I have encountered carpets that haven't been cleaned in years or have a very heavy traffic load.
These carpets are light colored carpets. I OP and the carpet fibers come clean but there is still a dark color at the base of the fibers.
I pre vacuum with my Dyson 07, use dwell time of 5-10 minutes using RUG Restore or Procyon, pre-scrubbing with the striped green pad, and then I OP with my challenger
Is this the carpet backing and how do I get this clean?
The nature of OP cleaning is that it cleans from the top down toward the base, and avoids wetting the base of the carpet. Injecting water-based cleaners ala HWE cleaning, so the story goes, "flushes up all the dirt in a way that OP is unable to". Well, maybe, but maybe not. A lot of the injected water, or water/detergent mix, becomes absorbed by the base of the carpet instead of being flushed out (extracted) and will gradually evaporate, sometimes resulting in the wicking of ground-in soil up to the surface. Except in situations where you can send an area rug out to an immersion plant for total cleaning, every method where you have to work on carpet that is lying in place, tacked or glued to a floor, is something of a compromise. Some customers think that their 20-+ year old carpet should last forever. They think if they have it cleaned maybe every 10 years or so, it should come out looking brand new. Tain't so. Remember, when carpet is used in commercial situations, the IRS lets you write it totally off in seven years. 7 years is considered by the government to be the lifespan of carpeting. In summary, it is unrealistic for either the customer or the carpet cleaning professional to think that that old, worn out, heavily soiled, and under-maintained carpet can be made to look brand new forever. When I walk into a home or business with the kind of carpet you describe, I ask the customer what their expectations are. If they are unrealistic, then I politely pass on the job, and suggest that they try another company.
Jerry,
What Mark said is true, however I know for a fact you can get better results.(been there done that)
1st off procyon and rug restore need more like 15-20 minute dwell time to work it's best. Or better yet use encap green, it flat out cleans better than eith of those. Next thing to do is pick up the cheapest crb machine you can find. And use it to pre scrub these bad carpets (you can scrub all day long and not hurt the carpet) do 1 of these things or all of these things and your results will improve dramatically.
Yes a host machine is a crb, you can find used ones on ebay for around $500. You can also get a sebo duo brand new for around $500, it's a light weight compared to a host machine, but it works real well.
