ENCAPSULATION
30
the water would be even more soiled if the
carpet cleaned was from a greasy restaurant.
Your chemical molecules are held inside of
your water molecule and when introduced to
the carpet and its dirt, they basically say to the
dirt “Come hang out with us. We’re more fun”
and the dirt and chemical are held inside the
water. This is providing that the chemis- try
was effective on the soil. If not, most of the
soil stays on the carpet. But if so, then the soil
is carried via the water (the carrying agent to
the bonnet).
This is your actual cleaning process. The
separation of soil from the fiber’s surface.
Only after this occurs, HWE will use air to
carry the suspended and removed soil, water
and chemical from point A, the carpet, to
point B, the sanitary sewer system. In LM,
the bonnet is the carrying agent from the
carpet to the sanitary sewer system, as this
occurs when the bonnets are cleaned (shown
in the photo above). Wet is attracted to dry
so the wet carpet and its sequestered soils are
attracted to the drier bonnet and are held for
the washing machine. The very attractive thing
about encapsulation is that what gets missed
by the bonnet is encapsulated for future soil
removal by the vacuum process. Hot water
extrac- tion is a great and necessary tool but
bonnet cleaning has come a long way with the
use of high-productivity and even batterypowered machines. Combine that with the
use of the newest encapsulation formulas
and bonnet cleaning gives HWE a run for
its money. While HWE uses dwell time with
a pretreatment to loosen soil, followed by
moderate pressure from the spray tips, it can’t
always compete with the scrubbing action of
a rotary or OP machine. This scrubbing action
in many cases replaces the dwell time needed
for HWE and can be part of the reason for
the faster dry times as the carpet does not
need to be pretreated or wetted. That time
given allows the pretreat to saturate the fibers
thus increasing the need for a longer drying
cycle.
Bonnet cleaning is a very effective and
profitable way to clean carpet. I have found
it to be a very useful tool to include with my
other cleaning process that has migrated to
the top of the list for the tool I use the most
often. It’s fast, the start up costs are low and
the con- venience with lower cleaning cost
and faster dry times are very attractive to the
customer having their carpets cleaned. The
cleaning charges may be lower per square foot
but your production rates can be 3 or more
times faster per hour than HWE, making a
slightly lower charge rate even more profitable.
It’s a win for everyone and is something you
should consider if you can get past the myths.