The Cleaning Products You Use, Part 1

[Jim Pemberton]

I've been thinking about this for a while, and if I put this all together in one post, it will be a novel, not a post, and will likely pique the ire of one of my friends from Alabama.

So, to start with, I'd like some feedback from our friends who have been cleaning carpet for over 30 years. There is a specific reason I am saying "over 30", based on something that happened in 1986.

With that understood, what were you fellow dinosaurs using to clean carpet and its pH in 1985 and before?

Please don't get into what you did different in the following years....I'll get to that later.

OK, sorry this is ALREADY and epic.

I'll go first:

Prochem Dry Slurry pH 11 (back then) through the machine, boosted with Prochem Wide Range Industrial Cleaner pH 12. Prespray was Prochem Traffic Lane Cleaner pH 11, if I thought it was needed.

 

[Jack Zipper Zerkie]

To old for a good memory but remember something about not using any chems with optical brighteners do to the new fibers . The start of no ph over 10 and no more brighteners. jz.

 

[Nate The Great]

@Loren Egland @Lee Stockwell I'm trying to think of more geezers to tag....... Bawb doesn't count, he dun no wat PH is..........

 

[Mikey P]

I barely make the 30 year cut off here but with Miller's, after we were supplied with our 40 acres and portable mule, we were sold something that @SamIam may remember but at $12.50 for two rooms and my gas and vehicle, the pre spray and rinse of choice was whatever hair shampoo and conditioner Mrs Coupon Clipper left on her bathtub.

With Coit we had no Hydroforces or scubbers so we made up for it by taking advantage of our unlimited free supply of 1.5 pound sacks of Prochem Clean Green (pH of 11.5).
Air Wand pre spray and meter at 10 on the Dweyer.



My three day crash course training session made it clear that one 1.5 pound sack was inferior to two 1.5 pound sacks in that five gallon jug..

Lots of defoamer used and I suppose a few are even possibly dry by now. Someone more knowledgeable than me would fix my brown outs.

 

[BIG WOOD]

I barely make the 30 year cut off here but with Miller's, after we were supplied with our 40 acres and portable mule, we were sold something that @SamIam may remember but at $12.50 for two rooms on my gas and vehicle, the pre spray and rinse of choice was what ever hair shampoo and conditioner Mrs Coupon Clipper left on her bathtub.

With Coit we had no Hydroforces or scubbers so we made up for it by taking advantage of our unlimited free supply of 1.5 pound sacks of Prochem Clean Green (pH of 11.5).
Air Wand pre spray and meter at 10 on the Dweyer.



My three day crash course training session made it clear that one 1.5 pound sack was inferior to two 1.5 pound sacks in that five gallon jug..

Lots of defoamer used and I suppose a few are even possibly dry by now. Someone more knowledgeable than me would fix my brown outs.

So it was you and Coit who damaged the face of our industry. THANKS!

 

[Desk Jockey]

Prochem Dry Slurry pH 11 (back then) through the machine, boosted with Prochem Wide Range Industrial Cleaner pH 12. Prespray was Prochem Traffic Lane Cleaner pH 11, if I thought it was needed.

Prochem's Dry Slurry, S-711 Ultrapack boosted when needed with Prochem's Solvent Additive B 138()? It kicked butt but will probably contribute to an early exit for me, along with all Streets Picin I inhaled back then.

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Great stuff guys.

I need to add that deodorization was done with Prochem Springfresh Duo, which was a quat.

 

[Bob Pruitt]

Ultrapac in the pre-measured bags and later dry slurry. Chemspec 77 and 90? I think there was a mint fresh prochem pre-spray and fiber loc fabric protector solvent based. I also cleaned draperies in homes with a little stainless steel machine that heated the solvent chemical... so, not sure why I'm still alive. Everything that was in the spotting kits of the day.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Great stuff guys.

I need to add that deodorization was done with Prochem Springfresh Duo, which was a quat.

I liked the regular DUO better.

Velvets were spray brushed with Neutrasoft.

No piglet not Elvis! Fooker!

 

[Shane T]

I started in 1980. I used a DSC powdered product put in the fresh water tank of my Deep Steam portable. Seems to me I also used a liquid DSC prespray but I don't remember the names or ph of either product. Some where along the way I changed to Chemspec Formula 77 and 90.

 

[Mark Saiger]

I can't wait to talk with my dad yet tonight....

This is great...our family was just talking about this today....

Great Post @Jim Pemberton

 

[hogjowl]

So, you're having trouble remembering what he said?

Already?

 

[Desk Jockey]

LOL

See this...this is why nobody likes you...but me.

 

[Mark Saiger]

1967 my family started in carpet cleaning....

We were having chems made in Minneapolis MN at Jack's (which I can't find any info on)
They worked to build us two types of cleaning agents for all in one cleaning...no prespray..

We had one for residential my dad is thinking was around 10 ph (Lemon Scent)
one for commercial with finer granules....we think around 12 ph....no scent...
We were using and actually making the stainless steel portables and called them Steamtronics which were also formerly owned by one of the brothers who owned Deep Steam units

Can't find a pic of this actually put together...the tanks sit on top...

We had weighted drag heads...we would actually do a forward stroke with the water feed open...kind of prespray...then cleaning pass backwards...did that at least twice (or more) and then half over pass...and dry passes...

Our families first TM was a Big Red unit....around 1978?

We moved up to ChemLawn slide in units....

then my dad started making those slide ins into Direct drive with custom drive shafts and also making mounting brackets for the front of each unit he helped mount units for what would have been his competitors for free.

We think our first year of using a Prespray was something Ralph Bloss got my family...Dad thinks it had peroxide...they did a restaurant ...and it blew them away...

Prior to that we were doing one step cleaning through the truckmount chem injection with Chemspec formula 77 & 90

Did some Ultra Pack also in the past....

Had an association with Harvard Chemical Research about 15 years ago....

Boy...how things have changed!

This is the old first SteamTronics unit in my Dad's former shop...when I went to visit him in the hospital on his 79th Birthday for heart failure...the moment I got off the plane from the Atlanta Experience Convention....

2 hp electric motor
2 inch Sutorbilt suction pump
Only had 26 pounds of pressure for cleaning...LOL

 

[Desk Jockey]

Ed York used to push Jack's chems. We had 3 Deep Steams, one large one and a couple of small tank unit. Made to last forever but heavy and low pressure. My father sold two of them to buy the much larger Vapor Vac's.
Everything was drag wand back then. lol

 

[hogjowl]

So, your Dad had a heart attack when you stepped off the plane?

 

[Mark Saiger]

So, your Dad had a heart attack when you stepped off the plane?

Pretty much....

 

[dgardner]

will likely pique the ire of one of my friends from Alabama.

Never use big words when a diminutive saying will suffice - it irritates Marty....

 

[hogjowl]

You do know I can look diminutive up, don't you?

 

[Jim Pemberton]

Marty is more than bright.

He rightly believes and practices the saying:

"Brevity is the soul of wit"

 

[Desk Jockey]

Bright and wit huh. I always figured the man for "dim" and "wit".

 

[hogjowl]

I love you guys.

And Chavez.

 

[Desk Jockey]

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Johnsons Rugbee, many 5 gallon buckets. Lots of bulk stuff from Tru Value hardware distribution. Some from Jack's as well in the 70's. Kleenrite after 1981, Bane after '84.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

DuraWax in McHenry IL.
Essential Chem. In Merton Wi.

 

[ruff]

I feel so excluded.

Bright and wit huh. I always figured the man for "dim" and "wit".

Lets put it this way: He's a dim bulb, but he shines brightly

 

[Old Coastie]

I used Seaman Apprentices and junior Petty Officers. Whatever chemicals GSA supplied through the government catalog and if it didn't work, repeated the same mistake the next day.

Oh yeah; coffee. Lots of coffee.

 

[Mikey P]

Prochem Springfresh Duo

between that and too much Pre Kleen and a HF held too high, I still have a morning shower cough..

 

[SamIam]

When I was 12 1975 ish I would mix 250 gallons of pre
Mix for our employees at the time.

I would take 4 cases of big brute from maintex and fill a 55 gal tank, then fill 55 gal bottles and label them.

We had a powdered emulsifier in a bag I would put so much of that in the 55 gal tank and fill 55 more gal of rtu.

There's were 5 different ones total.
Deoderizer, protector. Can't think of the 5th.

Took me all
Day on Saturday to stock the chems I got a good paycheck for doing it.

In 1981 when
I started working full time out of high school we used a product from
Brothers janitorial called Chempower.

13 ph we would use bisulfite as a rinse.

Chempower loved jute backings.

A few years later we became a prochem and chemspec distributor.

Me sold a ton of 90 buy prochem had a powder I think it was called California gold?

They made that as 90 knock off.

I remember when Aaron Grosclose came around with heavy duty soil lifter and Haitian powder those were some amazing products at the time.

Prekleen, ultra PAC all solid products.

Prochem right after stain master carpets came out brought a $10.00 quart of stain blocker to the market it covered a 1000 sq ft.

DuPont had a fit and chemspec came out with master series test kits and master series protectors that cost a a lot more.

The joke was stain master carpets cost $10 more per yard and all they did was spray a clear dye on the carpet to fill the empty doe sites.

 

[rick imby]

In 1980 I was buying bicycles --10 speeds--from a Wholesaler in Spokane---200 miles from me. I was buying basic 10 speed road bikes for $100 to $120 and selling them for $50 over cost. My most expensive bike was $240. I probably sold a half a dozen of them. I sold just over 100 bikes my first full year in business....

Profits were pretty skinny... but so was I.

How anyone could remember the PH of a chemical? You guys have great memories...