Cleaned my own sofa today. Older polyester fabric. Used Esteam upholstery prespray and Esteam acidic fiber rince. The smell from these two products damn near killed me. The prespray has ammonia in it PH 10.5 and the rince is 2.5. The whole house stunk for hours. Can't see going into a custy's house and using this stuff. It did do a good cleaning job however. Anyone know of good HWE chems that don't smell? My extractor still reeks even after washing it out a couple of times. Thanks Sully

Grant, How do you use encap chems? Do you prespray with them and rince with water? Or do you put them in the tank and clean?

Sully ! Get away from that esteem junk lol, throw it in one direction and don't stop running the other way! Lol
Did you happen to notice the ph on the jug? Be careful with that stuff

I've used some of the Vacaway HWE products and they worked great. Odor was good too.


Over the years I've cleaned a fair amount of upholstery with an ammoniated prespray. Steamway had one in their line. We went through cases of that stuff. Cleaned great but it does have an odor. The idea of ammonia is that it self neutralizes after a while. In other words it goes from higher PH to neutral.

I haven't used it, but I suspect Environ HP would work great most of the time.  What is the ph of that anyhow?

Tried the Axiom product on a chair and it sure smells good but it did nothing for removal of the oily stains on the front of the chair. I guess maybe I'll have to try my lung killing  amonia smelling stuff again because it did get the dirt  out. I sure hate the idea of having to wear a mask when cleaning someone's furniture. Maybe they will just throw me out?

I use Kleenrite self-neutralizing (9.5-6ph)...works fabulous on synthetics

That's a very good product. I've used it before. if you're using an extractor to clean,  Chemspec Powdered Upholstery Cleaner is also an excellent choice. Ph 6.5 I believe.

I use my crystal dry with 100% cotton towels, my cyclo and that's pretty much all I need.  If need be, but rare.... my mini extractor with plain rinse water. I never use an acid rinse in my extractors as acids stop the soil removal process. With Crystal Dry, I never have to worry about rinsing, yellowing, browning...Nuthin'! 

Hopefully he's been busy?

Cold weather usually means more water damage work.

Carpet Vet...is that Crystal Dry from Whittaker you're using??