Carpet stain

Chris Howell

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Chris Howell
Light green spots on carpet (assuming that it's not a drink spill, etc.) are usually caused by an acid. Toilet bowl cleaners are the most common culprit. Carpet cleaners are the second most common culprits. They use rust removers and don't take the time (or realize the need) to rinse out the rust remover and neutralize the carpet to raise the pH back to something close to neutral.

Remember that most carpets are tertiary colors (meaning that they contain red, yellow, and blue). Strong acids such as toilet bowl cleaners and rust removers tend to bleach out the red, leaving the blue and yellow behind (blue + yellow = green). Very strong acids can actually leave bright blue spots as they can remove all of the red and yellow, leaving only the blue behind.

Roughly 5% of our business is repairing carpets that carpet cleaners have caused color damages on. Interestingly, it's not only rust removers that cause color damage. Concentrated high pH (alkaline) chemicals (such as pre-sprays and traffic lane cleaners) can also cause color loss.

It's a sad reality that many carpet cleaners don't know the pH of the chemicals that they are using on the carpet and therefore don't realize what types of damages they can cause.

Here are a couple of examples of green and blue spots on carpet that were caused by rust removers that were used by carpet cleaning companies.
 

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Desk Jockey

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They print PH on all major brands. Those carpet cleaners you see in those commercial jobs are generally janitors. They don't know any better or care.

They grab anything to spot with, having little if any training with only a walk behind or tag along to flush out whatever concoction they applied.
 
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Chris Howell

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Mar 4, 2016
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Clarksville, Maryland
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Chris Howell
They print PH on all major brands. Those carpet cleaners you see in those commercial jobs are generally janitors. They don't know any better or care.

They grab anything to spot with, having little if any training with only a walk behind or tag along to flush out what lever concoction they applied.
You would be AMAZED how many carpet cleaners have no idea what the pH is of the chemicals that they are using, even if it's printed on the bottle.

Few of them will admit this.
 
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Cleanworks

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I have a twin high rise building where I clean all the hallway carpets. Every time I go back there I see more and more bleach spots. I mentioned to the concierge that his cleaning staff is using something to aggressive on the carpets and it's taking the color out. He says "no way, we only use this environmentally friendly stuff here" and he pulls out a bottle of a hydrogen peroxide based spotter. Ironically, the spots they were trying to remove were still there. Most of them greasy type spots that came out with a quick spritz of volatile solvent.
 
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Chris Howell

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Clarksville, Maryland
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Chris Howell
I have a twin high rise building where I clean all the hallway carpets. Every time I go back there I see more and more bleach spots. I mentioned to the concierge that his cleaning staff is using something to aggressive on the carpets and it's taking the color out. He says "no way, we only use this environmentally friendly stuff here" and he pulls out a bottle of a hydrogen peroxide based spotter. Ironically, the spots they were trying to remove were still there. Most of them greasy type spots that came out with a quick spritz of volatile solvent.
It sounds like you could easily earn back the cost of your training with this single job. What do you think?
 
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Cleanworks

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No, the carpets are now approx 12 years old and are due to be replaced. They were installed with a double stick method which is failing badly. 5 years ago it would have been worthwhile.
 

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