A less brittle film can encapsulate more soil, especially oily soils
Scott, my friend, I have the utmost respect for you, but I have to completely disagree with that statement.
The more of a high quality brittle drying polymer a product contains the more soil it will encapsulate and thus be vacuumed away.
As for encapsulating oily soils.... Sorry, but none of the encap products will actually encapsulate oil or grease; they are all water based. Oil and water still do not mix!
A simple test, anyone can do, will prove me right... simple mix any encap product in a saucer with oil or grease and allow to dry.
Once dried, as much as possible, the oil/grease will still be there in a liquid form and not encapsulated at all! Sprinkle the saucer with black pepper and watch it readily stick to the UN-encapsulated oil/grease.
Even if you use the encap product direct out of the jug without diluting it with water you will get the SAME results.
A good encap product will certainly help cut through the oil/grease. It will aid in emulsification and help separate a portion of the soil from the oil and into the encap juice where it can be vacuumed away once it has dried brittle.
The oil/grease can not actually be encased or encapsulated by a water based product (all encap juices are water based). Many encap juice manufactures make this claim, but the above simple test will show it isn’t possible for oil or grease to be encapsulated by water based products.
Less brittle or film forming products are much cheaper to produce, usually sell for less and are more profitable for those that produce them. High quality brittle drying polymers are very expensive.
Our company uses a brittle drying polymer not used anywhere else in the carpet cleaning industry. Due to its high cost, it would never be cost effective enough for the "Big boys" with multiple middle men and private labeling to use it in their encap products.
The fact that oil/grease can't be encapsulated is the reason I believe a pad or bonnet used with an encap juice will do a
superior job and can be repeated time after time... the pad/bonnet will absorb the oil/grease where straight encap machines such as a
CRB or Cimex will not.
If a
CRB or Cimex is used, a periodic Hot Water Extraction or Absorbent pad/bonnet will eventually need to be employed. How often? That will depend on how much oil/grease gets tracked onto that particular carpet.
BTW Rhino... If you aren't happy with the results of any VacAway product, we will give you a complete refund... Please give us a call so we can make things right for you. Our money back guarantee is rock solid and we will always stand behind it.
Thanks,
Steve Smith