Use A Neutralizing Rinse In Your Carpet Program
When extraction cleaning a carpet, it is commonplace to use plain water as a rinse. But, there are some benefits to using a neutralizing rinse rather than just plain water.
Some interim carpet maintenance procedures can leave detergent residue on your carpet. Bonnet cleaning in particular can coat carpet fibers in detergent residue. When the carpet dries, so does the detergent residue. This results in hardened carpet fibers that attract dirt much faster.
In order to avoid and remedy this, add a neutralizing rinse to your extraction process, or include it along with your interim cleaning procedure. The detergent residues left on the carpet are typically mildly alkaline residues, so the mild acid character of a neutralizing rinse will neutralize and eliminate these dirt-attracting residues.
Another benefit of a neutralizing rinse is to neutralize any minerals in the water used to rinse the carpet.
If you use water to rinse your carpet, chances are it isn’t deionized water. Even if it is soft water, it contains minerals or salts. When the carpet is rinsed after extraction, the carpet is generally left wet, coating the carpet fibers with water filled with these minerals. As the water dries, the minerals remain, drying and hardening the carpet fibers.
By using a neutralizing rinse, these minerals are neutralized and not allowed to dry onto the carpet fibers. This leaves the carpet softer and prevents damage to the carpet fibers.
Multi-Clean’s Back-to-7 is a mild acid neutralizing rinse that can be easily added to your extraction tank to neutralize detergent residues and minerals contained in the rinse water. Simply add Back-to-7 at 1 oz/gal straight to the rinse tank.
No matter your carpet maintenance program, adding a neutralizing rinse to your extraction process can have numerous benefits: softer, more aesthetic carpet that won’t attract dirt. It is a simple remedy that can greatly improve the appearance of any carpet.
For more information on Back-to-7 and all of Multi-Clean’s carpet care products, visit our Carpet Care webpage.
