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Bonnet cleaning

Unfortunately I didn't know about the orbital machines and had gone with a rotary. I chose this because I was amazed of heavens best. They seem to be a successful franchise. I see them in my town all the time. Anyway, I have tried encap green, surround ultra, carbonated solutions, an oxygenated solution from I can't remember the name of company. I use bonnets from power-flite. And don't get very impressed. I can rarely get stains and spots out. What am I doing wrong? I get ok results but not satisfied. I can't just go out and buy a challenger package. I know this is mainly an op forum but suggestions would be appreciated. I see videos from citrusolution and they get great results and they use a rotary. I also had purchased a brush that is used to shampoo carpets for better agitation but feel that the bristles would destroy residential carpet. Or make the entire carpet tip bloomed. I'm at a loss. I quit trying on making the business work a couple years ago. I just recently tried that ultra surround on my own carpet. Still wasn't impressed. Do any of you know where I can learn more on Bonnet style cleaning as you only deal with op? I just got flyer in the mail for a carpet cleaning tech class but when I first started I had gone to something similar that Craig Casper taught. Great guy but everyone there was hwe people and made me feel very unwelcomed. So not sure what I would gain from this class if I went. If seems you can only get training around bonnet cleaning if you buy a heavens best or citrusolution business. I cant even get good results on stairs using the multi speed hand held. Sorry for the long post! Thanks for any advice!!

Re: Bonnet cleaning

Try pre agitating with a fiber plus pad. What are you using for bonnets? Tuway thin ones Loopies etc. I use Microfiber pads on my rotary.

Re: Bonnet cleaning

I was using bonnets from power flite. I did purchase a thin bonnet to test but I felt I ended up with same results. That's why I had been trying diifferent cleaners. I did have luck removing urine stains with code green from cleancraft.com. I could never get red stains out and I tried pro choice vacaway and some other products. Same thing with pen/marker stains. I never tried the glad pads. I never tried the dirt napper system either. My bonnets are thick loopy ones 50% polyester 50% rayon.

Re: Bonnet cleaning

Red stains ae the bane of CC'ing. Red vanish works ok for the most part. I have had good results with an Iron or a wall paper steamer. becarful of bleaching when using heat.

Re: Bonnet cleaning

FiberPlus pads from Excellent-supply.com might be helpful for the tougher spots. The higher the percentage of terrycloth cotton in your pads, the more soil you are going to be able to remove. Also, the all-cotton pads are more aggressive than the ones which are all or mostly synthetic fibers. I don't know where you are located, but I have a lightly used Challenger that I can sell you for $800.
I am in the Boston area. I'm not equipped to pack & ship it to you.

Re: Bonnet cleaning

If you have all you have access to right now is a rotary, you may want to target commercial carpet using fiber plus pads, you should go to the excellent supply forum and look at some posts about other guys using rotary on there.

Re: Bonnet cleaning

Joe,

I find your results curious, since I get great results with bonnet cleaning.

Tip 1: You probably can't use bonnet cleaning in the same way as extraction cleaning, one pass with no manual work, etc. I find that I have to pretreat and -hand scrub- most trouble spots in a room before I run the bonnet machine. It adds five to ten minutes per room if the rooms are spotty.

Tip 2: The cotton pads are essential. Dirt just doesn't stick to the synthetic pads in my experience.
The synthetic pads loosen, but do not remove. I have to follow the fully synthetic pads or scrubber pads with cotton, or at least a cotton blend.

Tip 3: I make a green cocktail mixing Encap Green with a dash of vacaway's Spot-and-Boost Green. I always use 6-8oz per gallon.

Tip 4: Sometimes you have to dwell in the really dirty area with the bonnet machine for a little bit.

Using this method, the only time I have trouble is with urine, red wine, and brightly colored food spills, or gum/tar like substances. But then doesn't eveybody have trouble with those? I have been doing this full time for three years and 85% of my customers are thrilled, 12% are just OK with it and 3% didn't like the job. Stairs (always the dirtiest carpets) get a "wow" reaction 99% of the time.

I DO in fact get some tip bloom on the dirtiest carpets that I treat aggressively. I also get a fair amount of loose fuzz on freize carpets in places that have not had traffic. On the whole, those carpets are much better off being cleaned with my agressive method. These carpets are badly worn anyways. The alternative for many of the carpets that I clean would be REPLACEMENT. So instead the customer gets a partially tip-bloomed carpet that's good for another year or two. They don't know what tip bloom is. Maybe the IICRC would give me a failing grade, but the customers don't.

Many cleaners (and male workers in general) have an almost religious belief against doing anything by hand, without some power tool involved. "I must do it with a machine!" I get appalled reactions from male customers too, "Why would you do anything without a power tool?!" For me, the manual work makes the whole service work, doing what the machines can't do.