CRI Seal of Approval, Five Years Later

[truckmount girl]

And who, besides Ron makes 4 vac passes on the same strip of carpet??

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Ron Werner]

most times I don't even make 4 passes, maybe one or two sl, oops, take that back, Yep, I do make 4 passes some times 8)
I do have a friend that would do that many.

But come on, a Rug Dr? Forget the vacuum passes, what I find interesting is the "4 wet extraction passes at a rate of 1 ft/sec on each pass".
They dont even mention dry passes. So now they MAY have removed soil, but what about overwetting?

Dont forget that the SOA requires a "certified tech" on the other end of the machine as well. When does that ever happen with a RD

 

[green research]

Debbie, do the Nasa testers ever pull 10 ear old carpet out of homes to test?

What I like to call the Lasagna effect that occurs in well used homes (family of five, friends of the 3 kids, 3 pets, a rug doctoring once or twice a year, a few Stanley Steemerings and twelve gallons of home use spotter all layered and wisked in with a POS canister or Oreck vacuum just can not be duplicated in any laboratory.

They can't use real carpet in the testing, so no they don't pull out 10-year-old carpet or some such. They can't use real carpet for numerous reasons, including --

Carpet treatments. The application of carpet treatments is notoriously inconsistent, not just at the professional cleaner level, but also at the mill. It's a quality control problem. So since the amounts of fluorine will differ from carpet to carpet, it would mess up the measurements and not be consistent. That's why they use untreated carpet samples in the lab.

Dyes. Some colorants that are used in carpet would throw off or otherwise interfere with XRF readings.

Real soil. Real carpet would have real soil in it, much of which the XRF set-up just plain can't see. And the parts it can see would be measured incorrectly and inconsistently. Hence (in part) the compounds they chose.

Trafficking. Real world carpet would be walked on, which everybody knows changes the cleanability of things. Unless carpets are all walked on the same amount with the same pressure, you can't use them fairly to compare and rank extraction results. I don't know why the SOA doesn't include a simulated trafficking step in the sample preparation; seems to me they should and it's not hard.

Too many variables. If they brought in real carpet to test things on and then ranked everybody, people would throw a fit. And they should--there's no way that those carpets would be the same, so you can't compare. Some would be easier to clean than others. There would be different amounts of soil, different traffic patterns, different carpet styles, different kinds and ages of "lasagna", etc.

It seems that we can go to the moon, but we can't tell with an actual real number how clean or dirty a carpet is. The best measure still seems to be customer satisfaction.

 

[Desk Jockey]

In all seriousness, they would have got more value out of one of Keith William's "Soil Gauges".

Soil Gauge PDF
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4298282.pdf

 

[green research]

I thought some of you might be interested in this observation:

None of the designer soils in the testing are soluble in water.

However, some of them may be dissolved in other ways. For instance:

One of the designer soils used in the testing is strontium carbonate. It can't be dissolved in water. And it can't be dissolved in higher pHs.

However, it can be dissolved in water containing carbon dioxide (carbonic acid).

...

 

[Desk Jockey]

That has to affect the results if it won't break down and be removed like dirt would. :roll:

 

[Jim Pemberton]

However, it can be dissolved in water containing carbon dioxide (carbonic acid).

Debbie, in what ways could carbonic acid be created in a water based solution, if any?

 

[green research]

However, it can be dissolved in water containing carbon dioxide (carbonic acid).

Debbie, in what ways could carbonic acid be created in a water based solution, if any?

There are lots of ways. But perhaps someone at the Home Depot would be able to explain it better than I could?

 

[truckmount girl]

So Chem-Dry bubble water disolves it?

Take care,
Lisa

 

[Erik]

ALL RIGHT THATS IT!!

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

Can this conspiracy get any better? Seriously... a bias toward carbonic dilution - that is off the charts hilarious.

Fake soil... but fake soil that is designed to be removed by one particular company's method better.

Perhaps we need to recommend that only fake cleaning companies can best clean fake soil.

CRI may have to come to be known as Carpet & Rug Idiots. (You can quote me on that.)

Lisa

 

[green research]

So Chem-Dry bubble water disolves it?

Take care,
Lisa

Looks so on paper anyway.

 

[green research]

Can this conspiracy get any better? Seriously... a bias toward carbonic dilution - that is off the charts hilarious.

Fake soil... but fake soil that is designed to be removed by one particular company's method better.

I think the bias is there, but I can't think that it was designed that way on purpose. They consider all the compounds to be insoluble. They probably just didn't consider that some things don't use just regular water.

Speaking of not using regular water, another thing that seems to have slipped by people is:

In the extractor testing, since no chemistry is used like in the systems testing, all they test for is soil removal, water removal and texture retention. They skip the colorfastness, resoiling, pH, and optical brightener tests. Fair enough.

But while all other extractors use plain water, one uses something that was water but turns into something with a pH upwards of 12.

But since it didn't have to do pH testing, it passed.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

That's why I made my specific question about carbonic acid. Its news to me Debbie, thank you. This goes in my "folder for future reference".

I also don't think it started out being seen in this way, but the pH issue should have been addressed. Doesn't Zero Rez do something similar?

 

[J Scott W]

Most natural found water contains some amount of carbonic acid. This happens as water flows in streams or rivers. It mixes with carbon dioxide in the air and forms carbonic acid.

Distilled, filter or otherwise treated water may or may not contain carbonic acid.

If you wonder if the water you use contains carbonic acid, take a pH reading. If it is anywhere below 7.0, it is almost surely from carbonic acid.

However, a small amount of naturally occurring corabonic acid is not the same as intentionally introducing carbon dioxide. Then the percentage of carbonic acid kicks up.

 

[Mikey P]

What are the chances that the NASA testers also believe in magical underwear?

 

[Jim Pemberton]

This has been a well informed, science based conversation that is putting CRI discussions to shame.

Why then do you feel the need to poop on the carpet Mikey?

Henceforth in this discussion, you are will be referred to as "Rover" (or Chompers if you prefer).

Don't you have someone to abuse over on Cleanfax?


I'm sorry, Ms Lema. Let me pick up this "steamy pile" and put Rover outside for a bit. We'll get that stain out right away!

 

[-JB-]

bad boy Mikey bad boy, OUTSIDE!

 

[green research]

That's why I made my specific question about carbonic acid. Its news to me Debbie, thank you. This goes in my "folder for future reference".

I also don't think it started out being seen in this way, but the pH issue should have been addressed. Doesn't Zero Rez do something similar?

Yes I was referring to Zerorez. Considering that all the other extractors in the extractor testing used PTL's water only, and the Zerorez machine changes water into cleaning chemicals with a marketed cleaning pH of 12, I don't consider that a fair apples-to-apples comparison.

 

[green research]

What are the chances that the NASA testers also believe in magical underwear?

This is outside the realm of my research.

But Jim we must not be so quick to put Rover aside:

http://gadgets.softpedia.com/news/NASA-Astronaut-Tests-Magic-Non-Smelly-Superpants-2028-01.html

Apparently the chances are pretty good, Mike! How do you know?!

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Great save Debbie. You now understand Paula Pailliotet's full time job.

Mikey, yet another good hearted woman has gone the extra mile to clean up after you. Your boyish charm remains unchallenged amongst the fairer sex, does it not?

 

[-JB-]

classic

 

[Mikey P]

If you thought nothing could shock you anymore, you might want to think again. What would you say about a pair of underpants that you can wear for seven days in a row and they don't smell, and you can even set them on fire, or at least try to, as they are resistant to fire, bullet proof up to a 45.cal AND they wick away perspiration and also provide insulation.

:shock:



Those damn Nasa Scientists, they must never have to deal with Jock Itch.

 

[Leslie Judson Jones]

Can this conspiracy get any better? Seriously... a bias toward carbonic dilution - that is off the charts hilarious.

Fake soil... but fake soil that is designed to be removed by one particular company's method better.

Perhaps we need to recommend that only fake cleaning companies can best clean fake soil.

CRI may have to come to be known as Carpet & Rug Idiots. (You can quote me on that.)

Lisa

This song is from us good guys !



m]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usulbsg2e5gm]

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

If you thought nothing could shock you anymore, you might want to think again. What would you say about a pair of underpants that you can wear for seven days in a row and they don't smell, and you can even set them on fire, or at least try to, as they are resistant to fire, bullet proof up to a 45.cal AND they wick away perspiration and also provide insulation.

:shock:



Those damn Nasa Scientists, they must never have to deal with Jock Itch.

Ranks up there with the Japanese inventor who came up with the one pair of underwear with seven pair of leg holes so he could wear them for a week.

Just think of all the money saved in R&D if NASA just went commando....

Lisa

 

[Desk Jockey]

CRI may have to come to be known as Carpet & Rug Idiots. (You can quote me on that.)

Lisa

LOL I have more respect for you with every post! :wink:

 

[Lee Stockwell]

I would like to see how the CRI is using technology to make better carpet??

 

[LisaWagnerCRS]

CRI may have to come to be known as Carpet & Rug Idiots. (You can quote me on that.)

Lisa

LOL I have more respect for you with every post! :wink:

Careful Doc... I may sully your reputation on this board if you keep it up!



Lisa

 

[rhyde]

Hummm,

this amounts to industry masturbation in the end the only thing that counts is consumer perception ...and they don't care

 

[green research]

It seems I’m going to have to make two cheat sheets—one summing up the paper, and one summing up what’s not in the paper. For starters, here are points from the paper... it's as short as I could make it and I'm hoping it translates okay:

1. XRF likes a flat, even surface to look at. Carpet is not a flat, even surface.

2. XRF likes to be right up on something it’s looking at, since air absorbs the energy needed for seeing things. The XRF in PTL’s set-up is up over the carpet and is not right up on it. Plus there are the airy spaces between the yarns.

3. XRF needs to be properly calibrated for what it’s looking for. Proper calibration like when you feel comfortable eyeballing square footage, but you send the new guy out with a tape measure--his eyes have not been calibrated yet.

4. XRF likes samples to be still. The carpet in this testing is moving on a conveyor.

5. The designer soil they use is based on vacuumed dirt. Since extractors are called in to clean the stuff that wasn’t vacuumed, using designer soil based on vacuumed dirt to test extractors seems not entirely relevant.

6. Even if the designer dirt based on vacuumable soil was found to be relevant, it isn’t trafficked like a real world carpet would be. Something that didn’t do particularly well in the real world might do great in the testing. Or the other way around! Nobody knows.

7. When particles get wet they may clump together and stay that way after they dry. XRF would see these clumps as less dirt than if they were scattered. This may mess things up. Nobody knows.

8. Sometimes the energy coming off the designer soils mess with each other and the XRF gets wonky signals. When this happens the counts are off. One can correct this problem with math, but they chose not to. If it had been corrected, the results would be a hair more correct.

9. XRF gets wonky signals from moisture. So they are supposed to wait until cleaned samples are completely dry before using XRF on them. But they don’t check; they just wait overnight, which their own data shows is sometimes not sufficient. Some samples may still be damp when scanned, which might mess things up and make something look better or worse (probably better) than something else. Nobody knows.

10. The XRF gun itself increases in temperature fairly rapidly while it’s on. It has been shown elsewhere that this temperature increase can make readings unrepeatable. If readings are unrepeatable, who knows which reading is right? Has this effect been looked at? Don't know.

11. The time between measurements also may have an effect—it has been shown elsewhere with the same gun that readings of the same spot taken at different times are very different from each other. This shouldn’t be. The reading taken at 9 should match a reading taken at 9:30. How can you know which reading is right, if any? Has this been studied? Don't know.

12. The angle between the XRF gun and the carpet yarns can’t be changed; otherwise the readings get messed up. But cleaning moves the yarns, so this would mess things up. So they rake the yarns after cleaning as if this puts them all back exactly where they were. They are still messed up.

13. Even if they COULD put all the yarns back where they started before cleaning, some of the leftover soils themselves would have been moved during the cleaning process, messing things up differently.

14. Where the soil is on the fibers matters to the results. Soil that is closer to the gun gets counted more than soil farther away. For instance, when you look up at an airplane in the sky, you don’t think that it’s really an inch long, even if it looks that way. But XRF thinks it’s actually an inch long. This is a problem, maybe the largest problem in the testing. If you can wash things down the fibers so the soil is farther away from the gun, and do no extraction at all, you can still look like you extracted a lot.

15. Because there needs to be enough soil to “hear” over the background noise, if an extractor or system does really well, there is a high likelihood that the readings are somewhat messed up. If you have your music cranked up, you can’t figure out what I’m saying if I whisper. Same with the XRF set-up… it can’t tell what the carpet is “saying” when it’s too quiet (too clean). So the exact results are a guess.

16. Nobody knows if the results from PTL would be the same as results from another lab. If another lab could repeat the same results, then that would show the testing at least is precise outside of PTL. (This would not mean, however, that the results would be right either way.) When they say that their results are precise, it sounds like they mean that their results are good, but what precision really means is:

The results are close together, but not very close to the goal. Compare that with accuracy:

The results are not as close to each other, but they are all closer to the goal. Ideally the results from a test would be close to the bull's eye every time, having both accuracy and precision.

17. The test has not been validated. Nobody knows if it really works. Their results need to be compared to results of other testing methods that have already been established and accepted as scientifically sound and relevant. This does not include spectrophotometry or weighing samples as they’ve tried. That’s like saying she’s a witch because she weighs as much as a duck.

18. After studying and fixing everything that may need to be fixed, including biases, the testing would need to be shown relevant. Meaning, does the top-ranking extractor or system in the testing works best in the field on real, walk-on carpets? Does the testing answer the question of what to use to clean carpets with?

I do not think that this testing is fixable, based on a lot of experts’ experience and documented facts, but maybe they’re all wrong and therefore I am too. That’s why I ask for a thorough and true scientific validation and relevance check.