dawn dishwashing liquid

Ok, so if dawn dishwashing soap is such an aggressive degreaser, how bout using it on carpets or upholstery in diluted amounts? How bout as an engine or chassis degreaser in stronger mixtures? If it is as powerfull as any other drgreaser, is it safer? Red Hot by automagic or formula 60 by brody or 123 from autoshine are all potent but if missused can cause damage to paint or wheels or skin,eyes or lungs.

As has been stated before each chemical is formulated to work on the specific materials or will be used on.

In some cases a product like an engine degreaser is formulated with sodium hydroxide, a caustic that will literally "burn" soil off surfaces in the engine compartment. Used on carpets or leather even diluted the sodium hydroxide is still there and will harm the carpet/leather.

On the other hand an all purpose cleaner like our ORANGE PLUS is a good cleaner for leather, vinyl, plastic etc but it does not contain sodium hydroxide so it won't harm those surfaces.

Can it be used as a carpet cleaner, probably but then it does contain brighteners and softeners to leave the carpet bright and soft.

OK, then why not as an engine cleaner? Sure, but it is not strong enough to burn the soil off the engine parts and will take longer to clean, if at all.

The reality is that chemical companies offer all these different products because they are different and for specific purposes. Not to just sell chemicals.

If there is a lack of integrity or knowledge it is often on the part of the chemical sales person who tells the detailer to use something like Red Hot for everything diluted differently.

You don't find many chemical salesmen here contributing, Ron Ketchman who has offer invaluable information. But few do contribute.

That is why a detailer needs to inform themselves so they can be in control of their purchases.

Regards

so is there really such a thing as 'general popose cleaner' anymore?

In regards to degreasers, I did a detail on a BLM owned Dodge Power Wagon with a Hemi this past weekend. The engine compartment was covered in a red/brown colored dirt. It was more like a heavy dusting. I tried my typical degreasers and nothing would removed it. If you lightly brushed it, it came right off without any real scrubbing. The problem is all the very tight, yet visible, areas. Anyone come across this before???

When I was a kid we just sprayed kerosene on the engine and rinsed it off with high pressure water. I know that we cant do that anymore. We cleaned the floor in the gas station with kerosene and power washed it off.

Bob

What is a general purpose or all purpose cleaner. It is reallly an oxymoron if you think about it.

I think this was a phrase thought up by the chemical companies to give users the impression you could use the cleaner for everything.

Personally I do not think you should do this. What we call an all purpose cleaner we use primarily for leather, vinyl, plastic on the interiors and at times it is a good pre-spray for extremely dirty exteriors. Nothing in it to harm these materials, that is no caustics. And the pH is not high like a true degreaser which might be 13 on a scale of 14. Our all purpose cleaner is about 9 pH.

Regards
Bud a

Bud A,

You need to use a low foaming cleaner expecially when you are cleaning carpets and upohlstery. Your cleaner should also be heat activated especially if you are using a hot water extractor. Dawn dishwasher cleaner is too agreesive and might stip the essential dyes that are in the material. You will also spend more time trying to vacuum up all the foam you created. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Ruben Jr

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2010 06:28PM by rubenjr73.

Ruben that all depends on the carpets you are cleaning:

With home and office carpeting that is not too dirty you would:

a. Vacuum up the dry soil about 85%
b. Remove stains by hand using as little chemical as possible or a vapor steamer
c. Pre-spray with a low-foam carpet shampoo
d. Extract using either just water or water and a 60 to 64 to 1 extractor shampoo

With extremely dirty automobile carpets the process and chemicals might change:

a. Vacuum up dry soil
b. Remove stains
c. Pre-spray with a shampoo w/ a little more foaming agents
d. Scrub with a hand brush or rotary shampooer. The foam helps to lift the heavier oily soil off the fibers and encapsulates it in the foam.
e. Extract with water or extractor shampoo

What does heat activated mean? Can you please explain how that works.
What makes Dawn to aggressive to use on carpets?
What are "essential dyes?" We have a dye system for the nylon carpet that is used to dye carpets in the mill and nylon carpet requires an acid-based, heat-activated dye to bond to the porous fibers. However, once dry they "will not" come off using an alkaline cleaner, even a Dawn. The dyes can be "bleached" out but that is an acid, rather than an alkaline cleaner like Dawn.

There is some merit to what you say about foam being difficult to remove. However, you do not remove foam using a vacuum you must use an extractor rinse to remove foam.

Using a vacuum only is like jumping in the shower getting wet putting shampoo in your hair and soaping your body and then jumping out and drying off with a towel, without rinsing. As you know, you must rinse to get the shampoo out of your hair and soap off your skin. Same with carpets you have to rinse out the soily soil and stain removers and shampoo residues.

Looking forward to your answers?

Regards
Bud abraham

What heat activated is, is a carpet/fabric solution that you spray on the surface, once you aggitate it you would introduce a hot water extractor anywhere between 170 - 220 degrees, the molecules in that chemical will expand and make your cleaning more efficient.

Ruben Jr.
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Quite familiar with chemicals and shampoos but am not familiar with chemicals that have molecules that expand. Can you provide more data on this concept.

Strange thing to say. Molecules don't expand when heated, if I remember correctly. They speed up. Water is the exception to the rule, it becomes more dense when cooled, forming ice.

This is what makes that chemical more effiecient. This is why you spray the chemical on the surface and not pour it into the extractor. Extractors have inline heaters so if you pour the chemical into the machine by the time you spray, the chemical is already activated. You want it to activate on the surface and not dilute it on the way out the inline heater. Works very well. Contact your vendor chemists, they can explain the process better.

Ruben Jr.
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