Saiger Sauce reviews

SamIam

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Glad to hear that it works well. If it's not rinsed from the carpet and neutralized it's going to wreak havoc, however, as is true with any high pH product.

As an example, look at the entryway of this bank carpet that we did a ColorClean on (a process that cleans and restores the carpet in one step). Color has been bleached out from use of high pH traffic lane cleaners that weren't rinsed out and neutralized. We get heaps of business from these types of products.

Not knocking the Sauce here. I'm sure it performs well. People's comments are a testimony to this. I just hope people realize the need to rinse it out and neutralize it after its use.

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I'm not calling BS. I'm just saying a photo of a carpet that's 10 years old and a photo of a carpet that's just been dyed? Doesn't prove high ph fading. Was it completely even? where's a picture when it was installed originally?

How many jobs have we done using the same products only to move furniture after a move out and not see all this color loss?

Not saying it can't happen but sun fading is more prevelant then high ph color loss.

I've seen color loss from home air machines with ozone treatments. Or chlorinated water in a swamp cooler causing color loss.
 

Chris Howell

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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. :hopeless:

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

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Bob Pruitt

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How is it the crazy expensive rugs are being made by people who average $1.25 a day wage? I get that the wool in cold places is better for rugs but how much could a sheep cost in Nepal? Even if they are getting their training and dye from Chris...that's an expensive rug.
 

Chris Howell

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How is it the crazy expensive rugs are being made by people who average $1.25 a day wage? I get that the wool in cold places is better for rugs but how much could a sheep cost in Nepal? Even if they are getting their training and dye from Chris...that's an expensive rug.
Welcome to capitalism. Many hand-made rugs that take years to make by a mother and her children in countries like India and Nepal are sold for sums upward of $15,000 yet the workers often earn less than 20 cents per hour.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghaba...as-probably-made-by-child-labor/#4dec19bc312d
 

Chris Howell

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I'm not calling BS. I'm just saying a photo of a carpet that's 10 years old and a photo of a carpet that's just been dyed? Doesn't prove high ph fading. Was it completely even? where's a picture when it was installed originally?

How many jobs have we done using the same products only to move furniture after a move out and not see all this color loss?

Not saying it can't happen but sun fading is more prevelant then high ph color loss.

I've seen color loss from home air machines with ozone treatments. Or chlorinated water in a swamp cooler causing color loss.
How often do you have pictures of carpet that you clean when it was first installed?? :hopeless:

Sun fading is absolutely not as common as color fading in traffic lanes from high pH chemical residues. It's quite common, yes, but not nearly so much as chemical color fading/loss.
 

Desk Jockey

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Commercial settings...those aren't carpet cleaners.

Dem's Jan-it-ors, part timers that could care less about carpet cleaning. Its just one more chore forced upon them. They hope their walk behind breaks just so they don't have to use it.

High ph color loss my azz! :winky:
 
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SamIam

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How often do you have pictures of carpet that you clean when it was first installed?? :hopeless:

Sun fading is absolutely not as common as color fading in traffic lanes from high pH chemical residues. It's quite common, yes, but not nearly so much as chemical color fading/loss.


My point is you clean the same carpet for over 10 years they move out and carpets that have never been cleaned because a huge hutch covered it looks the same as the carpet you've been cleaning the last 10 years.
 
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SamIam

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I wasn't saying high ph doesn't do it either but you picture doesn't prove or did prove it.

But your professional opinion on the other hand does carry weight.
 
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Chris Howell

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I wasn't saying high ph doesn't do it either but you picture doesn't prove or did prove it.

But your professional opinion on the other hand does caries weight.
Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate your comments.

"
Chemical color losses
Chemical color losses will generally have a pH that is more than 0.3 difference from the surrounding carpet. The pH and sometimes the ORP values will need to be neutralized before new dye can be reapplied.

The best neutralizers for alkali pH values is acetic acids; the best neutralizer for acidic residues is ammonium hydroxide. That is because both are volatile. However, other forms of mild acids or alkali can work too. However, you may want to avoid ammonium hydroxide when chlorine is in the carpet; it could make a poisonous gas. Chlorine can be measured using a chlorine meter which looks and operates similar to the pH and ORP meters.

Color loss is common to both nylon and wool carpet. Generally, both are dyed with acid dyes and have problems with alkalinity, especially wool.

Source: http://www.cleanfax.com/cleanfax-insider/carpets-lose-color/
 

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