HELP - tricks to get commercial entry mat clean - see pic

[B&BGaryC]

I will post the picture in a follow up post to this one. It makes it easier when doing this on a blackberry. The problem:

I have an installed rubber and carpet mat in a building I clean regularly. The carpet always looks great but the mat keeps getting dingey. I can't form any sort of suction seal really, and was wondering how to get these clean. Does anybody have any easy ideas? They don't want me to take it up. (Its removeable carpet tiles). Lemmenowhachuthinkin. I'm at the biulding right now. Will have to clean that in another four hours.

 

[B&BGaryC]

 

[Fred Homan]

You need a pile lifter....

 

[B&BGaryC]

I don't have one. Any other suggestions? I have a 175, brushes, cotton and olefin pads, and then standard equipment really.

 

[Hoody]

encap and pad

 

[Fred Homan]

If it is filthy....A brush head on your 175 to stir the fiber. Also, encap as a final step.

 

[B&BGaryC]

After hot water extraction or just pad encap it with no hwe?

 

[Fred Homan]

If it is filthy....A brush head on your 175 to stir the fiber. Then HWE. Then encap as a final step.

 

[Jimmy L]

ENcRAp in my opinion is not the cure all to everything.

Just vacuum the sheet out of it and HWE then call it done.

We're just talking about a mat aren't we?

It's just a mat.

 

[harryhides]

I know that you can't take it out BUT if it a fairly small area and it's on a hard surface floor you might try this. We have cleaned hundereds of shopping mall mats 30'x8' and carpet tiles by pressure washing them at up to 1,500 psi and they came out like brand new and way faster than any regular cleaning with a wand - talk about flow and agitation ! Of course these were done at my shop on a sloped surface outside and the water simply drained away into the grass.

So if you have one person with a pressure gun and another with a vacuum, this could work just fine. If you have an RX20 you can speed things up to break down the compacted soil much faster.

 

[adamh]

I was going to say the same thing. Take it out to your truck, pressure wash it and suck up what you can. Hang it, then go and clean the job. Put it back when done.

 

[XTREME1]

buy a new mat

 

[B&BGaryC]

It's a carpet tile system. The "mat" is aprox. 20X8 and installed... Not installed permanently, but not an easy task to take it out. As you can see from the picture, it is installed right in the middle of a large entry wall to wall carpet tile style carpet. The rubber is recessed and the carpet sits up a bit. The squares of carpet in these tiles are aprox 1 1/2 inches by 5 inches or so. Nothing you can really get a good seal on, nothing you can really spend the night prying up with a flathead screwdriver and cleaning tile by tile and then re-installing.

I figured I should just agitate the crap out of it before I clean it with the brush, but was unsure because of the uneven surface. I'll grab some more pictures for you guys next time I'm there. I won't take the picture with my phone either. Then you'll be able to tell what I'm talking about. Thank you all so much for the help. We are going to pick another day to deep clean that mat. We just did the best we could with what we had. We were having trouble keeping the van at a good temp. It was either too cold and frosting up or too hot and overheating and choking out with too much exhaust getting in the van. I couldn't find the right balance all night. This was a 12 hour job and it took 14 because of all the screwing with the truck... we simply didn't have the time when all was said and done.

 

[B&BGaryC]

BTW, it was about 10 degrees downtown tonight with some nasty wind.

 

[sweendogg]

I know this is going to be an off the wall option.. but if you have a turbo hybrid with the teflon wring, you could give that a try at higher pressures. Just a thought.. worth a try.

 

[duraclean_austin]

Tried a pressure washer??


Carpet Cleaning Austin


Air Duct Cleaning Austin

 

[BLewis]

Hey David,
The turbo ideal not to far fetched at all. I've used it before on these types of situations and others. Especially if it's 10 degrees outside this seems like the best solution to me.

 

[B&BGaryC]

You mean the turbo tile machine? How do you get it to form a seal on something so bumpy? Whatever I do, it has to be done in the middle of the carpeted floor.

 

[sweendogg]

Well think about it,, you donn't have to form a seal so to speak. Think about ceramic tile, all the different grout line make it hard to have a perfect seal. The spinner works by creating a shield over the area be pressure washed and as the outer ring moves over the area it picks up the moisture and dirt. I suggested the turbo hybrid because you can put a teflon ring on instead of the brush. I imagine the teflon ring would move over the carpet better that the prush ring.

 

[Carpet Cleaning Fool]

Use an upholstery tool then apply a good solvent based fabric sealant?

 

[Ron Werner]

use your stair tool, or a smaller pmf hand tool
its slower work than the wand and you're bent over, but you'll get your seal and flush

 

[Chris A]

um who cares, it's a mat?

 

[B&BGaryC]

Because its INSTALLED in the entry as the first thing people see in a prominant building that I ADVERTISE that I clean.

 

[The Preacher]

is it you or the customer who is worried about the appearence???

if they're not complaining, it's probably not an issue to them???