What's in your Theaters Carpet??

I clean the carpet at a local theater every 6 months, and since the last time I did it I added a sight tube on my waste tank, not to see how dirty the water is but rather to know how full the tank is.  I look at it on almost every job, and normally the dirty water in it is fairly transparent but when I looked at it after cleaning the theater I couldn't believe how thick the water looked!! The carpet is dark blue so it hides the soil well, I would have never guess it would look like this in the sight tube..........

BTW the pink thing you see is my float, so I can easily tell the water level when the waters not soooo dirty. lol

Similar results for me as well...I think it is the popcorn oil / butter that makes it such a hideous soup. My tank has to be cleaned out after every theater cleaning....that reminds me, it is almost time for the next cleaning.

I've never cleaned a theater before but usually when I clean dark color carpets the water always comes out super dark like that, I always put extra pre sprays and at least 100 psi higher on the hwe when cleaning those.

dp1 wrote:I've never cleaned a theater before but usually when I clean dark color carpets the water always comes out super dark like that, I always put extra pre sprays and at least 100 psi higher on the hwe when cleaning those.

Very astute observation...I guess people wait longer to clean dark colored carpets since they hide the soil better. By the time it shows enough to warrant cleaning, it is really loaded with soil.

Sweet. I take it you don't want to accidentally clean your blower   I don't need it with That 120 gallon TNT tank don't do much commercial though.

On my commercials, I am going through about 180 gallons per outing. Thankfully, there is a drain in the loading dock only 20 feet away.

Mo wrote:Sweet. I take it you don't want to accidentally clean your blower   I don't need it with That 120 gallon TNT tank don't do much commercial though.

Well that too, I'm not much of a fan of water going threw the blower......but that rarely happened anyways, because I have a float shut-off switch in the tank that kills the engine when the tank gets full.
I use the sight tube more as a gauge as wither to dump the tank or not.....I was surprised at how little water is in it after doing a smaller job, and it also comes in handy when I s4ee it's getting close to being full during a job, so I can dump before going up a couple flights of stairs, only to have the thing fill up and shut off and have to go back down to dump.......kinda a time saver really.

What sucks is when that sight tube loses its clarity. I can barely see through mine any more, so I just go off of the fresh tank to tell me what is in there.

I actually have enough clear tube to replace it twice (bought a 10' section originally), which it's about time. And mine is only held in place with two hose clamps, so I could do it in a min or two.

Davey Cracker wrote:

Mo wrote:Sweet. I take it you don't want to accidentally clean your blower   I don't need it with That 120 gallon TNT tank don't do much commercial though.

Well that too, I'm not much of a fan of water going threw the blower......but that rarely happened anyways, because I have a float shut-off switch in the tank that kills the engine when the tank gets full.
I use the sight tube more as a gauge as wither to dump the tank or not.....I was surprised at how little water is in it after doing a smaller job, and it also comes in handy when I s4ee it's getting close to being full during a job, so I can dump before going up a couple flights of stairs, only to have the thing fill up and shut off and have to go back down to dump.......kinda a time saver really.

Dave you should make a waste tank gauge and mount it on the panel

Cleaning the carpet once every six months? I have a 16 plex we clean every month. When I took it over several years ago the carpet was black and stank! I shot them a big price because I didn't want the job. Much to my surprise I got it anyway. We had two TM's going all night running RX-20's one guy running each and two more guys each on their hands and knees getting the gum. Management couldn't believe the difference. Had to stop about every half hour to clean out the filters. Looked amazing until it wicked up. It took six months of regular cleanings to finally get the ground in dirt. Now it's a breeze. We used to pre-spray with an inline but found it works faster using a Cimex with encapsulate. We run the RX over the heavy traffic areas and just the Cimex over the rest. The customer loves it and it's actually a great money maker.

I think it was Rob that said he hard a hard time removing the grease head stains from the seats at the theatre. Pretty nasty when you think about it

Mo wrote:I think it was Rob that said he hard a hard time removing the grease head stains from the seats at the theatre. Pretty nasty when you think about it

That thread actually made me bring a beach towel to the theater to cover the whole chair before I put my a$$ there

^^^^^