go around the room and sprinkle some defoamer all over the carpet. Just curious, how are you restoring the faded carpet, are you dying it?
Todd, Thanks for the reply. I haven't used a powdered defoamer before, but have used liquid anti-foams. The problem with anti-foam I have found is that it deals with the foaming, but it does not assist with the removal of the residue. I've also come to realise that liquid anti-foams contain silicone, which in itself is almost impossible to remove from carpet, and causes re-soiling issues. I am restoring the faded carpet by dyeing it. Dye will not work in an area with detergent residue, irrespective of whether its foaming.
Use an all fiber rinse ( last step, or clear water rinse) spray heavily on the areas with residue then set your meter at 3 with acid rinse and flush it out as good as you can.. that should help neutralize a bit...
Flushing with a lot of water is the key. Sometimes this can be accomplished by multiple wand passes and larger jet sizes, but I still prefer the Flash Xtractor or Water Claw tools and lots of water. You can put a valve on the end of your solution hose to control water where and when you need it. This saves a lot of bucket hauling (if you are using a truckmount).
Well, I slightly disagree with your statement that a powdered defoamer only deals with the foam ... and does not aide in the rinse. In my experience, dealing with the foam is the single biggest factor in giving your rinse the ability to ... rinse. All the fancy acid rinses on earth are not going to help you much. The fact of the matter is ... all you may be able to do is sprinkle some powdered defoamer around and rinse. Unless you have all day to play with it ... and I think you've already established the fact that you don't.
Scott W, thank you for your suggestions. I may look at a valve. AdmiralClean, I haven't used powdered anti-foams in the past, only liquids, which are silicone based and definitely not recommended for use on carpets. What you are saying makes a lot of sense though, and I will certainly get my hands on some powdered anti-foam, and see if this assists in rinsing out the detergent residues. I very much appreciate your input. Thanks.
Just another thought on this similar to above. We use a powder defoamer and use a flour sifter to sprinkle it on the surface of the area needed to control foam. With that amount of detergent residue you should not need another type of prespray until you get the foaming under control, if even then. Also just another thought on liquid defoamers. We never used it directly on the carpet surface. We use a sponge and saturate it with the defoamer and put it on our inline filter before it goes to the recovery tank on the machine. We have found that this to helps to control vacuum loss while doing the flushing/extraction process. Hope this helps. Good luck. Leon.
