The Great Oz
Member
How important is the sale of carpet and fabric protector, as well as stone, concrete, and grout sealer, to your business?
Share your views about products, procedures, experiences with effectiveness, and what they mean to your bottom line.
No stone work, but I'd think some kind of sealer would be sold on all but porcelain tile with epoxy grout.
Protectant on 25% or more of the wall-to-wall carpet cleaning jobs, although we usually sell it on the high traffic and high spill areas, not everywhere. 60% or more on area rugs. Pretty important to the bottom line.
From my days as a commercial cleaner, I've seen the incredible difference in how easily the nastiest carpet cleans up if I applied protectant after the previous cleaning, so I would apply it even if the customer wasn't going to pay for it. I attribute the longevity of my own carpet to the protectant I've applied at home.
We used Scotchgard until the PFOS hoohaw, then switched to Teflon, and now back to Scotchgard to avoid DuPont's troubles with the Teamsters. (That whole crap science thing the Teamsters paid for to try and blackmail DuPont into letting them into their plants.) Today Teflon has the negative perception and Scotchgard does not, and today's Scotchgard appears to be close to the effectiveness of Teflon.
We still use a solvent carried Teflon (Zepel) fluorochemical product (mixed locally) on water-sensitive and outdoor fabric.
One thing we will not use on a textile is a silicone based product. As well as they waterproof, oil or alchohol defeats them, and then you have to use solvent to strip them off before you can clean what's gone through them. They can create a sticky mess if used on stain-resist carpet.
A local designer tested the efficacy of a locally made silicone on a dining chair. They had half of the seat treated with the silicone, and once dry they poured red wine on it. The person that applied the silicone could not get the wine out of the fabric. We easily got the wine out of the unprotected side, but could not remove the silicone well enough to get the wine stain out of the treated side.