Urine, Pet urine, Urine decontamination, Urine treatment, Pet odour removal, Urine stain removal, Urine odour removal If you think of urine as your enemy you might consider a change in your thinking.
The removal of urine and its odours create a multi-million dollar industry every year. With the proper understanding of your little yellow friend, you the professional carpet and fabric-care specialist can share in the millions spent to correct the bad effects of urine while helping your customers in a very necessary way. Before urine can be treated, the urine must be found. An odour cannot be removed unless the source of the odour is removed. Your main tools for detecting urine are as follows.
- Nose: Whether the nose is yours or your customer's it is usually the first tool that is used to indicate that there is an odour problem. Getting on your hands and knees and sticking your nose in the carpet is a fairly effective way of locating the area of urine. This method does however, have some definite drawbacks.
- Moisture Detection: As mentioned previously, the urine salts attract and hold moisture. A better-quality moisture detector is a very effective way of finding urine deposits from the surface of the carpet. The disadvantage of this method is the possibility you may miss an affected area. If you do not test in a particular area you cannot know if urine is there.
- UV Lights: This method is very successful and can also be used without pulling up the carpet. The urine deposits will glow much as a white shirt will when placed under a UV light. This method is quick in that a large area can be covered with the light in a short time. The real disadvantage of some UV lights is they must be used in the dark. For most jobs this means an inspection at night.
- Backing Stains: A positive method for detecting urine is to pull the carpet back and inspect the back for stains. The stains will be most apparent on jute backings, but can be detected on the synthetic backs as well. The disadvantage of this method is the time and effort to pull up the carpet. If, however, you are doing a complete job you will be treating and cleaning the back anyway. If the customer is not overly bothered by the odour and may just want surface treatment then this is not the best method for detection.
There is no miracle chemical that will remove urine odour from the pad and flooring by a surface cleaning and application. However, with the proper product and technique, you can drastically improve the situation, often to the customer's complete satisfaction. If you and your customer have decided to treat the problem from the surface, then you can always improve the situation but almost never guarantee complete odour removal.
Urine Decontamination Surface Treatment Procedure:
- Flood the affected area with a heavy application of ACID SPOTTER diluted with four parts water. A good guild is to put down twice as much solution as urine was deposited. Ensure that at least some wetting of the backing is taking place. This is where the heaviest concentrations of urine are. Let the solution dwell for at least 15 minutes Extract using a wand or for maximum results a water claw subsurface extraction tool.
- Continue to thoroughly rinse and extract.
- Spray heavily with a solution of ENZYMATIC DIGESTOR diluted warm water. Enough solution should be applied to effect a 24-hour drying period. It is important to realize that the odour removal process continues until the carpet is completely dry or until all organic food sources have been digested. Once a carpet feels dry to the touch, it will actually take another 24 to 48 hours for the interior carpet structure to dry. Do not judge the effectiveness of the treatment until all of this time has passed.
- The bio-enzymes continue to work even when the carpet feels dry. Your customer will need to understand the necessity of the extended drying time.
- This treatment is very effective. Immediate knockdown of odours is accomplished as the Odour counteractants in ENZYMATIC DIGESTOR go to work to neutralize the chemical and vaporous odours, plus the highly concentrated bacteria spores work to produce enzymes and consume the organic sources in the urine. The combination is truly effective.
Urine Decontamination Injection Method
Another successful way of treating some urine contamination is subsurface treatment through needle injection or the injectimate system. This method is only successful when used in small areas of contamination. You must first know the exact areas of contamination and then treat one-foot square areas by injecting the ENZYMATIC DIGESTOR solution described above. The injection may be accomplished with a syringe and 19- gauge needle.
Urine Decontamination Complete Sub-surface Treatment
For complete odour removal of heavily affected carpet, a more extensive treatment is required. Often a dog or cat will "go" in the same general area over a period of two to three years or longer. Considering the amount of urine accumulated you can usually figure that the carpet pad and flooring is affected.Procedure:
- After the problem area is identified by pulling back the carpet, the pad should be removed and thrown away. The floor should be inspected and if contaminated, should be sanded and sealed with a urethane or varnish-type sealer. If the floor is concrete, repeated wet applications of the ACID SPOTTER solution, followed by sealing will accomplish the objective. The smooth edge, base board, and walls should be inspected. Any areas of contamination must be discarded or treated. UNSMOKE UNSOOT #2 is an effective antimicrobial sealer.
- The carpet should then be treated by heavily spraying both the front and back with a dilution of ACID SPOTTER. This solution should be allowed to dwell for at least 15 minutes.
- Next, extract from both front and back using a solution of ALKALINE RINSE
- Now spray the carpets with a solution of ENZYMATIC DIGESTOR as explained previously. Drying time will range from 24 to 48 hours. Finished results will usually be available in about 72 hours.
- As a last step, and after drying, if some odour remains (this is usually residual urine chemical odour or trapped gases), spray a diluted solution of MICROBAN DISINFECTANT onto the carpet. This will take care of any lingering odours.
ENZYMATIC DIGESTORS are an enzyme/bacteria formula which is damaged by high temperatures if exposed for any length of time. However, short (30 seconds or less) exposure to temperatures as high as 100 degrees will help to break the bacteria spores and put it to work that much faster. This can be accomplished by using the Hydro-Force. For proper dilutions of these products refer to the use directions on the bottle.
