Tips: Salt residue and high pH spot removal

It is that time of year again that the home owner and building manager should become concerned about all the sand and salt tracking in on their carpets and rugs.  Salt penetrates every part of a rug and often gets under area rugs that can cause damage to your stone in the form of spalling or etching.

But as for this blog I would like to address the how to get that ice melting wonder our of your carpets.  Salt/ Ice melt will cause spotting because of the high pH attracting dirt to the area that has the salt residue.  These are some times called re occurring spots, re-soiling or traffic patterns.

1. Vacuum up any salt crystals dry vacuuming is essential if you miss it you will only make more brine solution for your technician to get out.
2. Apply a tannin spotter like Bridgepoint's TCU or This will neutralize the salts and work them back out of the fibers. This spotter will need to be worked in and allowed dwell time
3. Extract and rinse the affected area with multiple over lapping passes. If it is commercial carpet make slow strokes  (make sure you have high flow rates through your jets as this will aid in the rinsing out of this mineral deposit.  Products to use like all fiber rinse or end zone work great to assist in lowering the pH
4. Spray area with fab set or citric acid and fab set mixture
5. Test to make sure you have lowered the pH to neutral or slightly acidic with a digital pH tester or litmus paper
6. Dry quickly using fans
7. Repeat as necessary as these types of restorative processes might take several treatments especially if these areas are not maintained on a frequent enough basis  Make sure you slow down when rinsing and give proper dwell time to the chemicals