I am glad Chris posed this question, and shared his experience. This is bigger than just Mark's product, this applies to our industry's current trend toward very high pH prespray products.
When I could tolerate being a carpet inspector, I saw a lot of what cleaning jobs looked like "after the fact", and the amount of color loss and resoil issues left by people who I thought to be "good" cleaners stunned me.
What cleaners use as a prespray, what they rinse with, and their understanding of what you can get away using with nylon versus wool versus "the polys" is sometimes not well thought out.
Chris, could you give us some more detail on jobs like this one. Were they done by "in house staff", outside "professionals", and do you know for sure what was used as a prespray and "rinse/extraction agent" on most or any of them specifically?
Jim, I've been attacked in the past for the following statement:
"Chemicals do not belong in carpet. PERIOD. "
But I followed it up with this statement:
"It's OK to use them, but they must be rinsed out and neutralized afterwards."
What I found is that the vast majority of color issues that we are called in to repair (at least in commercial properties) were caused by carpet cleaners who didn't rinse the carpets after they were finished and didn't have a clue what the pH of the chemical was that they were using. They also didn't understand the effects that it would have on the carpet color, much less resoiling.
One of the things that I teach my trainees is that bleach attacks colors in a very specific order. First the blue, then the red, and finally (but not usually) the yellow. Interestingly, alkaline chemicals attack colors exactly the same way. This is why it's common to see commercial carpets with yellowish traffic lanes. The blue and red have been stripped out by alkaline chemical residues, leaving only the yellow behind. The sad reality is… there are too many cleaners out there who could care less what effect their chemicals have on the carpet, as long as it looks good when they're finished and they get paid. The carpet often rapidly re-soils and the colors are slowly damaged over time. But again, the customer doesn't know what's causing this and usually ends up calling back the same company saying, "You folks did such a
wonderful job on our carpets last time! They are in need of being cleaned again. Please come work your magic again!" Little does the customer know that the cleaner is the one to blame for the rapid re-soiling of the carpet.
Here's a simple test: Next time you are cleaning dirty traffic lanes, pour some plain water on the carpet and agitate it with a handi-groom brush. Chances are you'll encounter soapsuds. Thick heavy soap suds. All of these residues are sticky, attracting dirt back to the carpet and slowly attacking the carpet's colors. I can accurately say that 95% of the commercial carpets that we encounter are full of alkaline detergent residues. It keeps us in business. We charge $2.00 per square foot for our color restoration services on commercial carpets in Washington, DC. And from the sounds of it, this scenario isn't likely to end soon.
Again, I'm not knocking the Sauce (or any other product on the market). I'm just stating the importance of rinsing and neutralizing the carpet afterwards to ensure that it is soap/residue free. And I completely agree with the statement above that the best thing to use is an acid rinse. Acetic acid is the best as citric acid can leave sticky residues behind.
Here's a photo that illustrates what I'm talking about. This was a $68,000 custom-made wool and silk carpet (made in Nepal) at the four seasons Hotel in Georgetown, Washington DC. They were having it cleaned by a company that was supposedly the top rated company in DC. They brought us into salvage this carpet. We charged them $6000 to rinse, neutralize, and restore the color of this carpet. We had to airbrush color in several areas, working around the white patterns. They now have us clean this suite (which rents for $9,500.00 per night) annually. We charge them $3,000 every time we clean it. They don't blink an eye and wouldn't let anyone else touch it.
Cleanfax Magazine wrote an article about this a while back.
https://www.facebook.com/Cleanfax/posts/1040851815937910:0
